When I was little, I hated being sick. I was not one of those people who faked a stomach ache to get out of school. I didn’t have time for that.
Fast forward 20 some odd years and I still don’t. My mother often tells people that I don’t get sick because the germs are afraid of me. I wish that was the case 24/7. However, it’s not. And today, I’m sick.
And it’s annoying.
Cold and flu season this year is a bitch. It’s all you hear about on the news. I kept thinking I got my flu shot, I’ll be fine. Then I got clotheslined, leveled, with whatever this mucus-y nonsense is I’m battling.
I’m on day five. Generally, I’ve been hearing seven to ten days for this to run its course. Ain’t nobody got time for that.
So obviously after two days of staying home from work watching really bad daytime TV and stressing about emails, I saw rolling in, I pushed myself to go back to the office. I know I shouldn’t have been there. Everyone knows I shouldn’t have been there. But I didn’t have a choice.
Do I think I’m getting better? Slowly. Like at a snail’s pace. But I’m going back to work every day so of course, I’m exhausted.
Fast forward to today. My Life Hostage, bless his heart, comes home from work to tell me he sees no improvement and that he thinks I need to go to the doctor.
Here I sit, writing this in the urgent care office. You know the only thing they’re going to tell me? That my blood pressure is probably high because I spent the whole drive here annoyed!
I need to go to the doctor?!?! This coming from the man who will only see one doctor, an ENT, for everything from stitches to plantar fasciitis. How on earth he ever got comfortable with that doc, I’ll never know. And they’re all the same. My father, my life hostage, my brother. Can you tell I’m still heated?
When checking in at urgent care tonight, the very lovely lady behind the counter, Susan, asked me what brought me in. I said my annoying significant other. She spits out her coffee. She got it.
The more we spoke, the more I realized just how alike all men are. She has one too. We were just about finished when she said, “He’s more concerned about your well being than his own, that’s a good man.”
Well shit.
Susan the desk lady was right. I have a good man.
Now I felt guilty. The past month or so, my Life Hostage and I have been uber stressed out and very short with each other. Fights have been plentiful and thoughtfulness has been lacking. If I were to die tomorrow, would this have been worth getting annoyed over? Probably not. The majority of our disagreements lately wouldn’t be worth it.
Why do we do that? Take out stress and frustration on the person we love the most? When in fact we should be telling them that they are a good man or woman. It’s easier. I think that’s the magic bullet. They’re there, they’ll take our crap, it’s easy.
It shouldn’t be.
I’m going to make a conscious effort to start holding myself accountable for taking things out unnecessarily on my Life Hostage. I know he’ll do the same if I ask. We need to do better. People, in general, need to do better.
Oh, and it’s a cold. Gotta let it run its course. Kind of like life.
