Illness and Interruption

I read something last month that said,

“Currently doing this challenge called January. Where you just try to make it through every day of January.”  We’ve made it to February, folks! But, man, January was a rough month for me.

There are aspects of the new year that are hard because we are detoxing from the holidays and getting back into a routine, but I have been battling sickness for what feels like a very long time at this point, and that is what has made it especially challenging. I’m guessing I’m not the only one..

First of all, I should note that I am, overall, a healthy person with so much to be grateful for. I am not navigating life with an illness, diagnosis, or disability. Though I don’t have as much energy (or muscle mass) as I’d like, the reality is that I often take my health for granted because it is usually there, like my well-worn cardigan. It isn’t flashy, but it’s dependable…until it isn’t.

This is the second winter in a row that I’ve come down with some sort of prolonged sickness I couldn’t easily shake, especially a lingering cough, that left me feeling rather depleted, as well as, it turns out, susceptible to other bugs going around, specifically Strep. I went 38 years of my life without ever having Strep throat but have now had it two years consecutively and am wondering if this is turning into a thing.

Sickness is a powerful experience in its ability to completely derail our carefully made plans. We can make adaptations for weather, reservations, mood changes, and the like. But there is really nothing to do in the face of sickness other than curl up in a blanket and admit you’re down for the count.

Our culture in general tends to overextend and overcommit, and even if we’re doing our best not to take on more than we should, mamas know all too well that just doing everything that we “should” to keep everything afloat at home (and for many of us at work as well) is a lot.

I don’t attempt to be superwoman. I know it’s misguided, though perhaps well meaning, to attempt to do it all. Nevertheless, I still often find myself carrying a lot. We limit our extracurricular involvement, and I try to keep work related stress and projects from crossing lines they shouldn’t, but still, the daily grind of working a job in which many students daily depend on me to show up and teach them something and in which my family daily depends on me for any number of things (I won’t list all those details because I know you know all the things that homemaking entails) can just lead to narrow shoulders lifting a wide load.

And that means in my finiteness I will get tired and sick (and sometimes sick and tired) because I am human. My tendency when illness strikes is to mentally retrace my steps to figure out what I could have done differently. Where might I have gotten exposed and how could I have avoided the encounter? How many supplements and vitamins am I taking and what else should I add to the list? Of course, lifestyle choices do impact quality of life and health. But assuming we have full control over something as capricious as health may be assuming a level of authority we simply do not have.

The need for rest and margin in our schedules is something I reflected on when writing The Working Homemaker. A couple lines from the book that I’ve been coming back to are as follows:

“The more we have going on, the more frustrating it is when plans are foiled, but I have found that when I am unwilling to stop on my own, God often steps in and stops me for my own good.”

p. 67

I don’t believe God strikes us with sickness, but I do believe he allows unpleasant circumstances to occur as part of our refining process and that he wants to use every experience to draw us closer to him. Physical weakness can be a time when our hearts are especially pliable, if we allow them to be, because we are so clearly shown that the world can and does go on without us and that the things that seemed so important are actually quite peripheral.

I’ve been forced to start this new calendar year by slowing down. And though I know the pace will pick up, I hope I can keep the need for stillness and reflection with me. When I went to be treated for my infection, after the medic prescribed me antibiotics, I was told I could still go and teach class that day if I wanted, as long as I kept my distance from others. There was a part of me that wanted to take this as justification to push through; getting behind on lesson plans and a course schedule is challenging, and it’s very much within my personality to attempt to grin and bear it and plan on collapsing at home that night. But the fact was I had not been fever-free 24 hours, everything I read said I shouldn’t be around others until I had been on antibiotics at least 24 hours, and I felt TERRIBLE. So, though I felt a little guilty about it (though I shouldn’t have), I practiced self-care and went home. I made arrangements for my students and worked a fair amount on my computer from home, but I also rested and drank a lot of orange juice and hot tea.

I’m still a little bewildered why I was told I could teach “if I wanted to” after having been diagnosed with a contagious illness I hadn’t yet been treated for. But this message is rather similar to so many we receive as mothers. We are encouraged to know our limits and to set healthy boundaries, but we are also made keenly aware of what it takes to earn employee of the month or mom of the year, and these things rarely match with taking respite. Sometimes, what we want is for someone to clearly tell us we need to slow down, just like I really wanted to be told I should take a sick day since I was sick. But we’re not always going to get that clear directive from another person, and actually, we don’t need it. If we are honest, we can pick up on our own bodies’ and our children’s bodies’ signs that something is too much. Even if it doesn’t manifest itself physically, the mental and emotional signs are likely there if we pay attention.

We can’t always take a sick day, but we can say no to the invitation; we can say yes to a peaceful weekend at home or a small get together rather than the big event.

Slowing down this season has been frustrating regarding cancelling and postponing, but it’s also helped me enjoy sweet snuggle time, good books, and episodes of Little House on the Prairie with my kiddos. It’s reminded me it’s ok to ask for help, and Ben has handled dinners and gymnastic classes, bedtime and laundry, and we’re probably all a little more refined from the process.

So, if you need to slow down, mama, I’m not going to give you permission. The point is we don’t need other people’s permission to take care of ourselves and to take care of our families. True self-care is far different than laziness or escapism. It is recognizing that one of the blessings God has given us is the gift of restoration.

Psalm 127:2 tells us, “It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil, for he gives to his beloved sleep.”

We need to trust the wisdom God has given us about how to do life well without overextending ourselves, despite the outwards accolades the hustle may reap. This is not a safeguard against sickness, but it is a mindset to better meet and recover from weariness and sickness. Acknowledging our own limitations is an act of humility and an act of wisdom on our part. I don’t want my children to grow up into adults who believe they have to push through when they need to curl up. I don’t want them to be guided by guilt but to live freely through grace.

Rest may be the relief we need, or as Marilynne Robinson puts it in her novel Lila,