1/29/24

I want to lie in my bed, all day, for the rest of my life. I won't sleep, or at least I don't sleep, but even at 3 AM, when anger begins bubbling up inside at the fact that I'm not sleeping, at least I'm in bed. A bed is a safe space. With the door closed, the window cracked open, and more pillows than can fit on one-half of my matters, no matter how little sleep I get, I'm happy that I'm in bed. To me, a bed means tranquility,  no responsibility, somewhere I can laugh out loud or cry or sing or wallow in self-pity for hours on end, and more times than I would like to admit, that tranquility is all I want in my life. The only downside to "bed" is the wrongly placed societal expectation that at one point, it is agreed everyone must exit their bed. You can "chill" in bed for a few hours before going to sleep, and maybe an hour max after waking up. You shouldn't eat there, and god forbid you to lie down without taking off your outside clothes or at least your shoes. A bed is for sleep and relaxing, nothing more; unless you're sick. 

When I'm sick, society gives me the grace of not expecting me to get out of bed if I don't want to. My pillow cases are covered in snot, and I'm wearing the same socks, sweatpants, and underwear I wore the day before, but it's okay because I'm sick. When I do leave my bed, maybe even my room, nobody expects me to go out. I do not have to socialize or be a functional member of society, all I have to do is focus on feeling better, and drink liquids, if Im sick enough my Mom might even send me a doordashed care package. I could skip class or call off work. I can procrastinate on my projects and not work out for a week. I can lie in bed all day long and my friends will still ask if I'm okay, instead of wondering why I'm such a lazy piece of shit. 

This past Christmas, my Mom caught a pretty bad cold. Runny nose, sore throat, the whole shebang, she had tissues littering the floor in a 10 ft proximity to her, and not a single person expected her to do the duties they usually rely on her for. She got a well-earned break that she would have to beg her husband and work for on a normal day, finally, all thanks to the common cold. Thank god she gave it to me. I was fine, for the most part. The sore throat tore the voice right out of my vocal cords and turned into that of a 40 seductive jazz singer from the Bronx, which then subsided to an extreme case of a very watery and very runny nose. It lasted about two weeks, and throughout that, all I said was how badly I wanted to feel better. Oh how wrong I was. 

For the past few weeks, Christian has been in a bit of a rut. The details of which need not be mentioned, but sufficient to say that my mental state was pretty on par with the sound of my voice and the swollenness of my lymph nodes. Though on the same level, one sickness is met with courtesy, with hushed tones and an offer of assistance if need be, while the other is looked at with sorrow, pity, and the expectation that telling me to just "live one day at a time" is going to do anything even remotely productive. However, because of how badly I was feeling in my noggin, it made sense to me that once I felt better in my body, the noggin would follow suit. Once I can breathe through my nose again, and take a shower without snotting halfway down my face, I will feel better, mentally, as well. What I failed to consider was that all the niceties I was receiving, the grace, the checking in, were all due to the physical attributes of sickness I was portraying, and once that went away, as did all the baby voices and boxes of tissues I didn't have to pay for. 

Two weeks after Christmas, I felt good as new. My voice was back to its normal nasally monotone, and I could once again pick my nose, rather than blow it. I felt good; physically. A new issue arose when I realized I did not feel good in any other way. I missed my Mom. I missed my Sister. I felt lonely. I wanted to lie in bed from 6 PM to 12 AM and do nothing but hold myself the way I wanted to be held, the only downside was I was no longer allowed to. Without the swollen nodes and constantly blushed nose and cheeks, I had to go back to class. I had to get 30 minutes of exercise every day. I had to do shit again, and worst of all, I had run out of valid excuses. 

When you're depressed, everything is the same as having a cold. The lethargy, the vocal fry, the desire to rot your day away wallowing in the queasy feeling in your stomach that chases you no matter how many "home remedies" you attempt. The only difference is not everyone can relate. Not everyone knows the feeling of watching the minutes tick by and the impending sense of doom are your class grows closer and you're still in bed, with an unwashed face, and puffy red eyes from dehydration crying all morning has caused you. And to those people, those feelings are real. Anyone can acknowledge that feelings are real feelings people have, but if you haven't been there, chances are you won't understand what said feeling actually feels like. So you have to go to class. You have to get out of bed and try on an outfit. You have to clean up after yourself and eat real food that isn't exclusively microwaved Chicken Noodle Soup from WinCo. 

I miss being sick. I miss being actually sick, the kind of sick a professor will excuse an absence for, and even your mildly emotionless Dad will check in and see how you're doing. I miss being sick because, for the past 12 years of my life, I feel sick every single day. The downside is it isn't a sickness that goes away no matter how many home remedies and medications you try. A sickness that, as helpless as it is to hear, taking it day by day is all you really can do. I miss being sick because it allows me the excuse to act how I feel without seeming like I'm letting it take over me. Because I can lie in my bed all day without my Mom's voice in my head telling me I just have to keep going. I want to be sick because it's the only time a depressed person can feel without the equal amount of shame that comes along with feeling your feelings. I'm sick because I'm 21 years old, in the supposed prime years of my life, and I spent two hours today researching how I can catch a cold.