On Being Sick or as I think of it, The End of the WORLD

Me. RIGHT NOW.

When I was little, being sick wasn't so bad. I got to stay home from school, watch soaps and The Princess Bride (ok, that didn't start until I was like 8 or so because I was afraid of the Rodents of Unusual Size and the Six-Fingered Man until then), eat chicken soup, basically get a free lazy day. My mom would make me a special sick bed on the sofa that I got to feel cozy and snuggly on all day. Aside from the achy feverish feeling, it was kind of awesome. In high school, sick days got even better because by that point I had discovered the BBC's 6-hour Pride and Prejudice mini-series and I watched all 6-hours in their empire-waisted, British-accented, Colin Firth-filled entirety every time. I miss those days.

I also remember when I was younger whenever my dad was sick. My mom would always say, "When your dad's sick, no one else in the world is sicker (more sick?) than him." Well, thanks a lot Dad, because now that's me.

I used to be a trooper when I was sick. I would slurp my chicken soup and quietly watch TV without complaint. I would try to go to school the next day even if I still felt somewhat bad. Well now that I'm an adult, that is OVER.

I am no longer any form of trooper. I hate troopers. In fact, when I'm sick, I hate everything. No one feels as bad as me right now and I hate everyone and everything because of that. I'm like 15% sure I'm dying even though all I have is a low-grade fever and what appears to be some sort of cold, but whatever, it's SERIOUS.

The turning point was when I went to college and suddenly I kind of had to fend for myself when I was sick. I would feel sick, walk into the living room of my apartment and go, "Where's MY SOFA SICK BED?!?" I would walk into my kitchen and go, "Where's my CHICKEN SOUP!?" I'd look at my planner and realize I had a mandatory class to attend and go, "Where's my SICK NOTE?!" Oh right, you need a mom for that. I had a mom, but not with me in post-high school land (ok, so my parents lived 10 minutes from my college campus, but I didn't live at home anymore and who knows what she was up to when her life didn't have to revolve around me and my sick needs anymore!). And sick notes don't work on college professors. And the chicken soup from the dining hall tasted like booboo.

NOT the dining hall's chicken soup.

Then law school came. I lived in Chicago in a small apartment with my cat. Well, my cat was useless when I was sick. Even crappy chicken noodle soup wasn't a 10-step walk away. And so my self-pity during illness continued to snowball out of control.

Now we come to present time where I live in Adult Land. I have a job. I can't just take sick days especially because I'm saving my leave time for holidays, so I have to go to work. I have to wake up at 5:45 in the morning with a fever and mucus pouring out of my face and go to work and get everyone else sick. Suck it coworkers! I have to try and look presentable which is really hard when your face is running. Yeah, my face. Not just my nose because I'm sicker than EVERYONE.

Now I have a husband, so you'd think, awesome! Someone to pity me and take care of me! (He's back in town by the way, yay!) But no. He's a med student. Not that he isn't helpful to a reasonable degree, but he is every bit aware of just how sick I am, which does not match how sick I am in my head, 15% chance of dying. He just tells me drink a lot of water and eat Coldeeze which have a weird aftertaste and I hate them. The problem is, it's not him at all. He's actually great and perfect for a normal sick person. But I am not. I am a sick MONSTER. I don't even know what I want him to do. I just want him to pull an I Dream of Jeannie and do the crossed-arm, head-bob, winky thing and make me better. (Plus, seeing him do that would be priceless.) If I could go home now and have a sick day high school style, I'd probably still be a nightmare because I'm at the point now where my self-pity knows no bounds. Now go away. I hate you. I hate everything. I need Kleenex.

In Appreciation of Marriage

That handsome man you see above is my husband, watching me walk down the aisle to begin our life together. We've been married just over a year now and it has been the best, most challenging, most rewarding and most surprising adventure of my life. I find myself reflecting on how much I enjoy marriage to Danny especially lately because he has to be away from me for two away rotations. 1 week down, 7 to go. With him gone, I am living the life of a pseudo-single girl again and I can't say I enjoy the change. It feels like a crucial part of my support system is gone, even though I get to talk to him every day. It's like when you hang a big poster on the wall and you only put a small amount of tape in the four corners and it's all billowy and not really stuck to the wall and then you realize "Oh! I should put some tape right in the middle!" Well I feel like I'm missing my middle piece of tape. I'm still stuck to the wall, I'm just not stuck to it all that well. Does that make sense? If not, try hanging a big poster and you'll get what I mean.

