After avoiding it for almost 3 years, it finally hit me. I got the COVID. For me, the physical symptoms were not that bad. It felt like a cold and I felt gross and infectious, but I have certainly been sicker. What was hardest for me was the mental anguish. I couldn’t function. I wasn’t thinking straight. I was moody and irritable. And I had so much guilt about passing it along to others.
So the question becomes, how do we live with this? There are vaccines and treatments, but it is not going away any time soon. Part of me, or perhaps all of me knew that going on a trip to Vegas was a risky idea, but I did it anyway. I was longing for a taste of the past. I was longing for the innocence of a time when we all could gather for a holiday party without the worry of becoming sick. Of course this risk has always existed, but we just didn’t think about it.
Now I don’t know if it was me who got my other half sick because he is still negative, but seeing him sick breaks my heart. It’s also reminded me that I suck at taking care of people. Some people are just natural caregivers – I am not one of those people. So with that comes a need to be mindful around the fact that I shouldn’t expect anyone to take care of me. It’s a two way street.
My final thought on this is that it may actually be good for us to get sick every so often. It’s a reminder of how important it is to live life. There have been so may days, whole weekends actually, where I haven’t left ‘my chair.’ Where I’ve wanted to just be lazy and not do anything because I was so fried from burnout. And now I view that as time wasted. Because last weekend I couldn’t get out of my chair. I felt like I had no choice. When I am well, I feel like I do have a choice. And my choice is to live.
Thanks for the reminder COVID…
