Wrote when I recently had a viral.

For the last five days: coughing in spasms, dry and then wet, aching head, running temperature, snoozing, waking up to wet sheets and pillows, sitting up, unable to sit up because lower back is weak, trying to walk, unable to walk because feel dizzy, do not feel like eating … doctor says it is common flu, not swine.

When I breathe I feel I am standing atop a mountain with gusts of wind passing through me. When I lie down I feel my ribs cracking and lungs hitting the floor. When the fan starts and the movement of air pains my nerves. I feel I no longer have my skin on. On phone calls others tell me I sound like I am inside a deep well. I feel I have become a porous crate, my insides spilling out. Only slightly tied down. Nebulously. Ready to give away.

It is a heightened sense of touch. It is a sensitivity one aspires to feel for one’s environment, in one’s body. Yet, one does not want to have it without one’s skin on. One does not want to have it in this raw state where one has no control over how much one can take and where one can stop the experience. This is like a free fall from a waterfall where one has no means to preserve oneself.

Still, I wonder how it would be to keep this heightened sense of touch and not be as blown by it as I feel when I am ill. Guess that is why people like to heighten their experiences in various ways: music, drugs, travel, and so on.

Recovered now, but know what I am looking for – the same experience without the viral

Tags: experience, sensitive, touch, viral