I'M SICK, I'M SORRY

Apologies if this week’s installment of the newsletter is a little shorter than normal, but I am, unfortunately, stricken with illness. Simple illness, thankfully, not the kind that requires me to create a GoFundMe to cover the exorbitant costs of things that I was under the impression are the whole reason hospitals exist to provide. Also, do not worry that this is going to be a woe-is-me post, since lamenting a cold at the current moment feels like complaining about the weight of a coffin you're carrying.

What’s funny to me about run-of-the-mill chills and coughs, though, is how deeply infuriating they grow, exponentially, with age. Obviously, you’re a little more fragile, giving the flu the advantage it needs to truly take you out at the aching knees. Your body doesn’t feel ideal even operating at fully capacity, so add a bit of virus or bacteria and suddenly you feel like maybe your head should be wrapped in gauze, just to be safe.

I think there’s more than just physical reasons getting sick feels so incredibly shitty as you age, though. Once you’ve entered adulthood, you’re now part of the circular assembly line that keeps life moving along. When you’re younger, you haven’t yet been slotted into the gearworks, so your life, for the most part, is an isolated system. Shut it down and nobody’s particularly angry, because you weren’t paying rent. The local playground will operate swimmingly with one less sandcastle built.

I remember a vague sense of excitement as a kid when I realized I was sick enough that I could miss school, or extracurriculars I particularly despised, like soccer practice. Of course, your mileage may vary. If you had less ideal parents, or an autoimmune disorder, I’m sure sick days were much less fun. But for me and others lucky enough to be in a similar situation, a slight fever? Baby, we’re in business, and business is good (that business being playing RuneScape in the middle of the day.)

Sickness as an adult reminds me of my largely irrelevant baseball playing days, mostly when I realized it had changed from a game to a Sport. This was bad news for me, who used my time in right field mostly for casual gardening and cool rock collection, instead of standing with hamstrings taut and ready. Suddenly, the expletives of that angry dad in the stands was echoed in the energy of the game. And, similarly to getting sick past the age of eighteen, if you wanted to take yourself out of the game, you better be honest-to-god HURT.

If you’re lucky enough to have a job that doesn’t create labor loopholes with the agility of a ribbon dancer, and a boss that is still capable of recognizing the light behind the eyes of their underlings, you might get a few days off. Still, the missed work of each day gathers around your limp, wet, Kleenex-scattered body like crows that caw with the sound of Slack notifications. If you have a non-email job, you’re more likely to hear a frustrated sigh over the phone in the best case scenario, and in the worst, to be called in to stock soup cans through eyes swimming in sinus discharge regardless.

Every adult sickness comes with a new symptom attached, which is simple guilt. Guilt over the momentary damage you’ve caused to global productivity, I guess, which certainly doesn’t seem healthy. Nevertheless, it’s right there, and unfortunately DayQuil does jack squat to fix it. For some reason I not only expect a sudden message in my inbox, cc'd to every boss in the world saying “well, well, well, seems someone’s not too sick to play Slay The Spire,” but would feel genuinely embarrassed by it.

The cure for the common cold may not have been chemically cracked, but we all know what the best course of action is: rest, hydration, and as much sleep as you can muster. Unfortunately, with the worker bee conditioning of the modern employee brain, following the first and last feels like you’re doing something slightly wrong.

Maybe it’s also that famously weighty world entering the picture. The recognition that things are happening beyond what you see out the Mercury Sable window on the way to school and back. The same thing that makes me insert caveats into what feels like every slight complaint I make, especially in newsletter form. I am fully aware of the endless supply of suffering of greater scale outside of my own personal sphere. 

Even when the world’s in a more stable state, I inherently know there’s millions of people that would be desperately happy to switch places with an American coastal elite with the sniffles. In my head, when I say, “man, I feel congested,” I hear an echo of Rachel Dratch adding, “you know what else is congested? The airspace above numerous Middle Eastern countries, with aircraft delivering a payload that will end untold bloodlines.”

But I still want a ginger ale and diagonally cut grilled cheese delivered to me, and to hear the sound of a Playstation turning on. And, honestly, I guess what I’m saying is, I’d love to be 10 years old.