I am unofficially on Day 3 of my first cold of the New Year, and, with the exception of getting the paper yesterday, am going on three days housebound. Honestly, I was so hungover on Saturday from whooping it up on Friday night with a bottle of Burgundy and my boy, Harry, that I've no idea whether I was sick with the actual cold that day, too. But I'm pretty sure my asshole move of Cup of Coffee #2 that afternoon marked the onset, although it might also have been my insistence on catching up with three weeks of email or researching HTML coding websites or working on a design job instead of adding a few much-needed hours to the sleep bank.
Anyway, I'm nothing if not an overachieving Do-Bee, and I'm pretty sure now that sickness is my body's way of making me do the things (e.g. read and catch up on movies and sleep) that normal people (i.e., those who find recreation enjoyable) look forward to. You'd think that the five months I spent ill and/or recuperating from my Crohn's onset would have made me better at this Enforced Relaxationâ„¢ thing, and you'd be right. But I'm guessing the recidivism rate is about as bad for workaholics as it is for other -holics, and good intentions notwithstanding, I tangle with my demons all the time.
Worse, I starting slipping down the woe-is-me slide this time, too. I mean, it is the new year, and we're all supposed to be at the fucking gym and scrubbing our grout with bleach and a toothbrush and all that other crap. And here I am, barely able to distill an Adobe PostScript file because I am so sick and brain-fogged and achy. Loser.
Well, enough. Enough, I say. Get a little perspective, I also say. Every part of me knows this is the road to nowhere. So I let it go for five seconds and damned if the Universe didn't grab my attention immediately by shouting the answer: THANKS.
THANKS ?!? For being sick!? This is an answer?! FUCK YOU, Universe!!!
To which the Universe replied, in the nicest way possible: no, asshole, GIVE thanks. Or maybe it was, "No, asshole, give. Thanks!" because the Universe is nothing if not polite.
So I went to Oxfam and donated $15. It's the minimum donation via credit card, but it's a lot of money for me these days, what with most of my TV spots in payment cycles 3 & 4 and nothing new booked since, oh, June, and a big copywriting job that I was kinda counting on whittled back to 1/3 of the original contract. (Ugh. See how easy it is for me to go down the dark path? Scary.) And I'm going to go back and give (gulp) $15 every time I feel myself dressing up for the pity party.
Result?
While I'd be lying if I said I felt like the fabulous, new, 2005 Colleen I long to be, I felt a lot better. I have friends and a home and even a little family left, which is more than a large chunk of the world has right now. And the cold? Well, this, too, shall pass. And probably pretty quickly.
I just hope it leaves the lesson behind.
xxx c
P.S. That tissue box above left is available here. Although I think the real Shakers would be cool if you put the $25 somewhere else. (Lots of old images didn't make the move during my migration from TypePad. Because TypePad, while excellent in many ways, is not great with the moving of images.)