Over the past few weeks, I’ve been sick.
Got the flu/covid/rsv tests, all negative. Symptoms? Body aches and congestion, mostly. The occasional lost night of sleep due to the annoying dry cough that rears up when lying flat. Loaded myself with decongestants during the day so I could expectorate and breathe, and for the body aches took ibuprofen so regularly I eventually diagnosed myself with gastritis and switched to Tylenol (even though that stuff doesn’t really work worth a damn). I was mostly able to function through the day, but it was rough. I never really felt “like myself,” and the illness took any effortlessness I might experience and any deep enjoyment I might feel out of most everything.
Today, I feel so fortunate to be feeling better, and to feel my energy levels returning to normal.
Being sick always makes me painfully aware of my energy… or rather, my lack of it. When I’m sick, all I want is my normal amount of energy to live my life the way I normally do. But it’s just not there, and it’s absolutely torturous.
In those moments, my job, apparently, is to “rest more,” which is terribly annoying because I would much rather be DOING. In these times I literally have to tell myself over and over “Your job right now is to rest. You can do this. Your job is to rest.”
And then every time I get sick and get better I think: “This time I will not take my health for granted! This time I will remember!”
But I never do.
And I’m convinced: this time, I will again soon forget.
Soon, likely sometime within the next few weeks, I will completely forget what it was like to be sick, to not have any energy. I’ll be caught back up into the race of life and I will be completely unaware of that foggy past energy-depleted state — it will be like that version of me never existed.
I think there’s a certain similarity when there’s a death in the family; you lose a grandparent or an uncle or something, and you think: “Now I will remember to cherish every moment with my loved ones! This time I won’t forget.”
But we don’t remember, do we?
We always forget.
Every time I find myself back in the place of taking for granted the very people I treasure most.
Honest question: What the hell is this about??
Why can’t I just remember?!
It doesn’t make sense.
UNLESS…
What if life was actually about the cycle of remembering and forgetting and remembering?
What if some meaningful part of what makes life rich and enjoyable is the rhythm of learning then failing, and paying attention again then stumbling again, then trying some more…?
If that’s the point then I guess… the forgetting would be a rather vital part.
And the goal would be just to keep practicing.
Maybe, just maybe, I can remember to do that.