Getting sick
I'm sick again. It's a pretty frequent thing. For years, it's normal for me to get sick with a cold probably every other month in a year. This pattern has persisted for a few years, so I've become accustomed to the inevitable cold symptoms that rise every few weeks. I've gone to the doctor about this before, but they have been inconclusive about it.
After all, it is just a cold, it does not debilitate me. It has become part of a very long routine each season that for a few days - no matter if it is blistering hot or frozen ice on the windows - I will get sick.
This frequent inconvenience has become, oddly, a type of ritual that I'm forced to participate in. I take advantage of the fact that I will be sick for a few days to clear my schedule, cancel all plans, excuse myself from large tasks and find time to do things I love. It's a little strange to me that I find freedom in such a confining event, being ill.
Can't leave the house, can't see friends or family, can't go to events, can't can't can't. This is how I hear most of my friends talk about getting sick, as a restrictive process. It might just be that I get so busy in my un-sick time that I find a certain freedom in getting a cold. I get to read, I get to excuse myself from events, I get to have time to myself, that is probably what I'm craving broadly.
It has become one of the more regular ways for me to exit the pressure of social life. I dislike that I have to wait until something untenable occurs for me to arrange my own time for me, it is something I have been working on to change, to reclaim my autonomy over my social decisions so to speak. I have to admit, it is a nice reset that occurs, and the frequency is just about the right time until things get hectic.
But then I have to deal with the fact that I am sick.
Just because I get sick more often than usual, does not mean that I feel it lesser. I am miserable when I am sick and upset about it. It's never a pleasant experience, despite the silver linings that I've found in my experience. I become the pinnacle of the Confucius quote "A healthy man wants a thousand things, a sick man only wants one."
The last time I got sick I had just finished reading Infinite Jest, a total monster of a book, certainly one of the hardest I've read, but nonetheless I got something out of it. Having just finished the longest book I would tackle this year and contracting a cold that had me bound to the couch, I felt a burning energy to read something new.
In the three days I was stuck in the couch I read three books. Two were okay and one was really good. More than anything else, getting sick grants me an excuse and free time. Knowing that recovery is around the corner, I feel a somewhat bitter cherishing of this downtime.
Maybe it is because being sick I only focus on getting better that I feel this sense of freedom to read, write and relax for a bit. I don't need to worry about coming events, parties, shows, rehearsals, promises, plans and so many other million things that were agreed upon before. All of this becomes "I am sick, I'll let you know when I'm better". Nobody wants to fraternize with a sick man. Being avoided like the plague is not too bad for a few days.
-bzg