Day 35 - War and Peace

 WAR AND PEACE

Prompt - War and Peace : Write about a recent conflict you dealt with in your life.

One of the best things about the whole lockdown/pandemic scenario has been being stuck at home so much.  Yes, it can be boring, each day much the same as the one before, but there are compensations.  We haven't spent so much time together for we don't know how long and the good news, indeed a reason to feel joyful, is that we still like each other so much after all these years.  Not just love, but really enjoying each other's company.  It really was a good decision!

So when something happens to scratch that smooth surface it feels not just irritating but wrong.  We had an argument.  You couldn't call it a fight.  Maybe no more than a disagreement.  It didn't last long, it's now behind us, but a pebble thrown into a dead calm pond can cause a lot of ripples.  

I'd been reading about the adverse side effects some people can have to the covid vaccine, especially the second dose.  That worried me.  Indeed I'd have to admit to being a bit frightened.  Many years ago I had to have a typhoid jag before going on holiday to Spain.  My then wife had hers first and was OK afterwards, other than feeling a bit tired. A few days later I had mine, and my reaction wasn't quite the same...

I felt weak and dizzy and had to go to be.  For the next twelve hours I was hot, cold, hot, wildly feverish, hallucinating, jabbering nonsense and lost touch with the world.  Except I knew I was ill, and was, for some of that time, convinced I was dying.  Totally convinced.  So I have reasons to fear a possible reaction to the jags I've be having in the next few months.  I know my immune system was compromised by a spell of glandular fever in my early twenties, so I am exactly the sort of person who is most likely to take it badly.

So there's my fear of being so ill that I think I'm a goner.  But I also worry about how it might impact on my personal daily targets.  Trivial in comparison, yet important motivators to me - and in these times we need all of those we can get.  If I'm to keep up my daily record of walking eleven thousand steps, and writing something in response to my 365 challenge (and, by extension, my daily 750words) I can't afford to be hors de combat for twenty four hours.

It was in that state of mind that I started to tell her about the article, and my fears.  And yes, I know I can be a bit of a hypochondriac at times, but I had past experience to give me good reasons for concern.  She wasn't sympathetic.  It was a fair point to make that I was worrying about something that was probably some months off, but surely not to diminish my fear of a repeat of that serious malfunction all those decades ago?  And so we aired different views, both got annoyed feeling the other wasn't been given a hearing, and both got ratty.  

It felt wrong after so many months of harmony.  It felt like it should stop.  So it did.  I decided to say no more about it.  I felt hurt, and woke up in the morning still slightly aggravated.  But there had been no point in prolonging the dispute, when it was clear it would only become worse and achieve nothing.  No need to forgive, just forget.