It warps my mind and my body. I am not a good sick person. Like at all. I hate it and it makes me depressed. I do not do down well. I have had the flu or whatever the fuck I have this week and I still do not feel well and it is seriously fucking up my world.
Perhaps the thing that fucks me up the worst is that I am in constant and unremitting conflict with myself. I have two desires that compete against the other - one is to rally against the illness and refuse to submit and the other is to just give in and quit. Except I have a life that requires me not to quit. I have responsibilities, I have a job that needs me to show up, and every moment I let pass without doing what I need to do, am expected to do, I fall further behind and that makes me feel crazy, and worthless.
I am sure my healing is delayed because of this conflict. I am sure that I would likely be better if I would have just allowed myself to be sick and given in. I do believe I drag it out with all my resistance. But in reality, I really can’t do it any other way.
This started on Monday and it is now Friday and while I did feel better Wednesday and was able to put in a full day of work, I do not feel better today. If I am honest, I feel worse.
And yet, here I am in bed, my usual morning routine in full swing. I am tired and feel like shit but I am up doing the deal. And there is a part of me that is proud of that and another part of me wants to punch the “show up no matter what” version of myself in the face.
How can one individual hold so much bullshit in one being? How is it possible to feel so conflicted about being sick? I am not faking it, I just do not feel well. And because I don’t feel well, everything is hard. Doing the deal is hard, not doing the deal is hard. It is all just hard and feels like my life is ending. I know, it isn’t. I KNOW that but it feels that way nonetheless.
If you ever want to really fuck me up and create internal chaos of epic proportions, just get me sick. Not like fatally ill but just the flu or COVID or something like that. A common cold, I just push right through that. But give me a cough that keeps me up all night or nausea or something like that and my world feels like it is circling the drain. For reals.
So I sit this morning in my bed, which is the usual place I launch my life from, and feel completely and utterly defeated. I don’t feel well enough to do anything but I don’t feel so sick that that feels like a good choice. So here I remain in total internal conflict.
This is not a big deal. This is not the problem I am making it out to be. It is just me attempting to do my life, ill. I wish it were different. I wish I were different, but I am not. This is who I am.
I have two speeds, idle and full throttle. I have been able to adjust that dial in the intervening years to something sort of in the middle...but alas any middle escapes me this morning. I really can’t tell you whether I am going to put on my out of office, or grind through the day, intermittently napping, coughing and working...I really don’t fucking know.
I can tell you I hate this fucking place. This place between wellness and sick. This middle ground where I am not dying but I am not able to function at my usual level. I have so little ability to deal with this place. And right now, the battleground that is my mind is spiraling. I am consumed by the struggle of whether to let go or hang on. And while today I am just talking about whether to stay in bed and rest or say “fuck this” and go sit at my desk and grind...I feel that life has been attempting to teach me this for a long time.
And I still don’t have it right or really even close.
I sit here making up my mind, going in a variety of different directions. Procrastinating making decisions for the day because I am so afraid to make a wrong choice. I can’t talk without coughing...and that is irritating whether I am the one talking or for you having to listen to me.
This is what I have today...struggle. That is all. I don’t have a lot of solution, it just feels like I am mired in the struggle between health and wellness and slovenly illness. Again, still.
F U C K!
I think I mentioned I do NOT do this well...so perhaps I am just going to keep getting it until I do...
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