Last night I drove to Fayetteville to have dinner with friends. I was running late, but that’s usual. They expect that. At least they tolerate it. Hold on, back up. I drove almost to Fayetteville. There was a wreck several miles outside of town. It was raining, and the temperature was below freezing. That must have been it. I didn’t see the wreck, but I heard later it was bad. Really bad. A multiple-car pile up.

For about an hour, I didn’t move an inch. After that, things were slow going. Eventually, I got to a point on the interstate where policemen usually hide and clock people’s speed. A policeman, standing in the rain, was directing everyone to turn around. “It’s completely blocked,” he said. “Go back to Winslow and take the business route.” So that’s what I started to do, but in less than a mile, my car, Tom Collins, hit a small patch of ice on a bridge. I was okay, but it was enough for me to get the message. I called my friends and said, “I just can’t make it tonight.”

Before much longer, the check-engine light on Tom Collins started blinking. I thought, Perfect. Stopping at the nearest gas station, I Googled the problem and found out it could be any number of things. One post said, “Don’t drive more than a few miles, and don’t drive at highway speeds.” Twelve miles from home and pulling back onto the highway, I once again thought, Perfect.

I made it home.

In an effort to stop worrying about potential car-repair costs, I buried my face in a book last night, then took to Netflix and watched a documentary called The Truth About Alcohol. Don’t watch it. They say alcohol is bad for you.

This morning I woke up sick. Bad sick. Like could be the big, bad f-word sick. Mom and Dad have been hacking the last few days, and Mom said her temperature was up last night. When I woke up at seven-thirty (five hours ago), I was freezing. When I woke up four hours later, hot. I’m not hacking, but I’m wiped out, super icky. Just before I started this post I sat on the bathroom floor and dry-heaved into the toilet.

I’m glad we can talk about these things.

Now I’m back in bed, vertical, and blogging from my phone, punching out one letter at a time with my thumbs. I’d intended to make this a three-word post (shit, the flu), but I couldn’t help myself. I hope I don’t come across as some sort of blogging martyr. This is how I process things.

That line above–I couldn’t help myself. That’s probably one of the most frustrating feelings in the whole world, to feel like you’ve done everything you can to get your life together but that everything, including you, keeps falling apart and all you can do about it is lie in bed and wait for the night to descend.

I’m telling myself I could have it worse. Way worse. Like those people in the pile up last night worse. I have friends who were stuck in that traffic for three hours, so it must have been ugly. I do think that perspective helps a little. At the same time, perspective has never taken my immediate pain away. Perspective doesn’t help me stand up without feeling woozy or help my head stop throbbing. Still, perhaps it does help me find compassion for both myself and others, for anyone who suffers.