I was sick yesterday. I woke up with no fever but I had all the aches and fatigue of being ill. But because I wasn’t incapacitated with sickness, whether it was nausea or a screaming headache or something, I decided to try powering through whatever was ailing me. It didn’t go well, and after an hour of unsuccessfully trying to muster up the energy to work on Kickstarter commissions I decided to take a sick day.
Sick days suck when you’re self-employed.
It’s not like you get paid time off or the relief of not having to commute to a workplace. When you work from home you’re just sick in that same place now. And then there’s the guilt of not feeling productive enough. And then there’s parenthood on top of that, where your precious work time is tied directly to your kid’s school day and you still have to pick them up from school and then you worry about getting them sick and then they might miss school and then your work day schedule is even more screwed up!
Needless to say, my sick day was not a relaxing one.
Most days of the week my wife works from home, too. And whenever I’m struggling with a comic page or even finding the energy to be creative, I feel guilty that I’m not “working as hard as she is.” This is all in my head, by the way. She’s never once done or said anything to make me feel guilty like that. Even though I was clearly sick, I still felt guilty for laying out on the sofa while she was busy working. Apparently I have a lot of hangups regarding feeling like I’m contributing.
So yeah. I hate sick days. Not only do I feel bad physically, there’s also a mountain of mental issues that make me feel emotionally bad. Hopefully by the time this blog posts I’ll be feeling better, because I don’t want to go through this for a second consecutive day.