After a lovely Labor Day jaunt down to Las Vegas with some exceptionally dear friends of mine, I felt rejuvenated, peppy and de-stressed. Work (of which we do not speak here) was going well and my life seemed to be moving along at a good clip. I’d had several wonderful epiphanies lately that caused me feel amazingly well balanced and at peace with the universe. I had a wonderful weekend last weekend with a re-discovered friend, catching up and getting entirely too inebriated.
Then the joy of Trauma Week of 2007: Now With More Irritation happened. I found out that a co-worker and friend of mine from my previous internment camp job had committed suicide. This was a deeply disturbing and upsetting thing to hear. She was unhappy and though surrounded by a great support network of loving friends, she had made a choice, set a plan, and carried through with ending her own life. I’ve been there before, sitting on precipice of fate, taking all the ideas of my continued existence and turning them over in my hands like stones, looking for the silver lining. For whatever reasons that I found I was able to back away from that cliff and turn back toward the rolling plains, deciding to look for hope beyond the next hill. Unfortunately my friend was not able to find a reason in her sadness, to find a hope or even to procrastinate that choice, and with a very severe finality ended it all.
Then, though nothing in comparison to what I had learned, I woke up Monday in pain, my body hurt all over but most specifically my throat hurt, it burned and my tonsils were swollen badly. I thought that it might just be a head cold or some other short-termed malady, but as I woke Tuesday my symptoms were worse. I went to my local medical rapid care center to confirm my fears, I found that I had strep. This meant that I would have to take Wednesday off as well so that I wouldn’t burden them with my illness now that I was confirmed to be an incubus of bacterial plague. I had to use the majority of my vacation time to pay for this leave of absence, vacation time I was hoarding for a more exciting trip at another time.
I returned to work Thursday, only to take Friday off for the funeral of my friend. I hate funerals, they always gravitate toward the realm of enhancing or deepening whatever feelings of sorrow you may have instead of providing a time for people to laugh about times past without guilt of offense or social taboo. It was nice to be able to go and pay respects, it was just a really uncomfortable and saddening time as funerals inevitably tend to be.
This weekend has been very helpful in providing me a chance to recharge and re-center myself. I’ve thought a lot about things and I’ve decided that I need to slow down and re-focus on some of the things that I do to enjoy myself by myself. I’m certain I became ill because i’ve been very busy, no matter how refreshing it was to go on vacation, it didn’t change the fact that I’ve been moving non-stop for the last 3-months. I need to focus on projects that I care about, like this site, and allow myself more “me time”. This is not to say that I don’t love every second I which I spend with the people I care about, they make my life a very fulfilling and rewarding one, but I think that in our age of hustle and bustle there may not be enough focus to the concept of being comfortable with yourself to be alone by yourself without the distraction of the outside world. Being able to be your own ally and positive support and not your own worst critic and opposition is not easy, but some events just drive home the understanding of how fragile we are and how careful we must be to stay healthy, happy, and well.