[AE.Personal] When An Illness Meets An Illness Coming Through The NYE
A few minutes before I started writing this, I tweeted out the words "Chronic illness is what happens when you're making other plans."
I did have plans for this week, for the first week of a new month and a new year. I have a superstitious dislike of starting anything new entirely within New Year's Day. Not because I believe that anything bad will come of it, but because I feel like a person is bound to be superstitious about something and I have made the deliberate choice to pick something that is entirely self-contained within one day out of the year, and one that is a holiday of zero to low expectations. New Year's Eve is the big event; the day is for sleeping it off.
Conveniently, the turning of the year fell on midnight between a Friday and Saturday, giving me a full weekend to sleep it off and bounce back before the new year properly began on Monday. Except that I had overextended and overbooked myself when it came to planning holiday festivities for the household, and there is something in my mind that saw that convenient expanse of time and thought, "Well, good, instead of canceling all the stuff that didn't fit in one night, I can spread them out over the whole weekend."
Sometime Sunday afternoon, sometime between a time-shifted New Year's Brunch of my own instigation and the arrival of our weekly grocery order -- one of my primary responsibilities in the household -- I felt something shift, twist, and then give out in my system. I was sick. Not necessarily with anything bad, definitely not necessarily with The Bad Thing, but definitely sick. I can tell when I'm sick because I have a mitochondria-based fatigue disorder and whenever there are antibodies to be made, the tiny starship captain of my body cries out "Divert all available power to shields!" and everything grinds to a halt at once. That's why I'm thinking in terms of chronic illness when I'm dealing with a (one hopes) temporary one: because it all comes to bear.
I've learned -- through more repetition than should be necessary -- that when this happens it's better to crawl into bed and sleep it off than it is to bravely struggle on in spite of it. All perseverance gets me is more sick and more tired for longer.
If you haven't been seeing this play out on Twitter: I have tested negative for covid, so far. I am not in the market for testing advice, even if it's preceded by "In case you didn't know..." I am feeling better. Not all the way better, but out of bed and out of misery. I am taking things easy. I am avoiding making any plans beyond the most basic tasks necessary to sustain existence.
I'm hoping that next week will be better, that by next week I will be better.
The plans deferred include:
Starting this month's NiNoBilMa.
Dipping my toes into virtual hangouts related to NiNoBilMa.
An updated approach to my newsletter that results in more updates here and less time on Twitter.
Some official-ish reflections on the year that ended and the year that's beginning.
For now, my decision is that the new year hasn't started. Time is relative, deadlines are fake, and the divisions of the calendar are arbitrary. I used to feel like the new year hadn't properly begun until I could write a check without getting the last digit of the date wrong. I don't write checks anymore, which means the year begins when I say it does. I still exist in the liminal space that exists between the longest night of the year and the day the last page falls off the calendar.
So some or all of those things may come next week. They may come at different times. Some of them may still peek their heads out this week. Some of them may not come at all, and that's fine. I'm doing what I can, and that has to be good enough, because I can't change it if it's not enough.
Until then -- whenever then is -- I'll leave you with this: Stay warm... or cool, as necessary. Stay temperate and comfortable. May your home be dry, your air be moist, and your crops be watered, whatever that means for you. If you aren't having a good year yet, I hope you'll have one soon.