Wobbly

Whenever I am sick, it astonishes me that I take good health for granted most of the time. I am under the weather today -- I had to interrupt a student meeting to run down the hall and throw up -- and I am thinking longingly of the way I can usually just sail through a day without pausing to clutch a tender stomach or eyeballing the distance to the nearest bathroom. 

Stomach bugs always mess with my brain, leaving me anxious and what-iffy. I think the part of my brain that usually says, "Sshhh, we'll think about the zombie apocalypse another time" gets wiped out early, leaving me defenseless against Anxious Underbelly Brain. (You guys didn't know that Anxious Underbelly Brain is usually kept on a short leash, did you? Just imagine if AUB had the run of the place!) Today I thought to myself, "You know this is always part of a stomach bug, so maybe just treat it like one more unpleasant symptom instead of being tempted to view it as truth unmasked."

One of my favorite things about being Catholic is the tradition of offering up sufferings in union with the Passion. I cannot know what invisible effects it might have, but I find so much consolation in the practice. "Ssshhh," says something bigger than me to my AUB. "We'll think about the zombie apocalypse another time."