So, I got the flu for the first time in years this week.
I suppose that’s just the risk you run when you start being a social creature again. And, indeed, my till-now situation for many moons had been kinda like that tribe we found over in the Amazon who’d never previously made contact with the outside world. And what’d we do to ’em? What we always do. Spread our fleshy viruses. Similarly, my Amazonian land body got a bad case of the same. And while it was worth it, I’m sure, I’d forgotten just how bad those all-over aches feel. (Ya know? Where even a slight tug of the hair sends agonal shivers down your backbone?) Then the tummy turns and every hole you own suddenly serves as a portal for effluvium egress.
Pain bathed me.
Sleep eluded me.
This felt foreign and I had no immediate tools to combat it.
What would I normally do? Well, the last time I had the flu, I’d’ve done what I always did when I was discontent – pop a Benzo and a painkiller. My blanket answer to any arising “oh, no” feeling of any kind. Kinda like the pharmaceutical equiv to the “Greek Wedding” Windex gag. But that wasn’t an option now. What was? What do the people I admire do when they’re sick? I tried to think of my go-to – but I couldn’t imagine Russell Brand being ill. (This is a problem I have when I start idolizing people; it’s hard to imagine them in any state of weakness). Then I remembered my buddy Evan – a Youtuber I met a while ago. He’s the kinda serene, surfer dude who’s so chill that it emanates through the videos. And he’d indeed filmed a vlog once (while sick) about how he tries not to “embody” catching a flu or the cold or whatever. (Mind you, it sounds pompous when I relate it; but it seems a lot more like something you wanna try when you see him say it, all Jesus-y and glowy and stuff like he is) Problem was, I didn’t get what that meant at first – “not embodying” it. But then I thought of the person who’d gotten me ill in the first place (who carried on working while doing a both-end version of “The Exorcist” all the while). And then I thought of how my mom behaves when she should be on bed rest – but instead traipses around town, errand running, and saying, “I’m fine!” These peeps all act as if they’re well – until they are. What a great way to pass the time if you’re gonna be sick anyway, right?
Then there’s me.
So in what I suppose could’ve counted as a “new thing” for my 30 day challenge, I tried something different.
Instead’a drugs, I popped on some binaural beats for deep sleep, switched up my pillow position, switched on my heating pad, and managed to get a whole three hours of snoozery. Then, when I awoke (still feeling like the steaming dog dump Minnie was about to leave me for interrupting her fecal schedule with the war going on in my body), I ignored the misery and plowed through my day. Default mode would’a been to hunker down with a blanket. Not today. I ran. I cleaned. I abducted the women in my family to attend the carnival with me. I studied. And then I ran again.
And you know what?
It was literally the fastest I’ve ever recovered from a flu.
It’s amazing what we’re capable of when we choose to move outta victim mindset manor.