It only took getting Covid for me to chill out...
One of the things I’ve been meditating on a LOT lately is the idea of letting go.
I hold on so tightly to trying to maintain a semblance of control over things that it manifests in my permanently stiff neck and shoulders, my tightly-clenched jaws, the squeezing of my head.
Friday morning, I was getting ready to leave for LAX for a weekend in Austin when I looked at the *Oura app on my phone. I’m a little too reliant on checking data to tell me how I’m feeling physically but that’s a story for another day. I’d slept like shit the night before, which I just chalked up to an early flight, but a check of the Oura app showed me that my temperature was up 1.9 degrees from the night before.
I’d gotten tested the day before because I had a sore throat and figured it would just be my luck that if I finally got covid (this was my first time!), it would be right before a weekend I was really excited for. I was going to Austin for a friend’s 40th birthday, which was also just a good excuse to visit my dear friend Morgan.
My test was negative on Thursday, and that elevated temperature is the only reason I thought to test again on Friday morning. As I told Morgan, my temperature runs like a lizard—it’s rare my temperature even gets up to 98.0. Usually it hovers somewhere between 97.5-97.8.
For as long as we’ve had at-home tests, I’ve been convinced that I’m doing it wrong because I’d never tested positive. But nah, this shit lit up right away. I guess I have been doing it right all this time.
I did a quick Telehealth visit with One Medical, got a Paxlovid prescription due to having mild asthma, sent a few emails letting my editor know the status of some assignments…and let go.
Like most people, I’ve been afraid of getting covid—afraid of getting a serious case, afraid of long covid, afraid of my own mortality. I’ve been sending around this article about not powering through and working even if you’re working from home to friends who’ve gotten it and are doing just that.
(I know I’m lucky in so many ways: that I only have myself to care for, work flexibility, healthy enough to know I will probably be OK, getting it this late in the game means I’m vaxxed and could get paxlovid, and knowing that I have health insurance and can access care if I need to.)
So, for once, I took my own advice?! I knew not to fuck around with covid. I immediately ripped off my Apple Watch and only looked at my laptop to stalk the CVS delivery of the Paxlovid. I took the first dose on Friday night…
…and promptly spent at least 12 of the next 24 hours (not continuously) asleep. I had a few patches yesterday where I felt incredibly weak. Taking Lucy out (masked!) in the courtyard and then bringing groceries in from outside my door about wiped me out, and my lungs felt sore afterwards. That scared the shit out of me.
But otherwise…being sick felt weirdly relaxing. In a way I haven’t felt in a while. Which is a little fucked up, doncha think?
Gone was the head pressure, the muscle tightness, the related brain fog.
It’s funny how once I felt like my life literally depended on me taking care of myself the right way, I knew exactly what to do. All that meaningless chatter in my brain turned down, I unplugged from devices other than my phone (which I didn’t always leave right next to me) and TV. If I needed more sleep…I…slept more? In normal times, I have a mental agenda even for “free” time and am telling myself what I “should” do…and I let myself have no “shoulds.”
I only had a few fleeting thoughts of wishing my mom could take care of me, and I realize that’s because I was actually mothering myself—I mean, me, Instacart, and my BFF upstairs, Kate, who also brought me soup and took out Lucy that first day.
I know I’m not 100% out of the woods yet and I’m going to be careful to not just jump right back into everything. But I want to be able to feel some of this relaxation without having to contract a nasty respiratory virus??
We all deserve that. To be able to care for ourselves without needing to be sick to do so.
And when I realized my chronic issues felt better, and I somehow felt more present and clear-headed (albeit sleepy) with covid, I realized I really gotta be better at this.
I always say things like this when I get sick, and eventually drift back to normal habits, but three things I’m going to take from this right now:
HYDRATE. I plainly just don’t drink enough water normally. I honestly have mostly have had Gatorade Zero, not actual water, while sick, but watering this plant known as my human body…helps??
Unplug when I can. Obviously as a writer and a telehealth therapist, I have to spend a lot of time in front of my computer. But all of this is a good reminder to minimize the unnatural light and that terrible hunched-over posture as best I can. I’ve also really enjoyed not wearing my Apple Watch this weekend…tbd if I do that in regular times.
Let go of the unnecessary shoulds—ESPECIALLY when “relaxing.” It’s not relaxing if we’re telling ourselves all the things we should be doing instead.
K, back to sleep.
*I got some questions on IG about how I like the Oura ring and would imagine a few of you might also be wondering. Tldr, I got it for free at an event—I’m not sure I would have found it worth it if I bought it on my own. The temperature thing is the only data I get that I can’t from my Apple Watch—and now, even the new Apple Watches have that. With that said, it is cool that I was able to see this data to realize something was up—and I do wear it every day.*