Today, I am lying around decadently devouring books that I never get to read, dreaming about starting an herb-farm business, staring solemnly at the ceiling and pondering the wonder of God. I am not cleaning the house. I am not working at the greenhouse. I am not reading my children a book, making a gourmet meal or working in my garden. I am very simply lying around, lusciously, lazily, listlessly. There can only be one explanation for this.
I'm sick as a dog.
Our family went camping this weekend with Bo's sister and her family, and I knew then that something was coming around. I just wanted to sleep. I had no energy, no motivation. I only had a very strong desire to curl up under a mountain of blankets and snooze. At first, I thought I'd just take a cat nap, so I climbed into the pop-up and closed my eyes. I opened them an hour and a half later. Took a walk. Ate some food. Went back to sleep. Very unlike me. I'm the kind of person who hates to sleep for fear of missing something. But here I was, heeding the siren song of my pillow, succumbing to its relentless whisper.
Am I pregnant? I wondered.
And then the aching started. And the chills. The need for another blanket. And another. And a thicker one. "But it's very warm in here, Sweetie," my dear husband informed me.
"I don't care. I'm COLD."
He fed me watermelon, which seemed to take the fever away, but then my eyeballs started to ache.
Ah, no. It's the flu.
How can I get the FLU in the middle of SUMMER? When I have so much to do? When the garden is coming into its peak, and the mulch is sitting in the back of the pickup truck, and the black raspberries are hanging on the canes, waiting, BEGGING, to be picked and made into decadent Black Raspberry Cobbler? When the goats need milked, and the laundry needs done, and my boss at the greenhouse is going away TODAY and has asked me to oversee the watering? How can this happen?
One of my new best friends called yesterday. We hadn't talked to each other in a couple of weeks because their family had been on an ambling vacation, driving up along the east coast and camping in their RV, and our family had been on sabbatical--watching movies, reading, experimenting with recipes, eating a lot of grilled meat, gardening, playing miniature golf and driving go-karts. It was good to hear her voice.
"How are you?" she asked.
"Sick," I said.
"You sound like you're sick," she said.
"I am," I said.
And I told her about all the things I felt like I should be doing. But here I am, I said, sitting on my butt, doing nothing but aching and moaning.
"Remember when Joannie was sick with Strep and you told her that if you don't slow down, someone will slow you down for you?" she reminded me.
Yeah, yeah. I remember. Take my own advice and blah, blah, blah.
So today, I get to do all those things that I never allow myself to do. Lay around. Read this stack of books I've been meaning to read. Prepare for the upcoming writing lecture I'm giving at an Arts Conference. Dream.
And blog.
Maybe this isn't so bad after all.
If I could just convince this pain to stop gnawing out my eyeballs.
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