![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Waking up healthy
Apr. 7th, 2024 08:44 amThe title is a bit of a lie — I did not wake up feeling healthy, though this is what I’ve been dreaming of for weeks, ever since I got sick back in March. That feeling of waking up after having had a cold, the first day when you sit up and notice your head doesn’t ache anymore, notice your sinuses are, after a quick nose-blow, not eternally congested. I didn’t quite have that. But I did wake up feeling better than I have in some time.
Came downstairs to the smell of rotting food in the compost because I didn’t take it out last night. I did almost nothing yesterday, in fact, which is extremely unusual. Because typically either I’m doing all the things or my husband is, but he’s out of town with B right now and it’s just me. Even when it’s just me I’m usually continuing to do the things, holding fast to the version of myself that well, does all the things. Keeps on top of it. Does the chores and does them even when left to my own devices. This is a new kind of indulgence, allowing myself to be completely sick, completely selfish. Lying on the couch listening to audiobooks, not putting mugs in the dishwasher.
But today I feel a little better and so with that comes the pang of responsibility — I should really call that contractor. I should really take out that compost, and decide if I’m going to going to take the train to Portland tomorrow to join my family for the remainder of the vacation we were supposed to take together. If I don’t, I should probably make a plan to be productive at home, to really have made it worth my while to stay home alone for 5 days. An absolutely unimaginable luxury. This couldn’t have been planned. K wouldn’t have done it if I’d asked, I don’t think. It’s only because it felt like a necessity, in fact like the only option, that it did happen.
And I do want 5 uninterrupted days at home, but I want them as a not sick person. I am torn between wanting to stay here for the remainder of their trip and wanting to take the Amtrak, an adventure of its own. I did have a plan to see a friend on Tuesday, a friend that I met on alt.zines a million years ago and who I’ve kept up with all these years. We had a bit of a falling out over something an ex-boyfriend said several years ago but we’ve still managed to stay cordial and even grow a bit closer again as I’ve become a mom, and anyway long story short I wouldn’t mind seeing her. Seeing how our friendship looks now, thirty years later, now that we are moms, now that our fights for justice revolve a lot more around the school board and the PTA than they do feminism, though in a way these aren’t that different.
The house is quiet. We even stopped the mail and the paper delivery, so in a way no one knows I’m here, not that anyone would have stopped by anyway besides the mail carrier, but it feels a bit like a secret. My boss thinks I’m on vacation. My friends think I’m gone. One knows I’m still here because I’m sick, but just the one. I feel ridiculous for feeling this way, like no one would presume upon me, no one would have expectations of me, so I suppose it just really goes to show the expectations I put on myself. The feeling of having to perform and be and do something, and the freedom when that is removed.
But, I do need to decide today. Do I live in this self-imposed purgatory state for another few days or do I buck up and get a train ticket? Take the E line down to the train station bright and early tomorrow morning, or tell K I think I should really stay here? Make a to-do list or maybe not, maybe just keep lying on the couch listening to audiobooks until it’s time to get the house presentable on Wednesday for the return of my family?
Even as I type this I know I would never, as a matter of choice. I would still have to be very sick to do that. I am already itching to make the to do list. The type A personality is never far even when I feel at my worst. How come we never talk about the type B personality? Maybe they’re too busy relaxing and having a nice time.
I do think it’s worth reconsidering how I treat convalescing as I age, however. Ever since I got pneumonia back in 2015, colds hit me different. People now talk about long COVID, but this is something that’s not new to me. Almost every year now I get bronchitis at least once, and my lungs absolutely do not feel the same. It’s no longer just a luxury, but a necessity, this idea of rest. Can rest become a tick on my to-do list? I think it will have to be. My current situation is absolutely the result of pushing too hard, of having felt better and done too much and relapsed. How many times does the body need to tell me before I will listen?
At any rate, I think I feel good enough to drink coffee, and maybe clean up, and I suppose I can decide after that. I suppose I can buy a train ticket clear up until tomorrow morning. And I also suppose that my to-do list can probably wait.
I’m still listening to “The Recovering”. I started it because I finished “Splinters” (both by Leslie Jamison) and it was the only one immediately available as an audiobook from the library. I don’t typically listen to a lot of books like this, I’m not a non-drinker or addict and I guess it didn’t occur to me that these books could be for me, but I’m really enjoying it. We all have that same fundamental drive in common, to seek something to ease our pain. How it manifests is just one aspect. She weaves a lot of literature about addiction in with her own story, talking about Jean Rhys and Charles Jackson’s “The Lost Weekend”, social policy around substances in the United States.
