So yesterday I felt great. Actually really great. I even said to my son on the way home from school “I feel really good! Do you ever just feel really good?”

I believe in writing we refer to that as foreshadowing . . .

I will spare you the details, but my evening progressed strangely and included 100 plus degree temps and puking up my dinner. Wait, I guess those were the details. Also, I have a cough that’s making me feel like a 30 yr plus 2 pack a day smoker. So yeah, that. I was shaking so badly last night that my sweet 17 yr old put 6 blankets on me to try to help. Sweet boy.

The thing is I’m just not very good at being sick. Not as an adult, anyway. As a kid I was sick A LOT. nobody really knows why but I had a weak immune system and spent a lot of time at home with chicken noodle soup and the tiny portable TV my mom would graciously put in my room.

So as an adult, when I became a runner and a vegetarian, and paid such careful attention to my health, I was thrilled when my constant sicknesses became a distant memory.

All that to say this: I HATE SICK DAYS. And I don’t want to. I want to embrace the fact that sick days happen to everybody and I have permission to do lots of things I would never dream of. Watch all four hours of The Today Show (actually this was a tad disappointing – they kept telling me they were going to talk about Oprah’s 60th birthday but it took them like 90 minutes to get there. Blerg).

I should be able to lay around and drink tea and not feel even a tad guilty of all the things I’m not accomplishing. All the miles I’m not logging. All the work things I’m not contributing to. All the people I’m ignoring.

And yes, I know there’s some deep seated psycho junk there. It all goes back to my not feeling I have worth unless I’m contributing. Which is a lie. Because I have worth because God made me and Jesus died for me. And even if I became the worst employee ever and my home looked like something out of Hoarders that wouldn’t change. Ever. And also this is not cancer or some long term illness that so many suffer through. I will be better. Most likely by the weekend.

So tomorrow I am going to try to embrace my sick day. I’m going to fight the urge to feel guilt and self condemnation because I’m not contributing to the world. And by keeping the flu out of my office, I am, in a way, contributing. So I will rest and be OK with that.

And I’m not watching The Today Show again. It’s definitely time to make my way through my Rodgers and Hammerstein movie musical set I got for Christmas. Because if State Fair can’t cure what ails you, I don’t know what can.

Happy Running,

Jen