Archives for posts with tag: get well soon

Plan All You Want

December 19, 2025 //
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Change is. We live our lives in the moments between the changes. The plan is not the experience itself.

Yesterday was a strange one. I felt sort of mostly okay, for a little while, but it caught up with me quickly, and I made it a short day work-wise and reset my expectations of what I was really up to (not that much).

This morning I woke the usual way, at the usual time, but soon found myself struggling with congestion, coughing, and all the unpleasantness of a bad head cold or mild and case of flu. It will pass. I’m grateful to have stocked up on tissues. I’m undecided about working today, which is telling. I sip my hot coffee, letting it soothe my throat between coughing, and blowing my nose. Sometimes being a human primate is pretty gross.

I dressed and left the house as though to walk, then work, but I’m too weak for much walking on a cold morning, and I’ve got persistent doubts about work. I sigh to myself. It’s all very human, and I find myself seriously annoyed with that passing traveler with the nasty cough, and no mask, who was on my flight back to Portland when I returned home from San Francisco last week. It seems likely that is the when (and the how) I picked up this fucking sickness, forcing me to miss some work, and also to socially distance myself from others at home and elsewhere (considerate, responsible, practical, effective)… because that fucking guy wasn’t doing any of those things to limit contagion.

Fucking hell, being human is messy and inconvenient sometimes.

I lean more and more toward not working as I listen to my breathing, and feel the effort required.

There’s a clear, starry sky overhead. I sit with my coffee in the predawn darkness feeling like a bit of a simpleton. What am I even doing out here? I laugh to myself, which causes me to start coughing again. Yeah… I’m not really ready to go back to work. Not in the mornings, anyway. Maybe if I’m feeling up to it I’ll put in a couple hours later?

… Self-care is hardest when being sick impairs my thinking and decision-making…

Rather peculiarly, I see someone walking this trail before dawn. I honestly thought I am the only one who walks this trail in the dark. How many times has this other person been ahead of me or behind me, unnoticed? I watch them pass by briskly, headlamp bobbing along as they grow more distant. Huh. We don’t know what we don’t know, eh? New knowledge changes my understanding of the world. I make room for it, and let my thinking change to account for the new information.

Time passes. The clock is ticking. The holiday is approaching. I’m still sick. It’s a very human experience. I guess I’ll give myself a minute before I begin again… maybe I’ll just go back to bed…

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Categories Allegories, autumn, breathe, health, meditation, Metaphors, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Practices, The Art of Being, winter, Words

Some Things Don’t Change Much

October 31, 2019 //
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…Like the lasting value of self-care. That doesn’t change much. Or the sweet comfort of not yelling at people, or being yelled at, myself. That’s something else for which I have lasting appreciation. Those are connected to each other, too, in an annoying way; I have a head cold. Yep. It is not a coincidence that I’m down sick with the latest ick to go around the office after being quite healthy all year, at least with regard to contagion. Freak outs, screaming matches, nasty arguments or loss of emotional control, all seem – at least for me – to have a direct hotline to an invitation to illness. I get pissed off to the point of losing my temper on a Saturday… by Wednesday I’m down with a cold. I have frequent exposure to sick people in my work (primarily due to the gross lack of emphasis on self-care in the American workforce, and the emphasis on strict attendance vs “stay home if you’re sick”). Within 48 hours or so of my most recent obvious exposure (in an elevator, to sneezing), I have this cold. Pretty sure I’ve been exposed to it, and others like it, all year, but this one got me. Why? I don’t know really… but… I suspect the yelling.

I’d planned to write something quite different this morning. Instead, I’m coughing. Sneezing. Going through tissues like…well… like I have a head cold, honestly. What the hell else would I compare this too?

