June 04, 2014

Curbing my germophobia


When Boston started crawling I decided I'd better clean the floor. We were living in a vacation rental in LA at the time. I got some spray and wipe and paper towel and to my disgust the paper towel was completely black after just a few swipes of the floor. Unfortunately my disgust did not overpower how overwhelmed I felt at the thought of how thoroughly and how often I would need to clean the floors. My paranoid self was thinking of all the potential germs the black stuff on the paper towel was harbouring.. There was bound to be dog poo particles and who knows what else. Germs that could potentially cause serious illness. I thought about how exhausted I would be if I cared too much about germs and about how I don't want to pass on my phobias and paranoid parrot behaviours onto my son. I would also be a total killjoy of a mother if I did not allow him to explore the world around him uninhibited by me worrying about germs. So I made a decision which I have been trying to stick to ever since.. Let it be.. Germs will set me free. 

This change of heart will be a journey for me as I have little tolerance for germs and people harbouring them. I still wince when anyone coughs in my direction.. I got a pedicure the other day and the technician was coughing and spluttering all over my feet.. I breathed calmly and thanked the heavens I wasn't having a manicure! Ugh! 
I want to be more compassionate and caring towards to sick people and resist my urge to rocket launch out of there atmosphere. 

I breezed through an incident the other day where I'd swept the kitchen floor and while I looked for the dust pan.. Boston had grabbed a handful of my dust and food particles pile and put it in his mouth. I calmly fished out the debris and moved on with life. 

Ok.. This post has been in my drafts for a while now and I've slowly added to it. I'm currently disastrously ill and my care free attitude towards germs has diminished. I HATE being sick.. I had the flu and now a cold.. It's just the pits and I will continue to vehemently avoid illness at all costs .. Even if I do seem crazy. So I guess I've gone fill circle.. I'm back to where I started because I'm in the thick of feeling terrible as a direct result of contracting the rhinovirus. I'm disgusted with myself.. I'd hate to be sitting next to me on a plane. I'm coughing, sneezing and generally just a snot head. I went to Paris this weekend and it was beautiful BUT I couldn't taste a thing.. I ate about 6 macaroons and countless croissants hoping my taste buds would reactivate but they didn't. The moral to the story is, wash your hands always. I guess being this sick has helped me to be a bit more understanding and compassionate towards other people when they're sick. It's just a fact of life but a very unwelcome one! 




Terrifying