Chicken Noodle Soup

Chicken Noodle Soup

The problem with writing about feeling like crap is that I usually do not feel like writing when I feel like crap.

When the head pounds and the words only come out between pulses and sneezes, it is hard to imagine that things will ever be right again.

Of course, over the course of my life, I have been to this sorry place before and I know that this too shall pass.  However when I feel like crap it is pretty easy to convince myself that somehow this time is different---that this will be the time when things don’t get better.  At debilitating times like this, all I want to do is soak in a hot bath to chase the chills away and pray that someone will take mercy on me and cut my head off or shoot me like an old horse---a "headcold-hitman" is what I need.

I find these self absorbed, distractions from our normal activities an interesting test and reflection of what our real patience is all about.  For a moment we get a glimpse of the ax murderer cleverly hidden within us.

Chicken noodle soup.

It is crucial to never be caught without chicken soup in the cupboard.

I am not sure how much it helps, but anything that I “think” will help me in these moments of agony is better than nothing.

Sometimes we all need a crutch just to reduce the pathetic whining and pleading for sympathy from those around us.  Sympathy from those that have no clue, and have never had any clue, as to the agony we are enduring---or so it seems.

Of course there is always sleep---that fitful time, when I lay in the darkness on the couch with only the rattle in my chest to keep me company.  That fitful time when every time I cough I am absolutely certain the roof of my head is going to pop off.

By morning there is a mountain of dried, stiff and saturated handkerchiefs on the floor---surely something only someone in a hazmat suit should touch. 

Of course actually touching my nose isn't even a possibility.

In all my spacy lightheadedness, I doze off again and dream of

Chicken noodle soup.

Charles Buell, Real Estate Inspections in Seattle