Voiceless introspection

I'm so glad glad GLAD that I'm emerging from this fugue or plague or whatever it is. This is the sickest I've been in a looong time. All I can figure is that with my health oddities, I need to avoid future colds and flues (and be sure to get flu shots, which I usually am).

Not shockingly (this is normal for me), my voice has been left victim. I'll continue coughing for weeks - also normal for me - and coughing HARD. My poor vocal chords have really taken a beating. I'm either completely voiceless or have a horribly froggy voice or an oddly squeaky voice or just an eery whisper of a voice.

Being voiceless means ... I can't really talk. Which means ... I can't spend time on the phone with folks (sorry Mom and Dad!). Which means spending a lot of time with myself, which is usually a good thing in my book. But it's left me a lot of time to have long, philosophical, and sometimes rather difficult conversations with myself. Sadly, I haven't had a lot of time to do that in the last few years - always "go, go, go."

It's such a challenge to slow down long enough (though sometimes your body does that for you) to ask yourself why you're doing the things you're doing. Between working, going to school, starting/running a business, my life has been about multitasking, checking things off the to do list, and meeting goals. I haven't actually read a book since Summer 2007. Seem crazy that I remember the date? It's when the last Harry Potter book was published. Now I just listen to books while driving. Reading a book seems so decadent, almost wrong.

I don't have answers yet, just self-awareness which is more than half the battle. It's sad that it took something like this to slow me down sufficiently to listen to myself, but that's what it took, and it worked.

Now I'm on official vacation, which will include additional introspection as well as a goal: reading an actual book. :)