Sick on my 43rd birthday

My birthday was last week.

Man, I had tons of fun stuff in my head I wanted to do: wine-soaked visits with friends, dinner out at a bistro nearby with Louisiana-, quasi-French-based food, comedy night out in a big city...

But the Monday before my little day, I came down with a stomach flu that kicked my ass right in its gut, and still lingers today. I tell you, I went down HARD. Fever, shakes, aches, and a diarrhea that made me feel like I had spent time drinking Mexican water with African mosquitoes. So, so painful. And it wouldn't quit! I have a hard time taking to bed, but I have learned that it is the only way.

I have this grudging urge to "tough" these things out, and to avoid taking pills as if they represent some sort of threat on their own. How backwards of me, especially considering the other things I put in my body on a daily basis, including sugar, salt, fat, pot, beer, etc. Yeah, it's a real temple.

So I've learned that the fastest way back to whistling through life is often dedicated rest, the careful application of over-the-counter pharmaceuticals and plenty of liquids.

Even so, this thing was tough to shake. It stomped right on through my birthday like it wasn't even there, and kept going, right up until yesterday when the clouds began to part. I am starting to feel like my old self again, although I still have a gnawing pain in the right side of my chubby gut and a cough that reminds me all is not quite right yet. But I can eat solid food again, and I don't want to cry when I go to the bathroom. These are good signs. For most of the week, I could barely withstand more than broth and a few crackers. To celebrate, I ate some spicy Mexican-style food my wife put together, because I am a slow learner.

I hate getting sick. I hate the randomness of it, catching it from a stranger I didn't want to meet, shaking his grubby, mucus-encrusted hand out of an outdated, forced social construct that suits no one's needs (and yet if I somehow refuse to shake hands, *I'm* the weirdo). And of course, I hate the illness itself, with its insidious effects, working to destroy (or at least sabotage) you from the inside out. Bah!

And yet there are always things to be thankful for. Being temporarily ill can help put a few new bricks in the wall of your immune system, or so I am led to believe. I did also enjoy on some level the chance to lay flat on my back for days at a time and root through television shows and Facebook updates, activities I am no stranger to but to which sickness gave me the unfettered and guilt-free access. I was often too sick to really indulge in these in any pleasant way, but still...

But the thing I have come to appreciate more is the break it gives my body and mind from the bad habits that I am otherwise nearly powerless to shake; the little contracts I have made between my body and my immediate surroundings that creep in and build up silently and incrementally, much like the cold symptoms themselves. Habits like overeating, drinking too frequently (although I have become very workmanlike in my ability to moderate the quantity) and ingesting the pot. These are things I would like to abate and rethink, but they acquire a momentum of their own and I struggle not to walk in the ruts I have so laboriously worn for myself. I have picked up these coping mechanisms along the way in life to deal with stresses and pains that crop up that can break something important within you, or at least threaten to. But when the pains subside, the mechanisms endure and remain. One of life's little tricks, sometimes a little cruel.

Having your body call these time-outs (in its shit-stained, painful way) is otherwise just the tonic that I need to break the cycle and let them go until the habits are no longer habitual. I can eat a normally-portioned meal, because I am no longer so recently "disciplined" to gorge; more so, I am grateful to contemplate solid food at all, so I appreciate it. I am not so programmed to reach for a beer because hey, it's noon, and by golly this life is worth "celebrating."

I am mindful that these habits can and will creep back in. I've done it before, being in a good place with these things, and watched myself slip back into their waiting, grody arms. But right now, I have at least got them on the other side of the door, and that is a great thing.

I suspect that I would be sharper without their daily influence. I like to think that one drink, one puff, one brownie does not a brain destroy. One of any of these does little real harm. But like waves crashing on a beach, I can easily imagine that one applied after another and another on a regular basis would eventually erode the most impregnable fortress. And my creative and mental fortresses aren't looking too impregnable these days. My game could certainly be tighter. There are projects and just little endeavors that lay untouched, and my motivation could be more robust. Great things lay out there, waiting simply to be picked up and smooshed and formed into something other people will somewhat appreciate.

...

Anyway, I think that is what I came to say. Have a good day out there.