Delirium

The 20s are all about knowing your limits. College can often be a place where people are disingenuous when it comes to valuing your health over productivity. Self-care is preached from the pulpit but in the pews it is nowhere to be found. Students, staff, and faculty alike are asked to bring their best selves but aren't given the time or are stigmatized for taking it. The atmosphere that a college creates may not always be what's sound for all its community members. Whether we like it or not - we all are susceptible to sickness, fatigue, and overall the shortcomings of being human - enter the state of delirium.
 
People do a lip-service when it comes to self-care. Yes, it's all well and good to say whenever you're tired or can't do anymore to take time to take care of yourself. The action or good-will behind it when it is put to practice leaves much to be desired. When those who are indispensable are fully incapacitated it's as if those around them are incapable of functioning. Maybe it's the shock of seeing these people we've built up in our heads to be invincible vulnerable in this very corporeal way. Perhaps it's them being inaccessible or unable to help for once that just seems inopportune. Whatever it is, it leaves those with the ailment feeling less than supported in their one time of need. In short, someone else's malady somehow becomes about you.
 
For me, it's the falsehood behind well-wishes that bothers me. You are wishing me well so that I can return to continue to do exuberant amounts of work, but not because you value my well-being. You value my productivity and contributions, not me as a person. It's even more apparent when you go to an obligation while you're enduring a sickness. People will show their concern or at least feign it before following up that they are happy that you're there. Maybe it's insidious of me but what does that mean? You shouldn't be happy I'm there - in fact, you should send me home ASAP rather than perpetuating an environment where we applaud unhealthy behaviors. We think people to be weak when they need time off when in actuality they are strong for knowing their limits.
 
There is something to be said about the airs about ourselves that we create as well as how others take those airs and amplify them exponentially. I can admit that I am a workaholic. I have this compulsive necessity to be needed. I make a point to situate myself a cornerstone so that without me, others are unequipped to proceed. In writing that I realize how truly disturbing that is. For all the times I complain about being inundated with texts, messages, and emails constantly, deep down it gives me this sense of relevance. Other people need me and that means something. It's probably connected to some sort of latent self-esteem issue (my guess would be an offset of internalized racism and messages of worthlessness of black youth but that's a blog post for another time). It's not good. It's not healthy. It's not right. I think I let people overuse me and I overexert myself for a fear that I will be replaced, made expandable, or seen as superfluous. That's messed up on so many levels. Your self-worth should not and cannot be linked to others dependency on you - it has to be your respect for yourself. And herein comes the delirium.

This whole perfection complex I've sported for the entirety of myself is both a gift and a curse. I can pinpoint it's causes to being the child of immigrant parents, some Caesarian ambition, and the twice as good to get half as much minority trope but I'll psychoanalyze myself another day. I realize how rare it is for someone to not only be able to have vision of what things need to be done but to have the capability to do as well. Usually they are mutually exclusive but I am hyperaware that my skillset makes me, at least in this microcosm of a college campus, a one of a kind find. I think I have too much to offer and have this uncanny deficiency in saying no. There's no way to make this statement not haughty, but sometimes I wonder what my life would be like if I wasn't so adept or even obsessed with being perfect. I don't let myself relax, enjoy where I am, or show enough vulnerability. I overanalyze most things, especially interactions with people. I create intangible standards that I myself struggle to attain. If I could stop, I would. I sometimes wish I didn't care so much about it all. Everything seems to matter so much. It makes me delirious.
 
Getting sick, especially for someone who rarely is or one who continues to power through while stricken with a blight, can send you into a state of delirium. Enter the mind of an obsessive worker with me. Saturday night I changed to hang out with my fraternity brothers - it makes so sense. I walked back in blistering cold with Jake who gave me some food for thought in my portrayal of myself as untouchable. Sunday was spent in the newspaper office (because it's second semester of my senior year and I needed another club to join; #JimmyOlsen) editing an opinion piece before walking home suddenly struck by a dangerous fever. I laid down and within 15 minutes was off to another meeting. A couple hours later I returned home feeling worse than before and blazing hot. I spent the rest of the day watching Weeds (I'm giving up on it - cannot handle the neverending episodic peril) in a ibuprofen induced fervor. Delirious snapchats went out and I awoke Monday still feeling under the weather. Better than before but still sick nonetheless. Tuesday came and with it new stomach related challenges that lead to a meeting cancelling (aka my kryptonite) but I still went to class. Again here comes my entanglement with perfection because I'd rather fake being okay than relinquishing that I was sick. The delirium continues and my stubbornness will not let me accept help. Aw, here it goes.
 
My blog post question for the day is ... how do you spend your sick days - if you take them off? TV and that's it; no responding to anyone