I promise I have a high pain tolerance and I'm not generally a "bad" or whiney sick person - my husband always uses the example of when we were in Morocco and a parasite ate a hole in my small intestines and I thought I just had a really bad upset stomach. Or when I was in labor with Elasia and thought it was just "Braxton Hicks" for so long that when I went in to the hospital, I was already 4-5 cm and Elasia was born 4 hours later.
But man, this cold/flu/virus/whatever-this-is has really wiped me out - and for like 6 days already!!! I thought I was more hardcore than this! I can't think straight, there are piles of tissues on every surface in our apartment, I'm generally exhausted all the time. The coughing, sneezing, headaches, stuffed nose...it's all wearing away at my "hardcore-ness". It's the tediousness of this ....I don't know WHAT it is....that's killing me!
Besides coming to terms with my mortality (ha ha - which is age appropriate now that I'm in my 30's, right?), I realized another rather beautiful thing.
1 week ago, I felt fine. I also felt rather stressed. Nothing out of the normal though, just that low-grade stress that most mothers must feel. "Am I forgetting something? What is that smell? Shoot, I didn't take something out for dinner! Why is she crying? Where did she hide my keys? Did I remember to call so-and-so-back or did I just imagine that?" And the list goes on and on. I believed that I had to hold everything together: in my life, these little dependent lives, and for our family. I'm the team member who "holds down the fort" at home. It's a lot of weight to carry around (real or exaggerated by my personality) but I didn't mind much. But it was slowly wearing me out.
Then I got sick. Just a silly common mystery cold-flu-virus thing, really - nothing MAJOR. And all of a sudden I could do NOTHING. Seriously. Like on Saturday - it was a major accomplishment to put on my winter coat (over my PJs) hobble down a hill to pick up our girls from ballet and slowly walk back home. I felt like I had just summited Everest. Now, Saturday was the worst of it and every day I've been getting progressively better. But I'm still waiting for that morning when I wake up and feel......normal.
It's not here yet.
So living on a steady diet of toast, DayQuil/NyQuil cocktails, and lots of water/apple juice, I've realized something. Life has been happening. The show is going on. Now this is NOT to underplay the FANTASTIC job my husband is doing at catching EVERYTHING that I'm unable to do in addition to all that he does already. (Babe, you were STELLAR this weekend!!), but I LOVED realizing I'm not that big of a player in regards to the welfare of all of mankind. Phew. That's a relief! :-)
I can eek out enough energy to feed the girls, get out a little, clean up a bit after us, play with them/do school with them, heck - we even went ice skating last night. (I was much slower and a lot less daring, but it was bona fide ice-skating!)
I realized that despite my daily tasks that make up the very real job that I have (and no one else can fulfill), a lot of that "stress" I was feeling was unnecessary. Yes I have to take something out of the freezer by 3 PM if we're going to eat dinner, but if I forget - really - is the world going to end? Exhale, Evita.
Maybe no one else thinks like I do, and you're reading this thinking I'm crazy - but I tend to take responsibility for everything...and if no one is doing something that needs to get done - well I have to do it!
Maybe no one else thinks like I do, and you're reading this thinking I'm crazy - but I tend to take responsibility for everything...and if no one is doing something that needs to get done - well I have to do it!
So while I don't enjoy being sick, I'm grateful for the perspective it's helping me have. Because for someone like me - knowing that "it all doesn't depend on me" is EXACTLY what I need to hear to motivate me to take personal ownership and challenge me to revolutionize this world.
...one poopy diaper at a time...;-)
...one poopy diaper at a time...;-)
