All this feeling sorry for myself over a cold makes me feel like I have to put life into perspective. So I took a moment to remind myself how lucky I am to be living no only where I am, but when! Could you imagine being around when they were counting dates backwards to 0 and Leprosy was the disease to watch out for. Forget sneezing, you might sneeze your face off. Literally!
“Hey, have you seen Chuck lately? He owes me some money”
“Well, his arm is right there on my rock bed… it fell off when he was on his way to meet some friends. Maybe some cash is still in his hand?”
Or what about being around during the Bubonic Plague?
“Hey, do you know where Timmy is? He borrowed my hat and never gave it back to me.”
“Yeah, he melted. Your hat is probably right on top of the pile.”
I can’t even imagine!! I am not going to even get into how many people die today because they don’t have clean water. Water. The same stuff we put our shit into.
My point is, although it may suck in the moment to have your health taken from you or someone you love, don’t lose site of the empathy this experience could potentially ignite. A lot of times we don’t care about something until if effects us personally. Think about it. Would Michael J Fox care about Parkinson’s if he didn’t have it? (Is that okay for me to say? I can fully admit that before I had kids I really didn’t care how many hours a night they slept, or how much their poo changed after they started eating food. And you know what? Now I do care. A lot. I want to talk about it until things get awkward). Although suffering sucks, it also can inspire you to help other people in a truly profound way… because you know what it is like. It is not just sympathy, or pity, but an actual bond of experience.
So I am putting this out there… now that I know the suffering of the worst cold ever created in this dimension of space and time… now that I can no longer say, “I never get sick…” Now that I am no longer the type of person who licks public property because “I have a good immune system…” I am now transformed into the cold avenger… The Snot Savior… The Booger oBliterator… and if you have a cold and need someone to take care of you I am your girl!
(The Munch likes to match her toys and surroundings when contemplating The Plague)
