Sick Day

Good evening my friends. If you are one of my regular followers or readers, you may have noticed that this blog entry is coming fairly late in the day. There is a good reason for this: I am sick. I have that head pressure, sinus congestion, runny nose and fever sickness and let me tell you, in case you didn't know, it is absolutely no fun.

The only good thing about feeling this way is the knowledge that in a day or two it will pass. However, getting through the next few days might be somewhat of a struggle. I managed to force myself out of bed this morning and get on the bus to school. Should I have gone? Most likely not. Should I go tomorrow? Even less likely but no doubt I will suffer through it. Perhaps I will re-consider so that I do not transfer my illness to my other classmates.

I imagine that you can relate to how I'm feeling. You know? One of those days where you can crawl into a fetal position anywhere on any surface and sleep like a newborn baby who just finished their nine o'clock feeding. Yes ladies and gentleman, I want my mom...no, I want the comfort of someone who cares. There is a difference. We men always get the teased by the women of the world because we act so child-like and weak when we catch a cold (that is a general statement, not one that applies to all men across the board); and I am not always so different. However, I would like to share that it isn't that we are children or weak; far from it. No, we draw strength and energy from the kindness and compassion of those who love and tend to us. It's just a guess but I'm willing to bet that we all, at some point during a cold, have that brief moment where we feel so sick, so utterly defeated that we all wish for our mothers; I know I do for mine sometimes.

So when I got home from school today, I immediately crawled into bed and slept for four straight hours. I took a super hot shower to try and sweat this cold out; you can imagine that did little but temporary alleviate the pressure. I ate some food and drank some liquids. Still I felt like I should crawl into bed to sleep yet I could not sleep. As I was laying there, about 30 minutes ago or so, with my eyes open staring at the ceiling, I began to think about things that I need to do. Things that others are depending on me for. Could someone else do them? Quite possibly. Will I hand over the task? Most likely not. I'm stubborn sometimes.

After some strong words of self-encouragement I realized I could do one of two things: I could stay in bed wishing I had some comfort or I could power through this temporary sickness. Which did I choose? Well, you are reading this now aren't you? And this isn't even the beginning. I cleaned my room, I've started laundry, I've gone for a brief walk for some fresh air and now I am making my daily blog entry; not bad John, not bad.

As I'm sick, I think I will end my blog a little shorter than normal. My only real disappointment about all of this is today's blog post; not because I think I have done a poor job but because today's post was a small milestone for me: today is my 50th blog post entry. I had all these great ideas for what I would write about and how I imagined it would look. This is one of the wonders of the Universe: no matter how carefully laid our plans, they are all subject to chance and circumstances. You never know what will be coming your way and when something unexpected comes your way don't look at it as an unwelcome surprise, but a planned detour.