I like to think that over the past almost-five years of living away from home that I've managed to pick up a good deal of knowledge about how to be an adult. I can do my laundry and make myself meals, pay my bills, go to work...But one thing I cannot do is be sick. If there's anything that makes me want to crawl back home and curl up in my childhood bed, it's an illness. Anything from a bad cold to stomach flu (which I battled last winter while dogsitting for a friend - not advised) to the throat infection I'm currently fighting off will have me on the phone with my mom in no time, mumbling in my most pitiful voice, "Mommy, I don't feel good." Google and WebMD just can't take the place of my mother's infinite wisdom - as far as I'm concerned she knows more than either of them put together. I don't think that when I was younger I really appreciated what my mother did for me when I was sick (which was fairly often - say hello to the kid who had pneumonia twice). After all, because she was there I could spend all my time focused on how terrible I felt without actually having to do anything for myself. Now I get to focus on how terrible I feel, but also navigate medicating and feeding myself, not to mention changing my own sheets after spending a day sick in bed, instead of my mom doing it while I sit on the couch watching TV with a glass of ginger ale in front of me.
This weekend was a tough one - mostly spent curled up in the fetal position in bed, alternating between sleeping and watching movies (and eating way too much ice cream during the latter). It was the first time I had gone to a doctor in NYC for something urgent, and it didn't help that I had to drag myself there, and then to the pharmacy, in the pouring rain. When I felt marginally better on Sunday afternoon, instead of getting to revel in the hour in which neither my throat nor my head hurt, I had to muster up the energy to go to the grocery store so that I might have something to eat for the rest of the week. And then today, back to work, even though I'm not at a hundred percent - though, luckily I'm no longer contagious. This might be the hardest part of growing up for me. I can rely on myself for a lot of things, but taking care of myself when sick is not something that comes easily for me. I'm undoubtedly my own worst patient, capable of really plumbing the depths of self-pity. But I'm trying my best to get through, and in the process hopefully growing up a little in the process. And hey, it's still better than that time I had pneumonia in August.
