Sick: Checked off my To-Do List

For the past week, I've been battling with a heinous cold and am finally on the mend. For days, I felt achy, exahusted, stuffed up, completely unmotivated. Not myself at all. How did this happen to me!? I tend to think of myself as quite a healthy person, almost to the point of being immune to such things as the common cold. I exercise daily, take my vitamins, eat healthy, get 8 hours a night, drink a gallon of water a day, hell, I even quit smoking. Healthy, right? Well, sometimes, despite all precautions, all measures to ensure something doesn't happen, well, sometimes it just does. But we always want to blame something, some outside force that cripples and leaves us feeling run over. So, after defensively arguing how healthy I am, I accepted the fact and thought back to the root causes. Post Vacation Syndrome.


After an awesome five days in Colorado, visiting my sister, brother-in-law, neice and nephew, I came home with a memeroy card full of pictures, and a body full of sick. Lucky for me, I didn't start feeling ill until the last day, after we had snow shoed, visited with one of my best friends and her new baby, and seen the Cirque du Soleil show Alegria, only then did I fall to the phlem. It was as my body knew I had time to devote to this disgusting cause. The mind-altering, bed banishing cold gripped me for a full 5 days. And I surrendored to it, almost reveled in the helplessness that I suddenly felt. Looking back (now that my life has regained conciousness and my normal activities and multi-tasking are back on track) I realize that for 5 full days, the world melted away and I was allowed to just be sick. I am aware of how lucky I am to have had that luxury.



So, the point to this disgusting explanation of my common cold? That, as an adult who works, has a home to take care of, bills to pay, a puppy to raise, errands to run, all that real-world stuff...as an adult, I rarely have times when I can just sit back while the world goes on around me. There's always something to do, remember, pick up, call, clean, finish, prepare, plan. It's what makes that world go around. Maybe it's just me though? I am my mother's daughter, with the next agenda item hovering on the horizon. Sitting just doesn't sit well with me. So, to have a whole week go by, without getting involved in my life seemed like a waste. Hindsight tells a different story though and at least for those 5 days, luck afforded me the ability to sit back and let the cold wash over me. Sick: Checked off my to do list!

Never put off untill tomorrow what you can do today. ~ Thomas Jefferson

I reckon being ill as one of the great pleasures of life, provided one is not too ill and is not obliged to work till one is better. ~Samuel Butler