Snaps from last week

Last week was a good one, and that fact that I wasn’t expecting it to be made it even better. Last week was an assignment week – three due in two days, out of a total six due in three weeks. I thought it would be a grind of a week – sitting at home, hunched over my computer, mugging tea and rocking pyjamas like my own silent protest against the professional field those assignments were guiding me into (or, more realistically, my characteristic disregard of personal hygiene). But it wasn’t.

Don’t get me wrong; there were still assignments. There was still the hunch and you bet it was brought on in part by the belly full of tea I sported constantly. But it wasn’t a grind.

I wrote those assignments. I researched and edited and painstakingly went back over my work. I drank that tea. But I also cooked great meals and went for study-break walks and looked at beautiful things on instagram and received mail. And I loved it. I didn’t have to grind it out – I worked hard, but I enjoyed it. I spent a long hard week working long and hard and I felt proud of the effort I put in. Proud of myself for not needing to grind.

Here are some photos of what I did this week. I went for an afternoon walk every day. I made myself great lunches (there’s homemade hummus, broccoli, spinach and brown rice in that wrap). I got my participant pack for Live Below the Line, a fundraising challenge I participate in every year. And I drank a whole lot of tea and smashed those assignments out.

Great week.

Not gonna lie, this week hasn’t quite hit the same heights as the last one did. I haven’t slept well and I haven’t exercised and I’ve ignored all my important emails and I’ve eaten too much peanut paste (I know, I know, it’s the best, but yeah sometimes wow Soph that jar is going to go from full to not full in five days with how we’re tracking). But looking at these photos again, remembering last week, remembering how I killed it, I’m feeling pretty good for next week.

Happy weekend!

Currently

Playing this song on repeat

Drinking ginger green tea like it’s my job

Watching broccoli seedlings grow

Researching trade practices law

Planning an eco fair visit for the weekend

Burning a coconut lime candle on my study desk

Wearing slippers again

Hosting friends for dinner tonight

Looking forward to peanut butter hot chocolate post-essay celebrations

Soaking in the last few sunny days

 

That photo is from The Little Concept, the cafe in Fremantle I will be visiting when I finish writing my essay. Waiting for Wednesday but not wishing away today.

Help, I’m trapped in bed with Girls

Curled pathetically in bed, pillows piled up behind my head supporting what surely must be my final few breaths, I squint through gummed-up eyes at the computer screen flickering before me as I unearth first one, then two weakened hands from the mountain of blankets with which I covered myself upon my post-breakfast return to bed, and  haltingly begin to type this message. This message – surely my last earthly words; my manifesto – my final contribution before I slip from this world. With all the clarity of the deathbed confessor I see now what I didn’t before and I realise, profoundly, that you were right all along.

I see now that being sick is really shitty. 

I’m not talking about terminal cancer sick, or heart disease sick, or dialysis sick, or depression sick. I’m talking about your everyday, run-of-the-mill, head-blocking nose-wiping flu kind of sick, and all the macabre self-pity that accompanies it. Because that, in all its glory, is what has consigned me to bed today, and obviously, I’m dealing with it with the utmost of grace.

The run of good health that has seen me fortunately avoid the kind of illnesses that would legitimately require me to spend the day in bed extends to this kind of flu – even when I do catch something, I’ve always been able to soldier on, going about my day with manic resilience. Caught, no doubt, from my mother, who knocks back a handful of herbal garlic tablets every time she feels a hint of the sniffles and who consequently hasn’t been sick since Britney loved Justin (and then for reasons likely relating to that, rather than ill health), my eternal optimism in the face of illness has lead me to be somewhat intolerant of people who fall down with the flu.

But today, as I scrape another crumpled tissue over my red-raw nose, I understand. To those people I dismissed, to those doctors appointments I derived, to those $12 throat lozengers I railed against, to all sufferers of the common cold, great and small I say this – I’m sorry.

I see now that being sick is really shitty.

My inclination to dismiss sickness took a blow this time because my cold came around when all of my optimism was concentrated on making it through uni exams. Already rallying in the face of fire I took a blow on an uncovered flank; my first indication of man down a scratchy sore throat that didn’t yield, despite my late cavalry of hot tea and early nights. Sensing my vulnerability they hit harder – waves of headaches, tiredness and the atom bomb of illness, the stuffy, constantly dripping nose. I held out until the second beer post-final-exam then I was down – carried wounded by my comrades to the sickbed where I now lie.

Initially frustrated with myself, I tried to pretend I wasn’t sick. I made post-exam plans, I went swimming, I ate dinner, I drank those two damn beers. But last night, after I’d managed only a brief period of respite from watching Girls and clutching a tea mug beneath my blanket fort, a walk downstairs that unfortunately made me feel like I had run like Shoshanna from Ray (or very far very quickly, as if on crack, if you’re that way inclined), I had to realise that I was not ok. I had to realise I was sick; I had to let myself be sick, and that was ok.

I realised that I don’t have to fight against sickness, I don’t have to wear my health as a badge of honour. I don’t have to tell myself I’m not allowed to be sick, not allowed to take care of myself; particularly when this sickness has come about as a direct result of finishing a challenging, exhausting set of exams. I’m tired, I’m sick, and that’s ok.

I feel really shitty, and that’s ok.

So excuse me now, as I withdraw my shaking hands back into my fortress of blankets and self-pity, wish pathetically for someone to bring me more hot drinks, queue another Girls episode (and look online for quirky merchandise), draw my blinds and settle in for the first day I’ve ever allowed myself of medicinal bed rest. And if this is it, if this is the end, I thank you to be kind to each other and if bereavement gifts are appropriate, kindly gift my family this cross stitch from that same episode.