Not just any illness. This one is freight with bad karma, with assumption, with judgement, which are all projected by my own mind onto the world. This one isn't a regular flu, and as much as I told myself this for two years there was no way to know for sure. It's uneasy. Dis-easing.
For the first few days it was really easy, my mind still somewhat clear and able to "gogogo" (at a slower pace of course). But then came the long fatigue and the exhaustion, the need to oversleep and to stop, to really stop. I'm no good at stopping, even though I had been trying to stop for months since the summer's work was over. The symptoms aren't sharp nor alarming; they're nothing to really fuss over. I feel like I've had more painful flus. My symptoms so far have been:
loss of smell (and therefore taste)
fever and chills
unregulated body temps
can't sleep a full night
painful eyes (so painful)
headaches, close to eyes
aching left side of neck, almost electric
hypersensitivity in my upper back
generally aching muscles
dullness and lack of interest
get full quickly, stomach hurts
quick heart beat
I've had to nap for 2 or 3 hours daily. Covid friends have come by, but it seems to deplete rather than replenish. I have eaten soup every day, tea concoctions, taken medicine every few hours. The lack of tastebuds helps with taking these down, but it hinders my joy for cooking up comforting meals. It's been about 8 days and I still feel really rough, each day surprising me with one step forward or one step back.
I'm into it - into this interesting battle - but I'd much rather be done now. I'd much rather be done, and yet I still don't wish I had been vaccinated. The fear of the vaccine's side effects in my body is greater than the fear of the side effects of Covid. I think many of them are similar actually, but the illness seems more natural for me to go through than an injection. And once I pull through to the other side of this, I can rest easy with immunity. The same can't be said about the vaccine. Maybe I'm foolish. Maybe I'm choosing to find facts that argue my position. If I had side effects from the shot, I'd be silenced and gaslighted. Having side effects from Covid, I would be heard and listened to, and maybe even made an example of in the media. "She could have avoided this had she been vaccinated". Yes, but at least you trust my illness. You wouldn't trust my cry for help after a vaccine injury.
It's always been scary to be sick, pre-Covid and all. Now my mind wanders to wondering what will become of my heart, of my lungs, of my active mind. I meditate on health and love, I bring in the light. Yet no matter, there is still fear inside, fear of being someone who doesn't recover, who recovers 90%, who dies. Yeah, extreme, I know. I've never been in this position before, and I never knew what it would be like. I didn't expect myself to feel so weak, but weakness is the truth: there is no control over this body other than what I choose to feed it. Don't worry, I don't feel like I'm dying. It's only a mind-based fear.
I "wanted" to write this, and yet there is so little of wanting anything in me. Even the sense of wanting is dull when I experience it. So this isn't elegant, it's not artful. I wish I could say this sickness brought visions or poetry or higher states of consciousness. Nope. It's boring as fuck.
