I need to be eight

I have a cold. It’s not a polite cold. A sniffle and a cough like a mildly enraged librarian. It’s turned me into a human snot producing soda stream. I am aching. My eyes ache. It hurts to swallow. If you poke my face (not recommended) it squishes.

So what did I do with myself. I went to work. I went to work early so I could factor in my lack of productivity because I was ill and still needed to be beavering away.
This stupid decision ended with my crying in a very small room surrounded by boxes while a very lovely man asked me what I needed. After waffling on about flexibility and wanting to get on with things he asked me kindly “and what else do you need?”. That gave me pause. Following my recent time off with anxiety and depression I just want to be fine. And I’m not. I’m still limping from my experience and acting like everything is fine. It isn’t. I promised I’d think about what help I needed.
So I came home and got in a hot bath in the time honoured poaching cure. I then messed about on my phone instead of resting or thinking about what I needed. In the end I pissed myself off so I took myself to middle monkey’s bed as a back to basics measure.

The monkeys have candy striped flannelette duvet covers that I bought on a nostalgic whim. It was immediately my childhood bed and it let a chink of light in.

As I settled down my foot hit something hard and pointed. Middle monkey had been hiding books in her bed. I then knew what I needed. I need to be eight. I need to be so immersed in the fizzy stuff that it comes to bed with me, books, cuddly toys, Lego.

I needed to imagine great things like rainbow ice dragons and universes filled with tiny invisible vegetarian vampires, not conjure terrors behind every comment, email and glance.
And I need to accept the help offered by the people around me because you don’t build an underwater tree fort alone.