Doing it wrong.
I’m really, really bad at being sick. It’s fortunate, for me, that it tends to happen rarely, although when it does happen it tends to last for longer than necessary. (I say “necessary” as if my illness were part of some predestined event, as if my coughing and sniffling were designed to teach me a lesson of some kind.)
I hate the sensation of being laid out flat on my back, a useless lump of quaking flesh, so I force myself to get up. But even though I’m upright, I’m also a hazy, shambling zombie of my usual self, so I don’t tend to get much accomplished. Hours go by and I’m not sure what I was doing with them. Yesterday I somehow never showered. Yesterday I remember checking emails as they came in but not responding to most of them. Yesterday I remember watching Hard to Kill for no other reason than I’d never seen it all the way through, it was on the shelf, and I didn’t want to think too hard; which is one of the very few reasons you should ever watch Hard to Kill.
And here’s where it gets really twisted: as I’m aware that I’m not accomplishing anything, it leads me to think about all of the other things I’ve not accomplished, all the other tasks I’ve failed to complete, all of the things I should be doing right now, all the things that are weeks overdue. I think about the fact that I’m not calling in sick from work because I still don’t have work that I can call in sick from; I think about the burden I place on my wife and the toll that burden is taking on her health and demeanor. So I load myself up with self-doubt and self-loathing, process it into mild depression, and want nothing more than to crawl into bed and cry.
Except the idea of crawling into bed, of laying there doing nothing, brings me back to the top of this idiotic flow chart.
I still feel lousy today, but I refuse, I refuse, to let today be like yesterday. I have rehearsal tonight and owe the ensemble at least one other play proposal besides the one I have from last week. I need to give Andy some proper feedback about his new play. I need to make one more honest attempt at that documentary script. I need to call my parents. I need to do the pile of laundry at the bottom of the chute. I need to hit the bag for 15-20 minutes. I need to clean this desk. I need to shower, I need to shave, I need to plunge with earnest back into the job hunt.
I need to be myself again, not this other thing.
Creative Control 