If you are hoping that this is an article about blissfully resting and feeling rejuvenated afterwards you will likely be disappointed.

This is more of an article about resting imperfectly out of physical desperation, combined with the sobering insight that if I didn’t, I wasn’t going to improve anytime soon. And, perhaps also disappointingly, dear readers, the rest I received was not about meditating, spending time in nature and having a perfect nourishment plan. It was about cutting as many corners as possible and tussling with this practice until things settled. But I’ll get to that.

Adventures in Illness

This month has been extremely tiring. I’d been doing a mediocre job of caring for ill family members while also trying to keep my home running and showing up to work, present and keen to be there (actually true). But the cumulative effect of it all had some effects, which feel a little weird to talk about, given that many people are faced with much bigger challenges than this. I have a lot of privilege.

The first sign of illness was a tightness in my throat that wouldn’t go away – it wasn’t terribly sore for a number of days, until it was. And then I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to laugh or cry when I started losing my voice. On day one of laryngitis, I could still talk, but I sounded like a strangled cat. On my second day, my voice was only a whisper and I had to cancel all of my clients. On the third day, the strangled cat returned (I felt for my clients who had to hear it.)

I did find it somewhat humorous being a counsellor who couldn’t talk, not to mention being hard of hearing. But this also triggered feelings of inadequacy as I wondered how much of my sense of worth was still being dictated by my work.

With no sessions to do on the day I had to cancel, I spent my day wondering around my home, feeling aimless and purposeless. Not in any way like a scheduled day off, where I am usually doing things that interest me. Part of me didn’t want to admit that I couldn’t work, so I ended up distracting myself by looking at things online, but doing so didn’t really make me feel rested.

And then whatever was powering my laryngitis, come the weekend, hit me a lot harder and brought with it, incredible fatigue. My body, not my mind, made the decision that rest was necessary. I could also see that if I didn’t succumb to rest, the virus was just going to delay my recovery and the week ahead would not be fun.

So I decided to do as little as (mostly) possible.

You might think that crocheting an alien takes a lot of energy and concentration, and I’ll admit, it does take some. And I don’t even like crocheting that much, after mostly abandoning it for knitting about 15 years ago. I don’t like all the hand twisting that comes with crochet, but after looking at at the alien pattern that I wanted to make, which had both knitted and crocheted versions, I had to admit to that the crocheted one would hold up a lot better, as the crocheted fabric would be a lot denser than if I were to knit it.

And maybe because I wasn’t fully thinking straight, I trialed 3 different yarns from my yarn stash before I finally settled on the right one. And all this messing around with essentially glorified string wasn’t that relaxing.

Adding to the initial drama around starting this project was also the fact that I was simultaneously watching a 4-part true crime documentary that was very sad. The thought occurred to me when I was watching it that it probably wasn’t great for my recovery but I watched it anyway. And I’ll admit, my mood was pretty low by the end of it.

But it seemed like as the documentary wound down, my progress with the alien picked up, and I started slightly enjoying crocheting again. Something else also happened: I seemed to be accepting that I needed to rest, and I mostly dropped the guilt.

Because my appetite wasn’t affected by this particular bug, I mused about how I could cook in the simplest manner possible. Poking around my home in my PJs, I found some abandoned ramen/seasoning packets that I cooked up and sautéed with some sad-looking veggies and tofu puffs, and decided to do my best with these ingredients, in a very messy kitchen (I had committed to resting vs, cleaning). It was still kind of hard to make the effort but it was also good to be nourished.

And I also switched to a cooking show instead of true crime and decided not to delay my bedtime. Both helped, although I was still up in the night with throat pain.

The next day, I went back to my crochet and TV nook, ate the easiest no-cook breakfast and returned to keep watching other people cook very well, while I kept crocheting the alien. Somehow I started to feel a little bit better. And although part of me thought that I had the energy do dishes, I felt that doing so would be a mistake because it might erase any resting progress than I had made.

Unfortunately my home needed food and I was the only one available to get some. I did overcomplicate things (as I usually do) by buying too much, but I tried to let that go too and thanked myself for simplifying supper by buying frozen pizza and a salad mix. Good enough.

After an additional week with a voice that sounded like I had been smoking cigarettes, I’m feeling better now.

What Did I Learn?

• It was hard to pivot and stop doing my routine, despite being unwell. The battle was mostly mental.
• Sometimes the body overrides the brain when it comes to decision-making.
• Resting was imperfect for me. I made some choices that benefitted me less and others that benefitted me more.
• Resting wasn’t glamorous. There were no cozy fires or gourmet hot chocolate. I was resting in a very messy home.
• Self-judgement is insidious and can creep in. I can choose to let go of it when I can and I don’t have to listen to it.
• I can cut corners, even if I’m judging myself for it. I didn’t die eating highly processed food. In fact, I liked it because I wasn’t stressing my body by standing for too long or my brain with too much decision-making or task involvement. I let the dishes pile up. I could close the door until I was ready to deal with them.
• I chose an alien crochet project over my original plan of working on my taxes. If I can’t rest or do something completely frivolous when I’m sick when can I do this?
• There’s nothing like being sick to invoke gratitude for wellness.

So, I finished the alien and I’m glad I did, even though it has almost no practical purpose– although perhaps I could say that it took my mind off being sick and facilitated rest and recovery. And to look at it–a fixture from my childhood that folks of a similar age may also recognize — makes me laugh. He’s hanging now from a stocking hook on my mantle—a silly souvenir from a challenging time.