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I am not dead! There are moments when I wanted to be dead, like the night before last where I got virtually no sleep because I was tending to a violently runny nose. But that night was also the turning point, a flush-out-the-system point, so even if I met the sunrise feeling like a zombie I was remarkably better on the cold front. It's all been good news since then, and now I just have a lingering cough which is annoying—but far from miserable. I can live with that.
That precise turning point was strangely awesome. I mean, it was disgusting and annoying, but to be in touch with my body like that—to watch if suffer, fight, and overcome illness in one painfully long night—was fascinating and reaffirming, in the way that biological processes can be that and still be gross, too.
Being seriously congested for a couple of days has also forced some compassion into me. One of my more fundamental flaws is that it's difficult for me to be compassionate towards things that I don't understand: I can project and extend my own experiences onto similar experiences in others, but if I don't have a frame of reference with some level of similarity (no matter how fleeting), I find it difficult to imagine what someone else is going through—or (though I hate to admit it), care. I know this is a flaw, so when my first reaction is "what's the big deal?" I try to catch and correct myself, but sometimes first reactions slip through. Devon's allergies always confuse me, because I don't have any (nevermind that my mother and sister both do, and I rationally know that these things are valid and real), I don't experience it and so I can't—well, I can't figure out what the big deal is supposed to be. Dander and dust make you sneeze? Oh come on, man up.
Yes, there is a deep irony here.
Anyway, right now I am keenly aware of just how fucking miserable it is to sneeze, and sniffle, and feel like you may never ever be able to breathe through your nose again. I know that the immediacy of this will fade (another of my fundamental flaws: living in the moment), but right now: all my sympathy, fellow snifflers, you have it. And I'm sorry for every time that Devon's allergies have annoyed me.
Being able to breathe through my nose again has, today, been my greatest joy. We've been having another cold snap, and the air is brisk and refreshing, cold as ice water, and I can feel it—I can breathe it, I can feel it in my throat, everything that was swollen and clogged is now open again and it feels cold air. That's silly, yes. But it's also glorious.
Which is basically this post in summation. I am remarkably less sick! That's not really worth reporting (let me give you the chronicles of my mucus! uh, no), but it sure does make me happy.
That precise turning point was strangely awesome. I mean, it was disgusting and annoying, but to be in touch with my body like that—to watch if suffer, fight, and overcome illness in one painfully long night—was fascinating and reaffirming, in the way that biological processes can be that and still be gross, too.
Being seriously congested for a couple of days has also forced some compassion into me. One of my more fundamental flaws is that it's difficult for me to be compassionate towards things that I don't understand: I can project and extend my own experiences onto similar experiences in others, but if I don't have a frame of reference with some level of similarity (no matter how fleeting), I find it difficult to imagine what someone else is going through—or (though I hate to admit it), care. I know this is a flaw, so when my first reaction is "what's the big deal?" I try to catch and correct myself, but sometimes first reactions slip through. Devon's allergies always confuse me, because I don't have any (nevermind that my mother and sister both do, and I rationally know that these things are valid and real), I don't experience it and so I can't—well, I can't figure out what the big deal is supposed to be. Dander and dust make you sneeze? Oh come on, man up.
Yes, there is a deep irony here.
Anyway, right now I am keenly aware of just how fucking miserable it is to sneeze, and sniffle, and feel like you may never ever be able to breathe through your nose again. I know that the immediacy of this will fade (another of my fundamental flaws: living in the moment), but right now: all my sympathy, fellow snifflers, you have it. And I'm sorry for every time that Devon's allergies have annoyed me.
Being able to breathe through my nose again has, today, been my greatest joy. We've been having another cold snap, and the air is brisk and refreshing, cold as ice water, and I can feel it—I can breathe it, I can feel it in my throat, everything that was swollen and clogged is now open again and it feels cold air. That's silly, yes. But it's also glorious.
Which is basically this post in summation. I am remarkably less sick! That's not really worth reporting (let me give you the chronicles of my mucus! uh, no), but it sure does make me happy.
