Making the Best of the Worst Week

Last week was the absolute worst week.

Over the past three weeks I had just finished traveling to Singapore and Bangkok. Exploring the Singapore and the city of Bangkok in Thailand was the best, but I had depleted all my energy. I was exhausted from traveling despite trying to convince myself differently. My work informed me that the upcoming Monday was a holiday, so I had an extended weekend to travel more. A trip to the beautiful Koh Lipe was planned to commence after work on Friday.

On Thursday night I began to feel nauseous after exercising. It was almost midnight, so I went to sleep and tried to forget about the unpleasant feeling in my stomach. The next morning I woke up and still felt a bit odd, however I continued to work like normal. After a few hours at work, my stomach began to feel worse than earlier in the morning. This lead to the best decision of the day, going back home, followed by one of the worst things that could have possibly happened.

Before I mention what happened, please understand that living in Thailand has numerous advantages for my life at the moment, but in relocating across the globe I live much differently than in the States. Using public transportation is an essential and effective way of life. It is one of the best ways to experience the heart of a culture and to see the city. On this day I felt much different. The last place I wanted to be was sitting on the back of a rickety songthaew. Thirty minutes into my commute towards home I realize that I left my house key at work. What an idiot! And the way back to work is not easy being that I live in a smaller Thai town.

To make a long story short, I finally made it home two hours later. I passed out on the bed with some of the worst stomach pains imaginable whiling simultaneously feeling the need to throw up everything in my empty stomach. I only awoke randomly to run in the bathroom and relieve my severe bowel movements. This section of the story must stop here for obvious reasons of saving you the disgust.

The following night my girlfriend had the pleasure of experiencing a most certainly related battle of the same food poisoning as I had gotten. The sickness had its way with her for the next 24 hours and though I had not fully recovered from my own bacteria induced fatigue, I tried my best to comfort us both.

It was during the healing process of the rest of the week that I learned something important from food poisoning. The worst of life can and will happen at some point. And when days like this do happen (and they will) it reminds us to appreciate the best of life like a normal day sitting on the couch and reading a book. We are always going somewhere. We always thinking. We are so addicted to movement that we forget how relaxing it is to be still.