On being sick
Normally I feel like Evel Knievel. Being sick, I feel like I got run over by Evel Knievel.
While the body is sick, the mind continues to churn, though muddily. I've been sick for almost two weeks now. I've had just about every symptom possible. It's been a merry-go-round of misery I can't seem to get off.
When you're sick, priorities change. You no longer want to conquer the world; you are only interested in surviving the next two minutes. You don't care a whit whether anyone loves you or hates you or what tomorrow may bring. It narrows your focus by necessity. I think of it as kind of like being drunk 24/7. As long as you have medicine flowing in your veins, you are okay, even though you may be in a burning building.
I don't get sick often. And it never lasts more than a couple of days. To be sick for two weeks is almost unheard of. It's almost like a somatic illness, possibly triggered by recent personal disappointment and made worse by my reaction to that. Sometimes when you have to let go of something you've been hanging on to for a long time, it collapses your whole world. It's clear this illness is intrinsically linked to sadness. The Bible says hope deferred makes the heart sick. But what happens when hope is gone? Part of my personality is that I'm always seeking the truth, no matter how hard it may be to own. That search for truth is something good about me, but the effects of that search can be deleterious and traumatic. This was an instance where I was pushing the truth away; I was living in a little bubble of my own making, and that bubble popped. That was bound to happen, however, how I went on after that bubble popped is my own fault.
There comes a moment when you're sick when you realize you may actually die. And that thought offers you relief. Then your body feels worse ... and now you're afraid you won't die. Normally, I would fight an illness, but this time I just laid down and it clobbered me. I've tried to remain active because I know the lymphatic system has no mechanism for movement of itself; it depends on the movement of the skeleton and muscles to fight sickness. But I don't know how much of this sickness is actually caused by a pathogen. I think it was simply going to happen, and I just put it off as long as I could. By the time it hit me, it was bigger than it should have been. It just knocked me on my butt. It's clear everything that happened had to happen. Putting it off didn't do me any good; it just made it worse when it happened.
As with any illness, I am left with a couple of options: 1) medicate the symptoms away or 2) let it run its course. I've chosen to let it run its course. There's no chance I can tend to the source of the illness, which isn't physical in nature. Tending to the symptoms lends little comfort. So I'll just feel it until it's gone. I know if I bury it again, it will roar even louder next time. So I will hear it out until it is quiet and gone. I ignored all the signs and warnings until I covered myself in it, and now I can't get out from under it until it has its way with me. So I will lay down in it and let it thrash me. I fought for an illusion perhaps because I needed it at the time. Unfortunately, illusions eventually vanish.
After being sick, it feels wonderful to simply feel okay. Not great. Not wonderful. Not any superlative. Just feeling okay feels like you've made it. That's what I hope for today. My body is wasted. My mind is foggy and unsure. My heart hides in the corner like a beaten dog. And somewhere, holding all of that together, is a benevolent God, the sole reason I am alive. What may look like a garbage life to anyone else looks like absolute gold to Him. He can do more with what little I've given Him than I ever could with all my faculties intact. This sickness is more than just a physical wasting. It's gone to my very core. No, it's been born out of my very core. I broke in the most essential places of my being. But it had to happen.
When you get well after being sick a long time, it feels like you have a blank slate, like you've been given a second chance at life. It feels like the end of It's a Wonderful Life. You're home again, and everything is where you left it. Nothing changed. You just left for a while. You felt like you were run through by something big and sharp and tearing. And maybe you were. But now you can't find the hole, and you wonder if it even happened at all. And the thing about depression is it does funny things to your concept of time. I've lost whole years, it feels like. I was wrapped up in it, drowned by it, wasted by it, robbed by it. Most of that time was spent simply waiting. Waiting for what? I never knew. I just knew today didn't have answers so maybe tomorrow did. It turned out tomorrow was just as clueless and just as far away. Every day's answer lay in tomorrow, but tomorrow was always tomorrow and never today. Haha. Figure that out. That's the logic of depression.
I stopped turning to tomorrow. That's when my world fell apart. That's when God really started working on me. He went all the way to the core of me, reordering what wasn't working and making better what was working. Sickness doesn't last forever. Pain doesn't last forever. But what God is doing will (2 Corinthians 4:18).
Thank you for caring enough to read. And God bless.
By the way, I use an app called Grammarly to check my writing. It gives an emoji for the feel of it, too, for what reason, I don't know. This post's emoji is a cringe face. Haha. Had to share that. It's so dumb.
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