Sometimes I feel like things were easier when I was a kid. Take being sick. Sure, on day one I stayed home from school feeling like death held me in its wrenching grasp. But after death passed, there came the few days of milking it. I took permanent residence on the couch watching Saved by the Bell, getting stories read to me, and having tomato soup and buttered toast delivered, until, against my pleading, my mom decided I was well enough to venture back to the classroom.

Now as an adult, being sick sucks. Not only do I feel like death, but every moment I can’t get out of bed the stress of what I should be doing is compiling. My emails are piling up, work is not getting done, and I am falling behind deadlines. How’s that for a restful time to recuperate?

Gone are the days of watching Saved By the Bell reruns and not having a care in the world. No, being sick as an adult is stressful because now there are bills to pay, meetings to attend, things we “must” do to keep our lives moving forward.

It feels sometimes that there’s no room for a pause, that the pause itself is wrought with stress and anxiety.

One day, the piercing headache on one side of my head, kept me in bed. My body needed water but instead decided to plague me with nausea thus resisting, like poison, the one thing my body required to heal. Since I was freezing and was taking my third burning hot shower of the day, and by taking a shower I mean sitting in the tub with the water running over me while I curled up like a wounded animal, I thought about all the people in the world that are in chronic pain.

I thought about a family friend who passed away from stomach cancer and the excruciating pain. I thought about another friend who has fibromyalgia and told me that sometimes her body hurts so bad it’s hard to get out bed. I thought about a writer I know who lost her child and how the grief weighed her down in bed for elongated months. I thought about a friend whose been going through the painful process of invitro, only to find out it didn’t work.

I thought about the faces that we present to the world, the masks we wear that say, “I’m great. Look at my smile.” I thought about the easy answer to the question, “How are you?”

“Fine. Fine. You?”

I though about the happy masks we wear when inside we are suffering. How when we can’t wear them anymore, we don’t want people to see us, at our worst.

Pain makes me selfish. I’ve been in bed, feeling deathly, my thoughts revolving solely around my sick body and my life. ME. ME. ME.

Sickness and pain make me focus on the downside of right now as I crybaby about not feeling good.

What if I was thankful instead? What if I said,

• “Thanks for the 350 days this year that I spent in great health.”
• “Thanks for the fact that I have an abundance of hot water to shower with.”
• “Thanks that my husband brought me soup and forced me to drink water and gave me medicine. Thanks that I have someone to take care of me.”
• “Thanks that I’m only sick and not actually dying.”
• “Thanks that I have food to eat and a TV to watch, and bed to sleep in.”
• “Thanks that I have someone to share the financial parts of life with.”
• “Thanks that I had friends to cancel plans with and a mom who doesn’t take it personally when I answer her questions with one word responses.”
• “Thanks for my cat who slept at the foot of my bed the whole time I was sick.”
• “Thanks that I have my problems and my issues to face.”

When I was in high school, we played a camp game called truth circle, where you discovered some gnarly things that were going on behind the scenes in people’s lives. Looking at the circle, I had a pointed revelation that if we all threw our stuff down in the middle of the circle, I’d be the first one running to pick up my own mess.

Our own messes may be difficult, they may feel unbearable, but somehow they are our own. They are our personal ordeals to teach us courage and persistence, to provide us with what we need to be our best selves.

I used to wonder if I came to earth having agreed to all this. I often wondered why anyone would agree to these heartaches? It was a comforting thought that perhaps I signed off on my lives struggles – it made my eating disorder bearable.

I don’t believe that now, but I do still believe that no matter what masks people wear, we each have our own battles to fight, our own opportunity to be hero’s in our own journeys. And we get to define the hero.

The next time you’re sick, try to remember to be thankful for all the things that we tend to take for granted. And remember to send love to all those out there who are in the midst of fighting their battle, whatever it may be.

Love Always.

With Love,

Z ;)