In Sickness and In Health

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

Last week, I got sick with a common cold. Thankfully, I tested negative for COVID-19, but it did break my health streak of avoiding acute illness since before the pandemic. That’s almost 5 years! Can you believe it’s been that long?

As I laid around trying to recover during the worst of it, I had a lot of time to reflect on how much I had forgotten about what it’s like to have a virus. First of all, it sucks to have such a sore throat that every swallow of food or drink feels onerous. Secondly, the human body has the capacity to produce SO much mucous. I feel like I’m fully made of postnasal drip at this point. Most importantly, though, being sick allowed me to realize how much I have to be thankful for.

Early in my career, I worked full-time as an accompanist for a school district, while also working part-time in arts administration and running my small piano studio. As you might guess, in those days I burned the candle at both ends, often working up to 13-hour days with few breaks in-between. Predictably, I got sick all the time.

As an accompanist, every time I took a sick day it derailed all the choir classes at my schools, impacting the students’ quality of education. I simply did not have the luxury of recovery time, especially when performances were on the horizon. So, I showed up to work even when I was sick. I rarely took time away from my other roles, too; I figured if I could go to my full-time job, I’d better show up for my other work too.

And I would remain sick for weeks. I was sick so often and for so long that on my last day working at the high school, the students gave me a farewell gift of… a bag of cough drops.

Compare that to the past 5 years of my life: I’ve been wildly privileged to be able to continue working from home most of the time, and to be able to take as many sick days as I need. I’ve been fortunate enough to avoid all the viruses that have been floating around out there over the past five years.

Over the past week, it has been incredibly humbling to realize how much I take for granted, especially around my body and my health. At times over the years, I have despaired over having mental illness, agonizing over why my brain can’t work like other people’s. I have found myself nitpicking over my appearance, plagued by internalized anti-fatness when looking in the mirror. I have felt anger at the world for giving me a body so drastically different from my sisters’ naturally thin frames. I have raged at the universe for doling out the injustice of my mental illness while neurotypical people get to live their lives without having to fight their own brains all day, every day.

The simple truth is that I’m not magically going to stop having these complicated feelings about my body or my mental illness overnight. It’s going to take years to process all the terrible messages, personal and systemic, that have been instilled in me about neurodivergence or fatness. Life is, in fact, harder for people who aren’t neurotypical or thin. I don’t (yet) know how to love the disadvantageous genes I have been given.

But it helps to remember that this body continues to function, keeping me alive even when I don’t really want to be. This random assortment of bones and skin and fat and synapses allows me to experience small joys like the vibrations of my cats purring while I pet them, the sounds of vibrant music, or the taste of foods I love.

For now at least, I can be grateful for this body that takes care of me—in sickness and in health.