Under the Weather
Sick and tired of being sick and tired
Once again this week, I found myself in the cold relief aisle of a pharmacy.
I was in search of lozenges after waking up on Saturday morning with a sore throat. At first, I blamed the pain on my recent travels. Just dryness from living in a rental flat followed by a hotel. I thought it alternatively could’ve been allergies thanks to London being late in floral bloom. Another cup of tea and I’d be right as rain (as an aside, that phrase has never completely made sense to me; what’s so right about rain?). I took the chance. I went to a matinee musical with my mom followed by date night with Max.
The chocolate-themed cocktails and red wine at dinner dulled the ache enough for me to forget about it for a few hours. Then came Sunday’s soberness. The same sharpness was there. It had escalated. And now it was accompanied by a runny nose.
If you regularly read this newsletter, you know this isn’t my first bout of illness this year. It’s actually my fifth. Less than six months in. I had a cold in January followed by walking pneumonia in February and March, plus a lovely case of food poisoning in between. Now I have whatever gross bug is going around the streets of London.
Every time I tell myself it’s not so bad, certainly not worth taking off from my job. I spritz spray in each nostril, swallow some aspirin, drink some water, then return to work. Literally and figuratively. God forbid I waste a sick day on actually being sick, right?
Ironically, I was supposed to be on vacation as this newest infection took up residence in my head and throat. It wasn’t the kind of vacation where I had planned to sit and relax,. I had an itinerary laid out that honestly resembled what I usually put together for business trips. My mother teased me when I sent it to her in an email. What terrible things will happen if we deviate from the plan, she asked, jokingly. Little did I know the answer would be another bloody head cold.
I spent a fair amount of my childhood sickly thanks to badly swollen tonsils. The year before I had them removed, I came down with a dozen cases of strep. This is probably why my throat remains my weakest spot; the place that sickness usually breaks into before invading anywhere (everywhere?) else.
I also had my fair share of colds as a kid. So many of my photos from grade school feature me with my nose as red as Rudolph’s, my skin ghostly pale and my eyes tired and/or swollen. This got better as a teenager, though in college I often picked up whatever crud landed on campus while my friends stayed safe. Graduate school was worse. Going back and forth between New York and Oxford meant I caught a lot of things in transit, including the flu. You’d think this would’ve been the wake-up call I needed to slow down. Alas: I had a part-time job then where if I didn’t show up I wasn’t paid, and since that wasn’t an option, I went to work with a 103-degree fever and a bottle of Motrin. I remember nothing I did that day, including how I got home.
The pandemic was a bad time in most respects, except for the fact that it was the first moment in my life I managed to get through an entire year without running a fever. I just lost my mind a little instead. That aside, I sometimes long for when I had less to do, therefore fewer opportunities to feel run down.
Throughout this trip, I woke up before 6 AM to write ahead of my scheduled activities despite my body being five hours behind. I’d set myself a novel drafting goal that was completely out of reach. And despite knowing this, I worked hard to meet it, given my general belief that every second not working my job must be spent working on other things. I stayed up late to keep up with my annual reading tracker, too.
A training schedule is key for athletes, allowing them to push themselves toward greatness. I’ve always found the same logic works for writers. I realized this week—in a more intense way than usual—that the metaphor can also extend to the negative side. If an athlete pushes too hard, they can end up injured, setting themself further back. It’s not a perfect comparison because I definitely have more words written than when I arrived in London three weeks ago. But I’m not sure balancing the schedule with so much else going on was worth suffering through another nasal voice and head pain indefinitely.
This illness is not different due to its symptoms. It’s different because I’m hoping it will be the last one I endure thanks to needlessly wearing myself into the ground. After three weeks of fun here in London, I’m looking forward to a quieter rest of the summer ahead (something I’ll write further about in a future edition of Now What.). I hope it will be a season where I turn my alarm off more frequently and refuse to double-book myself, where doing nothing will feel like I’m doing enough. A slow girl summer, if you will. Let me know if you care to join me.
Until then, I hope to sleep a bit on my flight…
Rachel’s Weekly Recs:
You don’t need to be expecting a baby to appreciate Cowshed’s Mother Stretch Mark Balm. Pretty much everyone’s body has stria on it that could benefit from this glorious paste. It’s also good for dry arms and legs in need of a little TLC.
Rachel Lynn Solomon’s latest novel What Happens in Amsterdam is a charming (and hot) marriage of convenience story between former high school lovers who definitely have unresolved feelings. If you’ve got the desire for a European vacation this summer without the budget, this will take you away in a pinch.
Having only watched British TV the past few weeks, might I recommend Four in a Bed for your viewing delight? The competition show features four bed and breakfast owners through the UK competing to be named the best of the bunch. Perfect for nitpickers and cozy travellers alike.