There's something about the little sicknesses that seem to qualify time. I'm not talking about the big stuff – clearly there's nothing positive to be learned from a stint with cancer – I'm talking about the little ones. The colds, the sinus infections, the stomach flus. Not enough to harm you, though you feel like you're ready to die some days, but enough to polarize things you normally take for granted.
For the last two days I have felt like somebody's trying to scrape a divot through my sinus cavity into my brain with the sharp end of a hypodermic needle. It's a fascinating sensation, if you try to isolate yourself from the pain and irritation of it and really feel it for what it is. I have always been able to imagine (or imagine I imagine) the feeling of intense physical trauma – some part of me wonders whether or not I didn't have a limb cut off in a previous life, because sometimes I dream about sustaining disastrous injuries and I wake up absolutely certain my arm's gone. I remember the pain, which is bizarre because I've never experienced anything like it. It's like that with the imaginary needle in my nose – clearly, nobody has shoved a sharp piece of metal into me recently, but I believe this is exactly what it would feel like. So it's interesting to ruminate on a little bit, and it takes my mind off the fact that it hurts like hell.
The other thing mild sickness seems to do for me is make me step back a little bit and realize how good I normally have it. Major sicknesses are debilitating and they're allowed to be. Nobody's going to criticize you for missing work or failing to produce any new songs if you've got a tumor the size of a tangerine slowly eating its way out of your skull. Minor sicknesses are debilitating too, because it becomes completely impossible to focus on anything for more than a minute or two unless you really channel your energies, and then you're exhausted much more rapidly than you'd be under normal circumstances. But nobody gives you slack for a head cold or a chest cough. In fact, I'd hazard to say most people will tell you to suck it up and get back to work; I know this for a fact because I've said it to employees and coworkers and friends often enough myself. And it's tough, and it's not fun. And I'm not whining about it either, because I'm trying to make something constructive out of my tiny misery.
It's those little moments in between needle-scrapes, when your head clears and you can breathe through your nose for a minute or two and your eyes stop welling up with sick-tears because you perpetually feel like you're going to sneeze. Those moments, when you remember what it was like (because it feels like it's been weeks) to be able to function like a regular human being, without having to manually navigate your thoughts through nebulae of mucous and whatever other fluids collect and spill whenever your body's fighting a bug. Those moments make you realize that under normal circumstances, things are pretty damned good after all. Sure, you might be kind of broke and your pantry is looking a little sparse. You can't afford to hit the bar after work with your friends for a beer, and you shouldn't really justify that pack of cigarettes you're planning to buy (even though you will anyway). But all in all, you're not doing so bad, right? You've got your faculties about you; your thoughts are clean and precise and not sticky at all; you can talk to people without running watery phlegm all over your lips and chin; you're actually saving money on tissue paper; your eyes can see across the block without little blotches obscuring your view of that falcon who's been visiting the apartment building across from your work on a daily basis. Things are All Right, and you can't really complain.
Then the faucet which used to be your nose resumes its clockwork drip, your sinuses seal up like an airlock on a space shuttle and your eyes start leaking like you're watching The Notebook whilst chopping barrels of onions. You're back in your little misery, and all too quickly you forget the brief moment, the same one you should take away from any troubled time.
My intention, whenever I manage to kick this stupid nagging little virus, will be to remember those brief moments, to not take for granted my day-to-day, which is Pretty Good, Considering. I'm supposed to be all about the truth, and this is just one more truth I get to discover. Hopefully I'll learn it and be a better person for the experience.
But in the meantime, I'm going to go put a healthy dollop of vodka in my Soothing Raspberry tea, because if I'm not going to get better anytime soon, I'd rather be too drunk to care I'm sick.
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