One thing I need to do today, completely unrelated to the above, is call my aunt. So my family is more than a little dysfunctional, I have come to understand. I made a plan for later this summer, B and I are going to visit my grandpa and mom’s family in Ohio. I had originally considered invited my mom, then unsent the message before she saw it. The reason for this is because my mom is big, a very big personality, a sort of black hole that pulls everything in the area around her into her gravitational field and won’t let go. She’s what you might call “high maintenance”. And since she broke her hip she also requires just a lot of help, which I don’t begrudge her, but isn’t exactly something I wanted to sign up for while also toting my 7 year old across the country. I also never get to talk to people when she is there, because she monopolizes any conversation she is a part of. So part of my thinking was that B and I would get good uninterrupted time with family if she weren’t there.
But then the other day my aunt C texted me, my mom’s sister-in-law, and I mentioned we’d be coming and wanted to see her, and she asked if my mom was coming along, and it got me thinking that it’s kind of fucked up that I didn’t invite my mom. She’s old, her dad is older, this could be the last time she sees him. Now, it’s not my job to facilitate her maintaining her relationships, but it’s maybe also weird that I didn’t even mention it to her. So I started to feel guilty, and I texted her and told her I was going to Ohio and maybe she could overlap with my trip. I did not pose it as she should come with us. I do have to draw a line.
Anyway now my aunt N (my mom’s sister and closest friend) wants to talk about the trip today, and I’m scared to tell her that I invited my mom, because I’m fairly sure it will create some drama. I wish I didn’t have to feel this way. That I didn’t have to feel that both inviting and not inviting my mom is a losing prospect, that I’m going to piss someone off just by opting or not opting to include my own mother. I will just have to hope that N is understanding of this dilemma, that I can’t just not invite my mom. That I’m in the middle and it’s complicated. And honestly part of me does want her there, does long for those days when we all hung out in the humid Ohio summer, sprinkler going in the yard, making another pot of coffee, eating potato salad off paper plates and catching up on the news. Uncle J got a new motorcycle huh? Mark still not talking to John? Maybe because of her, maybe not, but I am NOT good at holding a conversation. A lot more talking will get done if she is there. The only difficulty will be ensuring that I do any of it, as she tends to monopolize any conversation she is a part of.
Someday I’ll have to put more of the family story here because there is a lot, and I’ve been thinking a lot about it of late, but today is not the day. Today I need to make some coffee and figure out what I’m going to do.
Came downstairs to the smell of rotting food in the compost because I didn’t take it out last night. I did almost nothing yesterday, in fact, which is extremely unusual. Because typically either I’m doing all the things or my husband is, but he’s out of town with B right now and it’s just me. Even when it’s just me I’m usually continuing to do the things, holding fast to the version of myself that well, does all the things. Keeps on top of it. Does the chores and does them even when left to my own devices. This is a new kind of indulgence, allowing myself to be completely sick, completely selfish. Lying on the couch listening to audiobooks, not putting mugs in the dishwasher.
But today I feel a little better and so with that comes the pang of responsibility — I should really call that contractor. I should really take out that compost, and decide if I’m going to going to take the train to Portland tomorrow to join my family for the remainder of the vacation we were supposed to take together. If I don’t, I should probably make a plan to be productive at home, to really have made it worth my while to stay home alone for 5 days. An absolutely unimaginable luxury. This couldn’t have been planned. K wouldn’t have done it if I’d asked, I don’t think. It’s only because it felt like a necessity, in fact like the only option, that it did happen.
And I do want 5 uninterrupted days at home, but I want them as a not sick person. I am torn between wanting to stay here for the remainder of their trip and wanting to take the Amtrak, an adventure of its own. I did have a plan to see a friend on Tuesday, a friend that I met on alt.zines a million years ago and who I’ve kept up with all these years. We had a bit of a falling out over something an ex-boyfriend said several years ago but we’ve still managed to stay cordial and even grow a bit closer again as I’ve become a mom, and anyway long story short I wouldn’t mind seeing her. Seeing how our friendship looks now, thirty years later, now that we are moms, now that our fights for justice revolve a lot more around the school board and the PTA than they do feminism, though in a way these aren’t that different.
The house is quiet. We even stopped the mail and the paper delivery, so in a way no one knows I’m here, not that anyone would have stopped by anyway besides the mail carrier, but it feels a bit like a secret. My boss thinks I’m on vacation. My friends think I’m gone. One knows I’m still here because I’m sick, but just the one. I feel ridiculous for feeling this way, like no one would presume upon me, no one would have expectations of me, so I suppose it just really goes to show the expectations I put on myself. The feeling of having to perform and be and do something, and the freedom when that is removed.
