I have been taken captive by the influenza virus. I am not a normal captive to this hideous tyrant who demands control of every part of your body that can ache, but this year I fell victim. Sick for four days, going on five. I slept for 15 hours the first day I was sick. Only today have I felt well enough to even pull my laptop downstairs and sit on the couch (lying down, because sitting up takes too much energy) and write this.
Figuring that this is the last time I will be deathly ill and still under the cares of my attentive mother, I relished in the ability to have water delivered to my bedside, meals made for me, and movies put into the DVD player for me (complete with the remote handed to me while I lounged with my 101 degree fever). I will be probably be very sad the first time I'm sick at home alone, my husband having gone to work for the day, and I'm having to drag myself to the kitchen to force myself to cook something to eat because otherwise I'll just lie in bed all day.
And I keep saying this, but it is true: I had forgotten how boring being sick was. Perhaps it was the nature of this flu, which the doctor says is one of the worse strains she's seen over the seasons. Between the muscle aches, the joint aches, the nasal congestion, drowning in my own phlegm (too much information?), the head aches, and the sweating fevers, I had little space between the fatigue and the lack of brain function to do much of anything except stare at the television. Reading has become something like writing to me: part work and part enjoyment. Therefore, reading would require too much energy while I was sick. So, there I was, watching movie after movie because I had nothing else to occupy my time until I got better.
Quite depressing. All this time...five days of it...wasted because I have no energy to do anything. I was and am quite frustrated that all this time has passed and I accomplished nothing except to stay in my pajamas for probably the longest continuous time in my life. I guess, that is a feat for some.
Meanwhile, I've been watching my mother do her thing around the house. Its interesting watching a house mom. Little decisions can consume their entire day. Suddenly feeling bothered by the dust on the floor can cause a flurry of cleaning, putting every thing else that was on the to-do list somewhere else. Desires like cooking that chicken or finding that dress are now job tasks, not wishes. They are things that have to get done, otherwise the paycheck doesn't come. Not really, but they have more magnitude. You wonder what they do from the hours of 8am to 3pm when their children are in school. Sure, my mom also has her business, but most of that I see her doing in the evening. So what DOES she do?
I guess when I become a house mom, I'll understand, since that is the plan. I want to stay at home with my children. I guess the job becomes a little more looney when the children start moving out and growing up. I guess what I was observing these past 5 days was an empty-nester syndrome attaching itself to a once-busy house mom who used to have at least one toddler toddling around the house. That would mean at least one eye was busy watching the kid. Now, there are no toddlers, only teenagers and young adults, leaving the eyes with nothing to watch in the corner of them and only worries.
Being sick and quite bored, perhaps I am babbling on about nothing that is true since I've never been there before or perhaps the medicines are getting to my head. Either way, its been interesting, and while I don't mind being able to sleep in, I will very much like to stop being held physically captive by all of this fatigue. I can't wait to get something done.
