Wednesday January 28 2015

I have broken the cardinal rule of flu season.  I have, with foot firmly planted in mouth, uttered the words "I don't know why, but I have gotten sick yet".  This statement caused the nasty germs that have been floating around me for weeks, courtesy of friends and family, to declare "hey, we gotta smug one, let's go in".   And go in they did,  Right to my sinuses and ears, and I think they set up base camp on my chest because it certainly felt like a an army was sitting there.  So, serves me right.  I know I should never say those words, because they never fail to come back and bite me in the ass.  I even stated that I had not gotten the flu shot this year and I HAVE BEEN FINE!   Luckily, no flu.  Yet.  Isn't the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results?  

When I am sick, I don't want people fussing around me.  I don't want someone to coddle me, making me soup and bringing me various medications and home cures that they swear by.  I don't want sympathetic tut tuts and blanket straightenings.  I just want to hide in my lair and wallow in my own germy filth till I feel better and emerge several days later as my usual cheerful self.  This is hard for my loved one to understand.  Her need to feel needed goes unmet.  Her need to 'fix' me goes unmet.

 As a child I was sick often.  And I don't ever remember being anything but alone during my illnesses.  I had a working mother.  I had a undemonstrative, distant mother.   The only person who babied me when I was sick was my paternal grandmother whom I rarely saw except at Christmas at which time I obliged her need to be needed by getting tonsilitis...every year until we had my tonsils out when I was 11, and the next year I obliged her by getting the chicken pox.  That was the end of Christmas visits as I recall.  My mother decided if I was going to get sick every time I went there, there was no point in going.

So childhood illnesses were often spent alone at home, wondering what my friends were doing at school, and watching soap operas and the afternoon movies, some of which gave me nightmares at night.   I got used to taking care of myself.  In my family, illness was often met with irritation and it was better not to complain.  That went for injuries as well.  You just didn't do anything that would put anyone out.  You didn't make yourself a nuisance or a burden, or extra work for an already overburdened and overworked parent.  And God forbid your illness should last more than one day.

Anyway, my point is...what is my point?  Oh yes, my point is that when I am sick, offer my a good wish if I post it on Facebook, but otherwise don't fuss over me.  And don't take my need for solitude at these times as a personal rejection.  It's not.  I'ts just what I know.  It's what I am comfortable with.  And believe me when I say I am sparing you the sick me, for which you should be grateful.