Home Sick

"It's not like it's anyone's fault that you're sick," is what he told me, and in that instant I realized everything about my associations with illness that make me so unwilling to stay in bed all day. I dragged myself through a 10F bike ride to work yesterday, despite my boss's gentle suggestion that perhaps I didn't need to pretend that I wasn't sick.

"You're not having fun now, are you?" my mother used to ask me, when I'd try to burrow into the bean bag in a corner of the kitchen, a mop bucket slowly filling up with my inability to keep down food. "I told you not to get sick."

It's why I'm happy to have the house to myself when I can wallow, when I don't have to either look more pathetic than I feel or sit up straight without sniffling to prove that I am well enough for more soup. The hammock is filled with blankets, a carefully arranged cocooning with interlocking layers that keep the cold air out. The downside is that once I've exited, peeling back the edges so I can ooze out and slowly drop to the ground, I can never return, because it will never be the warm and cozy burrito it was before I disturbed the shell.

I still easily forget that being sick isn't necessarily a poor reflection on one's moral character. I still steadfastly claim that I am not sick through a hoarse throat and a layer of phlegm. My boss still sends me home early.

04 March 2014 16:05