Being Sick As An Adult.

Being sick is the worst.

When you’re a little kid, you get to stay home from school, you get a parent who stays home with you and plays with you, all the books and TV you could want, and you get to stay all cuddled up in your bed with mounds of blankets surrounded by snotrags and wheezing.

So basically, when you’re a little kid, being sick is awesome. Someone is attentive to your every wheeze and need and brings you magical soup whenever you want it.

When you’re an adult, you don’t live with these magical parents who can drop everything to take care of a sicko.

No, when you’re an adult you are on your own. And dude, it SUCKS. There’s already a lot to deal with as an adult: bills, a job, bills, money, and more bills. But on top of having to be in control of your own life and make all your own decisions and also be a decent human being, well, then you get sick.

And no one cares! Your friends and coworkers will feel bad for you. “Oh, that sucks,” they say. And “Aww, feel-better-don’t-breathe-on-me!”

And that’s nice and all, but not particularly helpful. You know what would be helpful? Someone to listen to me whine about feeling yucky and rub my back and bring me some damn abracadabra soup.

This is the closest image I could find to show you how I feel when I'm sick. It does not truly define it.

Alas, you are an adult. And no matter how much you love your significant other, they are not the ideal nurse. Boyfriend and I have had to take care of each other while we’re sick. And we do it with loving care, a lot of Nyquil, and soup. But no matter how much we might love and appreciate each other, even in the midst of achy sickness, there is only one person we want when we’re sick and achy and cranky and bored.

Mom.

Being a mom must be simultaneously the best and worst thing ever. I mean, here you have this awesome kid that you created and brought into the world and loves you. But you also have a whiny cranky snotfactory who calls you to complain about being sick, even though they live 2000 miles away and are 27 years old.

I appreciate you, Mom. I also appreciate the fact that no matter what, you have to listen to me complain and be cranky and whiny on the phone, because you’re my mom and that’s your JOB. It’s right there in the job description.

No matter how old I get, when I’m sick, I want my mom. My mom tells me how to feel better and gives me mostly-helpful suggestions, and for about half a second it’s like she’s right there with me, telling me I’ll be fine and that a nap DOES sound like a really great idea.

Boyfriend and I live pretty close to his parents. Once, I was in Florida visiting family for a week and he had a really bad cold. Did he lay in bed at home and whine and be sick like the rest of us? NO! That lucky guy just went over to his parent’s house and stayed with them for several days. He got the soup and the mom and the covers and the person checking on him and making sure he’s alive and everything! LUCKY JERKFACE.

Even worse is going to work. You know you’re sick, but if you’re like me, then you have the mentality of “Well, I can make it through today, because I might feel even worse tomorrow.” And then I go to work and do my job and even though I’m miserable, I feel like I've earned a Medal of Honor for working that day.

But when OTHER people are sick at work, I’m like “Go home, you’re going to infect us allllllll!!!”

I don’t know what happens between being a sick kid, which I don’t ever remember as being all THAT bad, and being sick as an adult, which basically feels like an earthquake is happening in my head, a hurricane is ripping through my belly, and a tsunami is coming out of my nose. It’s like all my fault lines are moving and acting up and I want to die in a hole.

The point to all of this is that no matter how old I am, no matter how far away I live, no matter what is happening in my life, when I’m sick, I want my mommy and everyone else just isn’t quite the same. Also, in general, I hate being touched when I’m sick.

This is what I want. But from farther away.

So in my world, an ideal situation when I’m sick is this: Being in a cold, dark room, dosed with enough Nyquil to knock out a large rabid lion, with my mom periodically bringing me soup and listening to me whine and carry on about how terrible life is and how my body has betrayed me on a molecular level, with her telling me that I’ll be fine and to go to sleep, all from about a 5-7 foot radius.

Is that too much to ask?!?!