Sickness is Boring
The worst part of being sick is that it is really, but really, I do mean really, boring. You feel too sick to do anything you like; reading, watching tv, cooking, swimming, walking, enjoying the sun are out of your league, but then when you have nothing to do it is not like you enjoy resting either. After getting all the sleep you ever thought you could possibly get, there’s nothing but watching the flies on the wall, contemplating the spiderweb around your window curtains and just feeling plain sorry for yourself. Which is pretty dull, if you ask me. I can now appreciate how people who are sick a lot do not seem to be very interesting….we aren’t! But there isn’t a damn thing we can do about it, at least not while we are feeling sick. Only when the sickness gives us some respite, can we start feeling our normal selves again, whatever that is. I think the boredom is the part I like least of being sick. I can deal with physical pain all right (though nausea sucks!), but it’s the overall malaise that prevents you from even appreciating small pleasures that is truly debilitating. I have nightmares and panic attacks now that somehow I haven’t seen the end of this, that somewhere down the road I will have to go through this again and I honestly don’t know that I can do it. I admire and fear people I know and those whom I don’t know who have gone through it, through this kind of dull micro(or macro)agony and keep going. I admire them for their strength and courage. I fear the possibility of having to become one of them. But today I feel fine and that’s all that matters.
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Okay, first of all, you CAN do this and do it again, if that’s what it comes to. Secondly, I’m not convinced you were all that interesting even when you were completely healthy. {:-P Next, this is your big chance to explore inner worlds! In a word, MEDITATE! Reflect on all those existential issues for which you could never seem to find the time. What did your face look like before you were conceived? Or, if self-reflexivity isn’t your bag, ponder the great philosophical questions of the day. Does ontology REALLY recapitulate phylogeny? Your time for contemplation can be viewed as enviable. But, perhaps most of all, don’t forget to revel in the undenaible fact that YOU ARE HERE, for your husband, for your son, for your family and friends. Is that not, in the end, “good enough”??
I’m just so glad that you had a day of feeling fine.
Hug.