I definitely don’t want to carry this back to my work team; we share a small office, within a larger open office space. I’m still considering work, but I don’t know how long it will last… and I didn’t bring my laptop home last night. So… the plan, this morning, is first to go get that, then maybe work from home… or die quietly in a pool of snot. I don’t know. Hard to say at this point. :-\

I satisfy myself in the moment with reminders that it could be so much worse… I could be in California. Dear friends there are in some cases worried about whether their homes will even be there tomorrow, others struggling to deal with extended power outages that don’t seem to be providing any positive benefit, just incredible inconvenience and personal cost, and creating even health or life threatening risks due to loss of power to medical equipment. What a terrible experience. This? Me? Just a fucking head cold. I’ll get over it pretty quickly, however dire it feels in this hot, uncomfortable, sticky, wretched, tissue-wrapped moment.

Okay, okay, I’m going to set aside the bitching, and make the attempt to begin again. Repeatedly if necessary, until I have to give up, and just rest. Self-care matters – so it’s fluids, and rest, and symptom relief, for now, with confidence that this too shall pass, and on the other side? Another new beginning. 🙂

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Categories Frustration, gratitude, health, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching

A New Day, A New Virus

March 2, 2019 //
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Well, new job… new opportunities for contagion. lol Shit. I’m sick. Oh, it’s not any sort of dire life-threatening sort of thing, just an annoying virus of some kind. It began with robbing me of my appetite night before last, but I didn’t really notice that. Yesterday the tickle in my throat, and a spectacular fit of sneezing heralded the coming of the new virus with more certainty. By midday, in the office with it, the weakness, aching joints, and fatigue, joined the party, and I went home to take care of myself. I think my Traveling Partner may have it, too, but I was too sick yesterday to be at all clear about that; he was an absolute pro at providing nurturing and care, and if he was sick, too… wow. It wasn’t obvious, and as sick as I was, we enjoyed our time together.

…I meant to actually just go to bed, and to do so early. What I actually managed to do was sit around wrapped in a fuzzy blanket staring blankly at the television for several hours, then went to bed. lol I woke too early, but also too… awake. Now? Now I’m up. It’s a new day. I get started canceling plans; I am still feeling ill, and there is no good reason to expose my friends to this. I’m already looking forward to that moment when I… just go back to bed. Self-care first, and some coffee, then I will yield to the call of warm blankets, and a quiet room.

Mindfulness will not prevent a head cold. A great meditation practice will not prevent me from feeling confused, weak, and ache-y, when I’m sick. This is just real. I keep grinning every time I consider the “new love” excitement of realizing that mindfulness practices really were helpful for me – every day, every moment, significantly improved with them – and how easily I was tempted into enthusiastic cheer-leading, and also into gradually slipping into thinking errors about what it was capable of doing for me. Great self-care means practicing all the practices that support my wellness – emotional and physical – without putting any one of them on such a high pedestal that it becomes a set up for failure, over time. I’m not dissing meditation or mindfulness, at all, I’m just pointing out that – as is often also the case even with the medicines we take – no single practice (for mindfulness, for self-care, for emotional well-being, for physical health…) can do 100% of everything we need – for everything we need. Just… It doesn’t work like that.

I’ll still meditate today, if I’ve the mind for it. It’s an important practice, a foundation of my emotional health, and I get a lot out of it. I’ll still practice mindfulness, as much as I am able to while I’m feeling ill, and whether sick or well, it’s a practice I find worthwhile for keeping me grounded, realistic about life, and able to maintain a clear perspective on the things that matter most to me. I’ll shower, and practice good hygiene. I’ll make the effort to eat healthy calories. I’ll drink water. I’ll rest. No one of these great practices will cure the common cold. It is what it is. They are what they are. Only that.

…Imagine how awkward, uncomfortable, disappointing, and frustrating it would be, if I fostered a belief that meditation would cure my cold… and then it just didn’t. I might be angry. I might give up on my practice, and lose the benefits it does provide me. I might lash out at others, or rhetorically, spreading my feelings around my tribe or community, and undermining the practices of others with the festering wound of my disappointment and my sense of failure. I would wonder if I were “doing it wrong” and whether it’s “all bullshit”. What a lot of wasted emotional bandwidth. 😦

Meditation has been a practice that has served me well, thus far. I continue to practice. I value the effect it has on my day-to-day experience. I am emotionally more well, in the context of having a committed meditation practice. It’s still only what it is, and it can’t be more than that.

