Another week has passed

And I achieved...nothing. At least in the ways of fitness. Last weekend I had a little sore throat. I felt fine other than that. Until I woke up on Monday morning. It felt like my face had been stuffed taxidermy style while I slept. I couldn't breath. I was sweating like a pig but I was freezing even under my two comforters. I felt light headed when I stood up. I felt groggy like I hadn't slept at all and couldn't walk very well. Aside from the cold sweats, I imagine it felt much like a hangover but being a non drinker, I can't know for sure. I tried to make it through a shower and my usual before work routine but I quickly realized I shouldn't be trying to go out into the world feeling the way I felt. I sent a text to my boss and she let me know I would be covered. I gratefully crawled back under the covers and slept through the morning.
I woke up sometime in the afternoon still feeling like a taxidermied drunk. Somehow I managed to crawl to the couch where I watched mind numbing tv for an unknown amount of time while drinking Dayquil Cold & Flu straight from the bottle. I drank water too. I think I ate some food. I caught up on a lot of shows that mean nothing to me (who's the daddy Maury?!). I crawled back into bed around nine and hoped for the best.
Tuesday morning I woke up and still felt crappy. I had a cough that made my head throb and my nose was so stuffed I could feel it backing up into my brain. Not a good feeling. Somehow, I managed to get through a shower. My thought process told me something about how taking a shower when you're sick can really make you feel better. I basically stood in the shower just to feel the warm water. I do really love the rainfall shower head my new house came with... I had to sit down for a minute after my shower in my cozy robe with my hair wrapped up in a towel, just to catch my breath. From standing. That can't be a good sign... I did basic makeup, pausing to catch my breath and hack out some brains. I put on comfy clothes, grabbed a breakfast bar and my bottle of Dayquil and headed to work.
My coworkers all asked if I was feeling better. They told me my cough sounded bad. They told me to go home. My boss called and heard my exhaustion and suggested I take a lunch lounge on the office couch. That idea sounded delightful. After covering my face with pillow to shield out the light, my coworkers had finally had enough and they forced me to go home. They promised me they would be fine and even offered to email the boss for me so I could just leave. I gave in and went home that afternoon. I took advantage of no rush hour traffic and hit the store to replenish my Nyquil supply and get some real food on the way home. Once home I wasted no time in putting on my coziest clothes and crawling into bed.
I was bummed because I had a blind date set up for that night after work and I had to cancel. I think that's why I tried so hard to be ok enough to go to work. If I was ok enough for work I was ok enough for a date right? Who wants to make the first impression of Snot Queen, the Great Sneezer? Not this chick. Instead I slept. I laid in bed coughing, tossing and turning and feeling miserable until I was finally able to get to sleep for the night. My alarm went off and before even trying to get out of bed I knew I couldn't go in to the office again. I sent my boss another text and was again reassured things would be fine and to worry about getting better. I fell immediately back asleep. Around 2 that afternoon I woke up and had to shed a layer of cozy to get comfortable. I got a text from L, responded and fell back asleep without really meaning to. I woke up around 5 to the sound of a text from A. How was I still sleeping? Even on my laziest of days that's too much sleep. I thought of all the things I could have done with this lost day. The things I wanted to accomplish at the office. The projects I have around the house. Will there ever be time?

Why do we do this to ourselves? I know that going to work sick risks the other people at work getting sick (though none of the people I hung out with over the weekend were sick and I assumed I wasn't contagious). I know that I can't work my best when I feel like I've been novocained all in the face. I didn't sound good at all, and I'm the one that answers the phone so that's no good. So why, why would I go to work despite being obviously sick? Because I feel like I have no other option. Now, I'm in a really good position when it comes to this stuff because I'm a salaried employee. If I miss a day of work for being sick (or going on a long weekend beach trip) that doesn't mean I miss out on a days pay. With that, I have even less excuse to go to work when feeling like crap.
I've always been this way. In school I was almost fanatical about going to school no matter what (perfect attendance in elementary school ya'll!) until high school when I had a minor mishap with a disease known as "Skipsies" freshman year. After mom sorted that out I was back to my usual self. I didn't strive for perfection or anything like that. I was happy getting mostly A's and B's and once I got into the working world I was all about timeliness and attendance. I'm one of those people that's almost always early to everything, or at least right on time. To me, on time means being about 5 minutes early though. I've become a little more lax with my timeliness in the last few years but mostly just with personal type stuff like parties, where it doesn't really matter if you're right on time and sometimes stuff happens and I can't always be on time. But I do try.
So there's this crazy random work ethic thing that's ingrained deep in my brain that keeps me getting up for work every day, whether I feel up to it physically or mentally, or not at all. But there's something else that makes me go to work all the time. Something that made me miss out on all of my vacation time for the first few years of my working life. I make excuses all the time to make myself go to work. Doesn't it usually go the other way around? People come up with excuses to get out of work right? Not me. I have to go to work because I'm the only one at the office that does my specific job (though my job isn't very specific). I have to go to work because I'm expecting a toner shipment and the office will freak out if the toner doesn't come and the machine runs out of it's current toner and then they can't print. I'm the only one that will clean the kitchen on Friday. I'm the only person that can do this and that and the other thing. I've been doing my job for so long I can basically do it with my eyes closed. I transfer calls like a ninja. I am the machine whisperer. The Office Guru! No really, that's my title according to the website. I know everything about everything and if I don't know, I can figure it out. That's who I am at the office. When I'm away from the office things break and filing piles up and things get dirty because it's my job to take care of those things. I don't want things to pile up. I don't want my coworkers to be frantic because of broken machines, lost passwords and misplaced transferred calls.
It's not the end of the world. I know they can survive without me.
But that right there is the other part of the problem. They can survive without me. If they can survive without me they don't need me. If I'm gone they might realize they don't really need me....if I'm gone, the things I don't do so well might become apparent. They might see the things I've put off...They might realize there is someone better for the job...They might see the spot I haven't cleaned in a while because I'm the only one that sees it and I put it off. They might suddenly realize that the things they need me to do for them are actually not that hard or time consuming to do on their own. Maybe they'll realize I don't really know as much as they think I do. They might....They could....what if?

What the..... Why am I thinking like that?! I don't know, but it's what makes me go to work when I'm sick. Even though every single time I come back from any length of absence, even a lunch break, they tell me how glad they are that I'm back. How they just don't know how I can do this job every day. They ask me to please never leave again, jokingly but not really so jokingly. Even though I work for one of the best companies to work for in Oregon. Even though I have an awesome job and work with awesome people that I truly care about and who care about me back just as much...I still have these paranoid random mental ramblings and make myself go to work when I should be resting.

It seems I'm suddenly talking about things that make me think more than the silly things I do, here on this blog. I guess that's just where my head is at lately. I'm still having fun of course. I'll write about it. Promise.