My wife thinks I lowered my immune system by working too hard in the last couple of weeks. I'll buy that. Oh, I had it easy compared to all the people in retail. My God, I was in the supermarket on Friday and it was a zoo. A festive, well-behaved zoo, but a zoo. In addition to people being off work already and people shopping to feed the family of 1000 that is about to descend, we had a snow scare that caused the usual milk-bread-TP-salt crowd to rush out. So, it was really busy for the supermarket staff.
As I mentioned the other day, the last few weeks have seen a bunch of stuff dumped on me by clients who wanted to get things wrapped up by year's end, and I've struggled to accommodate them. It was combined with shopping and decorating and cookies and church and and and and and, so yeah, maybe I ran myself a little ragged. Still, whoever it was that tagged me with the cold germs was more to blame, I'd say. And I'd say that person should wind up on Santa's naughty list, but I'm not sure I haven't passed the virus along myself, despite my best efforts. So, I publicly and loudly forgive the person who germed me.
When I am feeling stressed, I sometimes think that it would be nice to have an illness. Nothing serious, just something that would require me to stay in bed and have some recuperation for a day or two. Then I think, Well, I haven't had so much as a cold in years. And then I get one. Not only do I overwork myself, I also tempt fate. Because it never comes off the way I fantasize, my fantasies being based on when I was a kid and a cold meant doing nothing but sleeping and watching TV. Those dogs aren't gonna walk themselves. Those deadlines still have to be met. No one's gonna feed us if we're all wiped out by the flu and won't do it ourselves. I have to do everything I would normally do, just do it while sick. This is all part of "adulting," and I've been aware of it for some time.
I like being busy at the holidays, though, and so I also have to take responsibility for the ragged-running part. The manic projects are a lot of fun. So's the excitement of putting a magazine to bed or get a book out to press. It was always like this when I worked in offices, that knowledge that everyone or almost everyone would be gone between Christmas and New Year's, and we had to get all this stuff done OR ELSE!!! (!).
But I always have this thought that the work will taper off and I'll ease into the celebration of the holiday at the end, like a train slowing down to gently pull into the station. And yet it never feels like that at all. I finished a project yesterday, no deadlines for a while now, and I felt like Wile E. Coyote running off the edge of a cliff. Take about ten steps before realizing I'd run out of cliff; react with horror; cue the whistle and the POW at the bottom. Then Christmas-adrenaline junkie falls into a funk. Happens every year like that.
Maybe it's just as well that my retirement plan at this point is: Die. What would I do with myself? I might have to start specialty blogs just to pollute the Internet.
I hope your Advent has been light on the stress and free of all illness, and I certainly hope that for your Christmas. And whatever you do, don't brag about how you haven't had a cold or a flu in ages, or laugh at the idea that your sister's pork roast looks underdone, or go shoveling snow in your pajamas, or do anything else to tempt fate. You want to stay healthy for New Year's Eve.
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