When I woke up sick, my first thought was that I totally deserved it.
It was the Tuesday after Labor Day. Also the Tuesday after my birthday, and birthday long weekend—which had been a whirlwind of traveling and socializing and consuming coffee in many forms. And (as you may have guessed) sleeping very little. The soreness in the back of my throat seemed half viral, half my body’s rebuke of the lack of rest.
Thus began a period (which, as I write, is ongoing) of working from home, living cough drop to cough drop, and contemplating my poor decisions. I miss my standing desk and the espresso machine at work (poor pitiful me!). I miss hearing about my teammates’ long weekends. I miss having the energy to go for a run, or even a walk, or even to walk to the kitchen and back.
Being sick is reminding me that I’m not as tough as I like to think. I want to believe that I’m a powerful person—like the superheroes I love to watch and read about. I want to believe that I’d show up to work, and work out, and do whatever life demanded of me, despite even the yuckiest of colds.
But reality has proved that I’m a rat in pajamas—who so far has managed only to eat random snacks, have a tea party with my Lego minifigures, and lie down briefly on my bed during the workday when my muscle aches got the better of me. I’ve chosen to believe instead that my energy is limited, and it’s not worth overextending myself now when that’ll just prolong this illness in the long run.
In a way, being sick has been a microcosm of my experience as a young adult. Part of me yearns for a life that, impossibly, does it all—earning more degrees, developing more relationships, investing in a creative project, or at least becoming a legend in some niche online fandom. My ambitions very quickly grow to superhuman proportions.
But to be human is to be “sick”—that is, to be limited. I’m finding that I can (and do) try to do it all, but most of the time I just end up spreading myself too thin. I can ignore my weaknesses and exhaustion, but only for so long.
Maybe I’ll look back at my mid-20s and see a “rat in pajamas era,” filled with Lego tea parties and random snacks. Maybe by then, I’ll be able to celebrate that I used the energy I had, and used it wisely.
Eleanor Lee (‘23) graduated from Calvin with degrees in computer science and writing. She grew up in South Carolina but currently lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She loves coffee, laughing, and bringing emojis to the workplace.
