Sick Day

Once in a while, I receive the privilege to be sick. The mirror constantly lies to me about how big my head actually feels. I have a contradictory desire to both eat at a Chinese buffet and a reality that struggles with swallowing a saltine cracker. And after staying in bed for over thirteen hours, I begin to question if I'm sleeping so much because I'm sick or am I sick because I'm sleeping so much. NyQuil becomes the crossroads of the sickness, whether I declare myself to be utterly useless and must simply be confined to a bed for the next week, or reject it with the silent, masculine hope that wimpy Tylenol will do the job. I seem to get all the disadvantages of being at a dance club (the incessant thumping in my head) without the advantages (the actual dancing). When I have tried dancing (the last time to Casper's Cha Cha Slide or West's Gold Digger), I find myself never really having the stamina to get up after Kanye tells me to "get down, girl, go 'head, get down." I find myself on the campus apartment's dirty carpet floor with one single thought for the next 15 minutes: "What can I do now?" At the end of the 15 mnutes, my memory brings back an audio recording of some premed student telling me that exercise is good for you because of the sweat and endorphins or something like that. I often just do whatever they tell me, because heck, they're premed students. All I learn about is race relations, but even my opinions on that are merely opinions that are not respected despite my studies of DuBois and Tatum. I digress. I'm still on the floor. I try to do one pushup...for five minutes. It doesn't work. My roomate comes in and finds me on the floor and proceeds to laugh. I laugh as well. And in that moment when my body is paralyzed, unable to move despite the floor's smell of dirty socks and Papa John's pizza, and when my mind is playing out an overdramatic OC moment, I come to realization. Sometime in the past 7 to 9 years of my life, I have transformed sick days to a grouchy, listless day of increased stress rather than the jumping on the bed, watching Price is Right moments of grade school. Load up the time machine, DOC, and make sure the flux capacitor is working. For one day, I will say NO to you, college and responsibility, and actually be excused from it.

And so I begin my party. For once in a long time, I can bask in the genius of ITunes Party Shuffle that plays Papa Roach, LFO, and Sugar Hill Gang in a row, without anything else in my mind, like a number or a letter's value to my life, a ministry that I force to give me more stress than freedom, or the fact that the closest love interest in my life is my pillow. Now I stand on my own freedom and listen to no more voices in my mind, but only to the thumping of my feet. Before I started playing the guitar to try to woo girls with four chords and a mediocre voice, performing Secret Garden, Wonderful Tonight, and Truly Madly Deeply, I played the air guitar for myself, Jimi Hendrix style. I could play riffs with my teeth and sing at the same time. And none of that chick flick Freddie Prince Jr. crap, but Beach and Beastie Boys. And yes even from time to time, I would sing out loud "It's raining men" and my favorite "I'm a bitch I'm a lover I'm a child I'm a mother I'm a sinner I'm a saint I do not feel ashamed" without a care of who is listening or watching. Why do I find such peace and understanding through rebellious females? I do not know, but Pink took me out of that phase quickly. I play these songs on my oxygenated guitar I call "BADASS" while I jump on my bed like Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone. He was the younger version of Ferris Bueller, at least in my generation. And when someone comes and visit me, I will stay in my bed, as if I have not moved all day. I will accept all the pity that comes my way and laugh hysterically on the inside, realizing that sick days are unexpected birthdays, when the world revolves around me and to want anything less is unhealthy. My room is a mess from the books and the ruffled sheets and the countless Kleenex tissues, and mother is not here to tell me to clean it up. I declare this my own holiday. My alcohol is the Robitussin and my friends are my bad breath. And I will get crunk before the popo labeled Scope and OldSpice make their way into my life. The day is already half over, and it has only been in the past 30 minutes when I have finally felt alive. And alive I will be until Nyquil gives me another hangover. But at least when I wake up tomorrow morning, I will have some ingrained memory of my one-night stand with LIFE that I can carry on with me through this college and adulthood of boredom and responsibility.