The thing is, although it wasn't 100% jelly beans and rainbows the entire time (because nothing worth doing is, even though jelly beans are delicious), Danny and I have become a team during our first year of marriage. We tackle things together and we can trust each other to hold one another up when we find ourselves struggling. That's not to say we weren't there for each other before but there's a gravity to our support for each other that wasn't there before we got married. Now I'm all about being an independent lady and girls are just as good if not better than boys and all that awesome girl-power empowerment. But here's where you're going to get a slightly hot button opinion from me for the first time. Anyone who is in a relationship and doesn't want to get married (which is a totally fine and valid life choice) that says "It's not like anything is going to change, it's just a piece of paper!" Well, they're wrong. Because even though Danny and I were the same people we'd always been, things changed the day we got married and I'm not just talking about giving up closet space. When you stand up in front of everyone you know or even just a justice of the peace and make solemn promises to each other and become husband and wife, there's a shift in your reality. You become part of a "we" in way that you were not before. As a direct result of this shift, marriage has changed me for the better. I'd like to think I'm less self-centered now because when I think about big decisions or even small ones, I think about them now in terms of "how will this affect US?" rather than "how will this affect ME?" Being married has also given me a sense of calm and security that I never had before even though I knew Danny loved me and was committed to me. It's not just a security in being loved, it's a security in having someone next to you on your life's path.

I don't mean to make you gag, and I know that this is a lot of "us" and "we" talk for an only child, but that's what marriage has changed for me. I hope it continues to do this because honestly, I love it. I love that when I'm looking through our DVR trying to decide what to watch I save the new episode of The Office to watch with him. See how selfless I've become? It's crazytown. So thank you marriage (and Danny) for making this only child a team player. I promise I'll be back to talking about myself tomorrow. And just to lighten up this mushy love talk:

Doesn't Ron look almost as content as Danny above? I think so. And I'm very happy that the sight of me walking down the aisle made Danny as happy as a bacon-wrapped turkey leg made Ron. That's seriously high flattery folks.

Inspired by my Blog Title

So in honor of my blog's title, I thought I'd write a post about how my marriage is aided by my husband's and my use of our iPhones. Danny, my husband, is a med student and he's doing 2 away rotations for the next 7 and 1/2 weeks (8 weeks in total), which, in my melodramatic way of looking at these things, is the worst thing ever. Thus, we are forced to expand our media of communication since we do not have that easy access to each other that I took woefully for granted. Thank. God. For. iPhones. Because of these magical devices, we have communicated via the following means today:

*Facebook - Just commenting on a few posts, some comforting witty banter about our cat and Ron Swanson, two of my favorite things I promise you will hear more about as this blog continues.

*Texting - I still resist this so-hip-it's-not-hip-anymore way to get in touch because I am a disaster with texting. I am slow and hate auto correct and get super frustrated, but it's still convenient when you just want to say "hope you're having a good day babe."

*Words with Friends - I consider this communication because we occasionally trash talk each other on the app and I like knowing that he's thinking of me at some point during the day, even if it's just to curse on that SWEET triple letter triple word score I just dropped on him.

*E-mail - My husband sent me an article on the orthopedic benefits of yoga with a little note attached. He's hoping to do his residency in orthopedic surgery and my mom's a yoga teacher, so it's not as random as it seems. Very thoughtful of him.

*Real-live phone conversation - He was on call last night so we didn't get to talk for more than 30 seconds yesterday and it was SO good to hear his voice this afternoon. Um, did I mention he's been gone only 5 days so far? Obviously I am not handling this well, thank god for my new blogging/internet collaging (see previous 2 posts) pasttimes.  

*Instagram picture message - So he could see this (see below) picture of our cat meowing at the door to be let out. That's let out into our hallway which is in no way exciting and I cannot explain Zac's obsession with it. Oh yes, if you have not read my little "about me" blurb, my cat's name is Zac Morris, without the K so he could be unique. 

*Video chat - Now this isn't actually on our iPhones since I don't have Facetime b/c I have the original iPhone 3G, yes that's right, the one they don't even make anymore. [Aside prayer to the Apple gods: Please let the iPhone 5 get released as soon as possible, thanks!] Plus, let's be honest, it's way better to video chat on the much larger computer screen, but STILL, we are so good at keeping in touch via Apple products! Thank you technology for keeping our marriage going despite being 700 miles away from each other! 

One final note: you could obviously do pretty much all of these things with other smart phones but I am an Apple snob, sorry. You will see more lauding of their products by me on this blog I can assure you, but please don't think I'm an actual snob. I don't think I'm better than you in any way other than my taste in electronics. Oh, and in my Words With Friends skills. Seriously, I'm goooooood.