I am just now emerging from a terrible flu, a vicious bug that knocked me out for nearly two weeks. I’ve been thinking about it a lot and can say this: It is only when we are forced to stop doing everything that we normally do that we find out how unimportant most of it is (just like when we’re forced to live without 95% of our stuff when we travel, we realize how unnecessary that stuff is).
For me, those noticeably unimportant things (that I normally place far too much emphasis on) were:
1) Email: sorry, friends, I just couldn’t manage to sort through my messages; not that very many of you were actually trying to get ahold of me. Mostly it was the online equivalent of telemarketers.
2) Keeping up with news: yes, I was aware that people were shot in Afghanistan, and that it was horrible; but I did not follow the details or analysis, and the world did not end. Likewise I think there were more Republican primaries… My guess is, some were surprised by the outcomes but no one dropped out, but I can’t be sure; seems as if there are new primaries twice a week these days…
3) Shopping: both in its real and virtual forms; I’m one of those weak, semi-recreational shoppers who keep lists in my mind and am always refreshing them, and with the ease of online shopping, it has become far too habitual. I was able to get by with no shopping at all thanks to a grocery run made for us by my mom.
And of course work had to be put aside and delayed, both of the office and home varieties. When you’re lying in bed sweating profusely through a fevered delirium is one of the very few times when you just can’t feel guilty about pushing back a deadline or ignoring a stack of very dirty laundry.
(Pause while coughing lays me low for three minutes; now back.)
Illness can be important when we do recover, because we are “recalled to life” with a new sense of priorities and perspective. Again, just like when you come back from that vacation where you left your regular “stuff” behind. Only instead of a tan (or even a sunburn), I’m back with big circles under my eyes and the kind of pallor that normally indicates months spent in grad student library carrels…. That is to say, not exactly restored, but returned. And most thankful for it.
MeredithInk 