My life on, "Pause."

As of late I have been sick.  I hate being sick.  Everyone hates being sick but I hate it more than anyone else. Not only do I hate being sick because of all the coughing, sneezing, achy muscles, restless sleep and inability to taste anything I place on my tongue.  I hate it when anyone in my household is sick too.  Why?  Well, let me explain something that I was telling one of my girlfriends not so long ago.  I told my friend that I don't like it when things don't feel normal.  A normal day is a day when everyone is well, everyone is, "out and about" working in the stores, walking their dogs, cars are moving about on the city streets.  A normal day is when my T.V. shows are on at the exact time I expect them to be, when I can pick up the phone and call anyone anywhere and they answer the phone and when the kids are busy with school and activities.  These are normal days.  I love normal days.  I need normal days.  Abnormal, un-normal, anything but normal is anything but peaceful for me.  Maybe I'm weird, but this is who and how I am.  So I was telling my girlfriend after Christmas, that I was so happy Christmas Day had come and gone and how happy I would be when New Year's day had come and gone as well.  She was surprised.  I told her, it has nothing to do with Christmas time, I love everything about the holiday season.  I love the decorations, the music, the kids excitement for Christmas morning, it all warms my heart, but December 25th just isn't a normal day.  Everything is silent in the outside world.  No one is moving around. There isn't anything normal about it.  Stores are closed, streets seem empty, the day is quiet.  People are staying inside, none of my normal television shows are on.  The day after Christmas however, I wake up feeling relieved.  I haven't even gotten out of bed yet, and still I know, stores are open, people are outside moving about.  My television shows are back on, and at their normal times.  If I need to run to the store for anything, the stores are open.  If I want food fast, I can drive through any fast food place I choose.  If I need money, all the banks are ready to serve me with smiling faces.  If I'm sick, the doctor, "Is in."  Things are moving, people are out and doing their thing.  Someone pressed the, "play" button and life is rolling again.  Which means, now I feel like things are normal.  However, with the anticipation of New Year's Day on the brink, I expressed to my girlfriend, just knowing the day would soon be here, brought me stress.  Another abnormal day in the near future. The shut down of life as I know it, now this I find depressing.  I don't know why, it isn't as though I'm not surrounded by my loving family.  I am.  They are ready and willing to drop everything to play a board game with me, or sit and eat a plate of left overs from the fridge.  It doesn't matter though.  I still know, in my brain, that the day is not normal.  So, when I'm sick, it is very much the same for me.  I know on days when I'm sick I am not living the normal day in the life of, "Sarah."  I can't go to work, I can't go shopping, I can't go out for lunch with my husband.  I'm stuck inside, at home, looking out at the world through the confines of my living room windows.  When my kids are sick, or my husband is sick, it is much the same.  We are on "Pause."  Our life is on "Shut-down."   "Normal" is out of sight.  Abnormal is covering my house.  We're, "Shut-in's."  Yep, that's what we are.  What we've become.  It feels so lonely, so sad and quite honestly, a little annoying. 

So today, as I stay home for the third day sick.  The third day in this home with no interaction with the outside world.  Today I am aware that my life is on, "Pause."  I am at a standstill while so many others are rushing around, out and about in the world today.  Working, shopping, dining, walking, talking, and keeping busy.  I will be glad when life goes back to normal for me and I will loathe the day when I'm put on, "Pause" once again.