But, I do need to decide today. Do I live in this self-imposed purgatory state for another few days or do I buck up and get a train ticket? Take the E line down to the train station bright and early tomorrow morning, or tell K I think I should really stay here? Make a to-do list or maybe not, maybe just keep lying on the couch listening to audiobooks until it’s time to get the house presentable on Wednesday for the return of my family?
Even as I type this I know I would never, as a matter of choice. I would still have to be very sick to do that. I am already itching to make the to do list. The type A personality is never far even when I feel at my worst. How come we never talk about the type B personality? Maybe they’re too busy relaxing and having a nice time.
I do think it’s worth reconsidering how I treat convalescing as I age, however. Ever since I got pneumonia back in 2015, colds hit me different. People now talk about long COVID, but this is something that’s not new to me. Almost every year now I get bronchitis at least once, and my lungs absolutely do not feel the same. It’s no longer just a luxury, but a necessity, this idea of rest. Can rest become a tick on my to-do list? I think it will have to be. My current situation is absolutely the result of pushing too hard, of having felt better and done too much and relapsed. How many times does the body need to tell me before I will listen?
At any rate, I think I feel good enough to drink coffee, and maybe clean up, and I suppose I can decide after that. I suppose I can buy a train ticket clear up until tomorrow morning. And I also suppose that my to-do list can probably wait.
I’m still listening to “The Recovering”. I started it because I finished “Splinters” (both by Leslie Jamison) and it was the only one immediately available as an audiobook from the library. I don’t typically listen to a lot of books like this, I’m not a non-drinker or addict and I guess it didn’t occur to me that these books could be for me, but I’m really enjoying it. We all have that same fundamental drive in common, to seek something to ease our pain. How it manifests is just one aspect. She weaves a lot of literature about addiction in with her own story, talking about Jean Rhys and Charles Jackson’s “The Lost Weekend”, social policy around substances in the United States.
One thing I need to do today, completely unrelated to the above, is call my aunt. So my family is more than a little dysfunctional, I have come to understand. I made a plan for later this summer, B and I are going to visit my grandpa and mom’s family in Ohio. I had originally considered invited my mom, then unsent the message before she saw it. The reason for this is because my mom is big, a very big personality, a sort of black hole that pulls everything in the area around her into her gravitational field and won’t let go. She’s what you might call “high maintenance”. And since she broke her hip she also requires just a lot of help, which I don’t begrudge her, but isn’t exactly something I wanted to sign up for while also toting my 7 year old across the country. I also never get to talk to people when she is there, because she monopolizes any conversation she is a part of. So part of my thinking was that B and I would get good uninterrupted time with family if she weren’t there.
But then the other day my aunt C texted me, my mom’s sister-in-law, and I mentioned we’d be coming and wanted to see her, and she asked if my mom was coming along, and it got me thinking that it’s kind of fucked up that I didn’t invite my mom. She’s old, her dad is older, this could be the last time she sees him. Now, it’s not my job to facilitate her maintaining her relationships, but it’s maybe also weird that I didn’t even mention it to her. So I started to feel guilty, and I texted her and told her I was going to Ohio and maybe she could overlap with my trip. I did not pose it as she should come with us. I do have to draw a line.
Anyway now my aunt N (my mom’s sister and closest friend) wants to talk about the trip today, and I’m scared to tell her that I invited my mom, because I’m fairly sure it will create some drama. I wish I didn’t have to feel this way. That I didn’t have to feel that both inviting and not inviting my mom is a losing prospect, that I’m going to piss someone off just by opting or not opting to include my own mother. I will just have to hope that N is understanding of this dilemma, that I can’t just not invite my mom. That I’m in the middle and it’s complicated. And honestly part of me does want her there, does long for those days when we all hung out in the humid Ohio summer, sprinkler going in the yard, making another pot of coffee, eating potato salad off paper plates and catching up on the news. Uncle J got a new motorcycle huh? Mark still not talking to John? Maybe because of her, maybe not, but I am NOT good at holding a conversation. A lot more talking will get done if she is there. The only difficulty will be ensuring that I do any of it, as she tends to monopolize any conversation she is a part of.
Someday I’ll have to put more of the family story here because there is a lot, and I’ve been thinking a lot about it of late, but today is not the day. Today I need to make some coffee and figure out what I’m going to do.
