Today I called in sick to work. I was up most of the night with a mystery stomach problem that lasted until about midday. This morning I went back and forth over whether to go to work or not. I was gradually feeling better but I was having waves of nausea about once an hour that sometimes sent me to the bathroom. My real dilemma in making the decision was that I didn’t have my work laptop with me. If I had that then the decision to stay home would have been easy. Now mind you, I have VPN access to my work email and such from home anyway but I really wanted the files I had just been working on last night. In the end I decided I couldn’t chance either feeling worse through the day or having a little accident on public transportation on the way in and I stayed home.
I was still a little agitated about the laptop for a while and then I had an “insight”. Maybe if I was sick, I should just rest and (OMG) not work. When I had a total butt-kicking flu last month (for five frickin’ days) I had my trusty laptop and managed to at least answer email between dizzy spells, through the haze of the fever. Today I was not nearly so sick as that but it felt really good to just allow my body and mind to rest. And not feel guilty about it. Nor stressed. The work will be there when I go back tomorrow and if a deadline gets pushed here or there the world will not end.
I have been pushing the envelope in terms of stress and self-imposed expectations. I need to come back to a simpler place of “when hungry, eat” or, as the case may be, “when sick, be sick”.
RockTreeSky 