The Glory of Feeling Fine
A few months ago, I got food poisoning. The sequence of events that led to my downfall began with a carton of discounted grocery-store sushi purchased and consumed on a Thursday, which led to me waking up a little queasy on a Friday, which devolved into a 12-hour stretch of me vomiting and holding myself in a fetal position, until my legs ached from dehydration. On Saturday the smell of my partner cooking breakfast still made me gag; I sipped water, napped fitfully, and nibbled little golf balls of white rice.
But Sunday, glorious Sunday, I awoke to a marvelous lack of pain and fatigue. The brain fog was gone. My skin felt plump with fluids. Enthralled by recovery, I found myself behaving with uncharacteristic serenity. When I dropped and broke a ceramic bowl while unloading the dishwasher, I didn’t curse and freak out. Instead, I swept up the shards with cheer. I wouldn’t sweat the small stuff. I was my normal self again, and it felt sublime.
Yet as I relished in my newfound bliss, a foreboding thought gnawed at me: I knew that as the hours passed and the specter of illness retreated, my fresh perspective, too,
