Something's Coming

I have a cold.

No. Wait. I don't actually have a cold. Not YET, anyway.

But I can feel it coming.

See, I had kind of a busy weekend that involved staying up late and spending a lot of time in an enclosed place with a lot of people and loud music that I could feel reverberate through every bone in my body.

So last night, when I kept waking up thinking, "Hey! I have a sore throat" I thought is was nothing but a fluke and a reaction to breathing in heated air.

But this morning, as I sit here and think, "Hey. My throat is a little scratchy," I know. I feel it coming for me. The cold.

I can feel it creeping into my nasal passages, making breathing just a little more difficult. I can feel it in my head. I'm really fine, but my head is just a teensy bit heavier, a smidgen foggier. I'm oh so slightly more tired than usual.

When I had the flu last year, I shut down the world. I tried for a little while, getting the boys to school, making meals, trying to hit all of our karate, piano, library commitments. But eventually I just stopped. I declared a state of emergency and shut down all government funded programs (within my home). I sat in bed for days (days!) and watched every single episode of Robin Hood while drifting in and out of consciousness. And the single thought in my head was "I feel like crap. I might never feel normal again. Please let there be a time when I don't feel so awful."

It didn't get so bad as the times I had food poisoning, when I actually found myself thinking death would be preferable to ten more minutes of sitting on the bathroom floor wondering if I was going to throw up again or could crawl back to by bed. But still, my mind was all about how I felt, physically.

Right now I don't feel that bad. I feel pretty OK, except that I can feel what's coming. And the thought in my head isn't about sleeping or feeling better one day. I'm looking around and thinking. "I have a lot of stuff to do. I don't have time for this crap!"

Go away, cold. I don't have time for you.