On Being Sick

Aw, boy.  Being sick is a drag.  I can can stare out into nothingness for 10 straight minutes, come-to again and not recall one thought that went through my head.  Keeps you in check though.  Keeps you grateful that you don’t regularly feel woozy every time you stand up, you don’t have excess fluid in your eyes and throat and you don’t want to fall asleep every other hour.  

My entire body has been sensitive to all elements.  Last night I put a fork full of food in my mouth and my whole mouth tingled — my taste-buds were doing backflips!  I think my eyes even watered.  When I shower, my skin is so in love with the hot water that I can’t bring myself to get out — a moment out of the hot water is frigid when you have fever-like symptoms and if you stay in it for an extended time you feel faint afterwards.  

The transition from sick to healthy can be so subtle and rest assured we all take it for granted.  The health usually shows up in the form of energy; you laugh more easily, you stand up from sitting with more spring in your step and you want to get out a bit more.

I’m feeling the subtle energy tonight.  I’m going out for dinner and I’m not sure how it’s going to go.  Either way, it’s a good step.  I’m putting myself in a setting with more energy than I can find at home and I’m feeling a bit more energetic as well.  Hopefully, the restaurant and I will mesh.

“You Feel Life More…”

I was out in the backyard gardening (something I’m doing a lot more of these days) and ran into my neighbor (not a rare occurrence).  She is an avid gardener with a particular affinity toward succulents.  She asked me if I was taking the day off.  I was surprised that I had not yet told her about my departure from my job and all the wackiness that surrounded it.  I brought her up to date and she asked me how I was feeling about my new lifestyle.  I told her that I loved it.  She was right there with me in understanding how much I loved it.  She immediately said, “Yeah, you feel life more.”  I speechlessly nodded.  There is no better way to explain it.  I imagine it’s how retirement feels…but I’m 30 years early.

This feeling has got to be different from retirement, though, because sometimes I don’t feel entitled to this break — and that makes it all the more enjoyable. It’s like I’ve been skipping school for 2 months.  My dad helps keep this feeling alive simply with the tone of his voice.  He knows I’ll be fine, but he’s my dad.  But many times I do feel entitled to this break, however, and know that this lifestyle could actually be my reality.  I’m not talking about never working again, but working for myself.  I’ve scratched the surface by getting a few new clients but I still feel “unemployed” since I work so little and “feel life“ so darn much!

What Comes to the Surface

Being out of work and having lots and lots of time, desires/life-dreams seem to come up more frequently than they did when I was working FT (full-time). For instance, I’ve wanted to sing and pick up an instrument lately. I’ve had this desire many times before, but when I worked FT it bugged me about once a month. Now it’s once every 2 or 3 days. I guess it makes sense. I have more space and time to even consider doing things that I like to do. But I’m wondering how these desires initially got so far away from me in the first place. The answer is probably obvious, but I still think it’s important to consider.

Things are easier to see after you’ve sort of “broken-up” with your job. You realize why you left, you know why you’re better off now, you know what’s good and what’s bad. All this “sight” comes to the surface…all this visual acuity…inner-visual acuity. It’s what happens when you go on vacation…but I’m on a long one…with no warm beach or fresh fruit…and no nice hotel. Hey! This vacation sucks!

Dreaming Every Night

Being unemployed, I’m sleeping a full night’s sleep. When I was working an 8-5 job, I would go to sleep around 11:30 or 12 and get up at 6:30 in the morning. That’s around 6 & 1/2 or 7 hours of sleep and it never felt like enough. Waves of sleepiness would hit me frequently throughout the day. I knew it was too little, but I never tried to change it.

Now, by body is getting (and telling me that it wants) almost exactly 8 hours each night. I don’t use an alarm anymore and my head pops up at the 8-hour mark every morning! It’s wild! So, if I ever have another 8-5 job again, I gotta remember this and give my body what it wants: eight long hours.

And along with all this sleep has come all this dreaming. I haven’t dreamed so consistently in years. It’s really amazing. Is it attributed to the fact that I’m getting 1-2 more hours of sleep each night? Is it that I’m more well rested…cumulatively? Is it that I am going through a lot of change and my mind is taking in a lot of new ideas and thinking many new thoughts? Is it that I spend much of my day alone and don’t get to release what’s going on in my head as often as I was able to before, when I interacted with humans? Well, that’s one of the reasons I decided to start Sweet Strain. Perhaps my dreams will start to become less vivid once I really get on a roll with this blog. I sure don’t want them to lessen, but I’ll try to stay aware of it. And then I’ll have to make a choice: dreaming every night or writing Sweet Strain?