Sunday, July 11, 2010

It Doesn't Matter

Perhaps it's just the Dayquil talking, but I think I've had a bit of an epiphany.

To review:  I generally bring work home when I'm sick.  This way, I can save my "annual leave" days for vacation.  I came home sick on Wednesday and did a half day on Thursday and a half day on Friday.  Saturday, I woke with the mother of all sore throats, and didn't do any work.  (Didn't exercise or shower either.  It was clearly a "take care of myself" day.)

The sore throat continued this morning, and now I'm taking the matter of getting well seriously.  Dayquil every four hours, and a salt water gargle every hour.  No more messing around.

I suppose I'll never really know if I would have been exactly where I am now had I not worked on Thursday and Friday and instead concentrated all efforts on hourly fluids and lots of sleep.

But what I do know is that, without having done much work, by the time I get back to work (sometime this week -- hopefully, say, Tuesday), I'll be behind schedule.  Or, at least, nowhere near as ahead as I should have been.

And I was already behind on my theatre critic-ing, and now I've missed two more shows, putting me even more behind.

(And the social life is taking a hit, too.)

I was starting to get a whole lot of annoyed over this, and that's when the epiphany kicked in.  I'm talking about missing less than one week of my life.  One week out of 42 years.  It isn't going to make or break me, one way or another.  And, I mean, once I'm back in action, if I actually focus my efforts on doing what has to be done -- sleep, exercise, actually work when I'm at work, see shows, get reviews written, and so forth -- it won't take really long to get back on track.  I'll just have to drop the time-wasting on the internet, and the watching of too much GSN.  Can probably take care of things within a coupla weeks.

So I should probably just not sweat getting behind, focus on getting well, and just not worry.

1 comment:

Wil said...

Extended illness is an odd phenomenon. Nothing about youth or young adulthood prepares one for the horrid immediacy of a lengthy illness. The really sad part is that this may well become your "norm" as you grow older. I found myself sick less frequently when the kids grew up and moved out, but when ill, it was for a much longer time. Staying with grandchildren over the past couple of years, I find I'm not only sick more frequently but far more sick than they are. And they're the little buggers that made me sick with their wanton, germy excretions in the first place.

Just Damn!