Today I have a cold. At some point, I’ll meditate awhile, and when I’m done with that… I’ll still have this cold. These experiences are not related to each other, and that’s entirely okay. This? This is not my best writing. It is, however, a parable. A moment to pause and reflect on what meditation is – and isn’t – and what it do – and what it don’t do. 😉

Once I’m over this sickness, I’ll definitely begin again. 😀

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Categories Allegories, anhedonia, Brain Injury, Free Will, health, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Parables, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices

Take a Moment

January 10, 2018 //
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One moment of many.

Time shrank, stretched, and snapped back, today. I got home feeling I had simultaneously done much more and much less than I had planned to do – more than I expected to get done, less than I urgently needed to get done, and certainly enough actually got done. Time can be peculiarly malleable, and sometimes I think I’ve almost got the hang of doing it at will. (That would be quite amazing.) 🙂

At some point, I realized I needed a couple things from myself. I was feeling fairly pressed for time, pretty frazzled, and I was overwhelming myself with details, and small frustrations. When I started getting close to that very special moment – you know the one? That moment just at which not having some sort of horrific tantrum or untoward meltdown would just no longer be possible? That fairly strained moment of longing and regret-in-advance? (Is that just me?) I could see it there, just ahead of me… the snarled remark, perhaps, got my attention – and a moment of appreciation that although I’d spoken aloud, I was seated alone. I paused, and listened for just a precious second of limited time – really listened – to me – and I recognized unmet needs. Simply that. I heard me. I needed recognition that I’ve been sick. I needed better self-care. I needed to slow down a bit, really focus, and be patient with myself. I needed a healthy meal – a real, actual, cooked-with-care, meal, prepared from fresh ingredients that meet all of my dietary needs. (I’ve been sick, right? Cooking takes some effort, more than I could manage for a couple days, so it’s been… broth. lol Mostly just broth. And coffee. Tea. Fizzy water. Cold medicine.) I looked at the clock and acknowledged to myself how very human I am. I reset my expectations, and moved my workload around a bit. I reset the expectations of others, with consideration, with care, and as firmly as I know how to do graciously. I finished the day with a plan.

The commute was okay. Rainy. I was pre-occupied with my own thoughts, so less frustrated with the shenanigans of other, less skilled, drivers (I know they are less skilled, because… did you see that shit?? You did not. I did, though. lol). I picked up some healthy ingredients on the way home and made myself a small London broil (although I rarely eat beef, if I am at all a risk of anemia, or have recently been ill, it definitely perks me up to have it), some steamed broccoli, and homemade yam steak fries. I cooked. I enjoyed a solitary evening meal, listening to music, thinking my thoughts. First day back to work is tough on me after being sick, so I take things pretty easy this evening. I want to do more, and look at my “to do list” with a certain purposeful yearning, although I definitely do not have the energy for all that (or even most of it, or… yeah… none of it at all, actually, not tonight). An early night will be the thing, then. Maybe some quiet time reading? Meditation. I’ll write (hello!). I’ll meditate. I’ll call it a night.

Of course, the internet grabbed my attention pretty quickly – it was hard to tear myself away. A couple rounds of being annoyed with myself, followed by a reminder, again, of how human I am… the evening continues.

Self-care does not come naturally to me, in any way I can tell. I really work at it. I sometimes seriously suck at it, but it needs to be handled, and generally, it needs to be handled skillfully – or I am doing little more than hastening my own demise through neglect. :-\ So, tonight I practice self-care practices. Gentle verbs. Verbs that nurture. Verbs that heal. Verbs that soothe and tend and care for.

Tomorrow is soon enough to begin again on all the other verbs. 🙂

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Categories anger, Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Frustration, health, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, The Art of Being, The Big 5, winter, women