I’m stubborn AF when it comes to taking a sick day, part feeling guilty for missing key deadlines and meetings at work and part for not doing well idle. This time, I listened to my body and my promise “to check email intermittently” turned to “check email not once kthanks”. Sorry not sorry. And that’s how it should be.

I had planned to take a mental health day and just give myself time to sit, reflect and just be and then never did. Then, the big bad cold crept in and forced me to do that thing I said I would do and didn’t. For this, I am truly thankful for my body who knows me sometimes better than I know it.

A morning filled with Jada and Will Smith’s Red Table Talk (if you haven’t seen it, you must!) in my PJs sipping tea was magical. Then I got the idle bug and got showered and stepped out to a perfectly sunny crisp winter afternoon to go for a leisurely run around town for some treat-yo-self errands and to check off some to-dos taking full advantage of the quiet weekday streets in SF. I picked up some over-priced bone broth (again, sorry not sorry), popped into some boutique shops and then to Walgreens for a plunger and DayQuil (“nobagkthanks” then instantly regrets carrying this all in my hands back to the car). I then dropped some old clothes off at a second-hand shop, grocery shopped for homemade chicken soup ingredients and headed home just in time to ditch the sunglasses as the sun dipped down over the Pacific Ocean.

Oh I’m not done. I practiced some yoga, wrote a couple Christmas cards by the tree, cooked some soup and wrote this entry humming along to Christmas songs (anyone else on team Wham! for BEST CHRISTMAS SONG EVER?!). Basic, maybe. Nourishing, absolutely. I know most people on a sick day stay in, curled under the covers and sleeping. And I did that, don’t get me wrong. But having a surprise weekend day on a Tuesday was just as rewarding and good for my soul. It took every ounce of me to skip out on boxing with the guys tonight but as much as I winded me to muster up the energy to walk up and down a mild-grade SF hill, I knew my body would be cranky if I forced it to punch a bag in rapid succession.

It doesn’t take much to make a sickie feel good about herself. The grocery checker told me I had “great bangs” on not a particularly bangin’ day and getting my downward dog on with a pine scented candle sure can do wonders. I won’t dwell on the fact that my underwear line was visible through my leggings and I had  snot-streaked sleeves (you’re welcome).

I fight taking sick days. I fight them with all my might holidng out for that time when I’m really really sick. But that day never seems to come or at least I justify to myself that I’m just not sick enough. Kind of like holidng onto that nice bottle of wine for that really really special occasion, event or celebration. Why not take a mental health day every once in a while, open that bottle of wine on a Wednesday night to toast to those days when we are healthy and alive. Today’s culture seems to glorify the workaholic. If you didn’t slay a 12-hour day, did you even work, bro? Having work/life balance should never be translated to ‘lazy’. I don’t want to feel guilt for taking a sick day, especially when actually sick and I hope others can honor themselves and their health and actually take the time to slow down, rest, reset and get that expensive AF bone broth. And please, for the love of the travel gods, take that vacation. Take it ALL (this I have no problem with).

In sickness and in health, I gotchu.