I’ve spent all week indoors with a stinking cold, which I picked up from London on the weekend along with seemingly everyone else. I’ve also been crying my bloody eyes out for the first time in ages. Due to the last leg of my sertraline tapering down, it’s been a bit like watching an emotional pendulum swinging between my eyes, not knowing where it’s going to pause next. However: we’re down to one tablet a week now baby! Rejoice!
Dealing with both these situations has been a bit of a laugh, actually. I’m not saying I enjoyed it, as such, but it has been weirdly refreshing. I’ll break it down.
Nice things about being ill in bed with a cold all week, simultaneously sniffing, coughing, and crying
It’s been raining anyway
Thanks rain gods, you’re the best. It must be the Swansea in me, but I love rain so much I could kiss it sometimes. It always feels nicer, cosier and generally more smug to be indoors in the rain, and it’s more dramatic to do anything in it, too. It’s something to talk about when you plunge into an office, hallway or restaurant, bravely dripping with rainwater. You’ve been thrillingly exhilarated, albeit against your will. I’ve been watching the showers out the window with streaming eyes all week. Wet on wet.
The opportunity to cry
I find it hard to cry in public these days. I think I’m too good at getting one step ahead of myself and talking myself out of the cry before it can really dig its heels in and get going. Setraline can also mess up your innate cry impulse, and I’ve been on that for a couple of years. I went to see Six the Musical last weekend and I squeezed out a single tear to the saddest song. In the past I would have initiated my own personal sprinkler system over the row in front.
So, as a crap crier, I don’t know what happened when I was watching the finale of Sex Education this week. Every single storyline connected with the crying bit of my brain and rebooted my tear ducts again. I cried for an hour straight, which hits different on a cold, let me tell you. The whole thing made me feel like I’d washed my head out with a garden hose.
A reestablishment of bed
Wherever I am, as long as I know where my bed is, I’ll be happy. And I’ve been resisting the glorious temptations of bed recently, because I’ve been working from home, and if I stay in bed too long I get all funny in the head and really sweaty feet. So this week has been a treat. Really digging into the duvet to nest fully, readjusting the pillows to find the perfect head-prop – I should teach classes in this.
Nostalgia
Not sure why I get big nostalgia about being ill. Swigging Lemsip and watching endless crap TV in bed (I had a silver TV/DVD combo in my room as a teen, swag), all while keeping an ear out for the click of the key in the lock that heralds your caregiver coming home from work. I tend not to think about my childhood much, as there’s big swathes of it I can’t remember and that upsets me, but the universal experience of childhood illnesses pervades. How cheery of me.
Also, I think I would have forced my way into work if I still worked anywhere (lol). As a freelancer I could truly tap into the malaise of it all.
Waking up a bit better every day
Bodies are annoying, but they’re also cool. I only worked out last year that your snot gets yellow for a reason – the colour means all your white blood cells are attacking the virus, basically killing themselves in battle and being washed away in a flow of mucus. I love drama, so I love that. I’m past the yellow snot phase this time round now, but every time I blew my nose and saw gloopy yellow this week, I marvelled at my internal suicide squad saving my little old corporeal form. Maybe she’s born with it? Maybe it’s just all my mucus, babes.
If you got any kind of joy out of this, tip me on Ko-Fi if you can. Loves ew! x