By Emma Lyons Editorial Staff I used to boast about never getting sick. I would only get sick once a year in the winter and it would just be a bad cold. I would lose my voice for a couple days and be fine for the rest of the year. Being sick wasn’t a big deal to me. It wasn’t something that I thought about often - then the pandemic hit. The pandemic that has continued affecting our lives for four years is something I can never stop thinking about. Any time I feel remotely under the weather, I worry endlessly. As a senior in high school, a part of my nightly routine was to lie in my bed, stare at the ceiling, and go through any symptom in my body that could be connected to COVID-19. This continued for months and months, as I stayed at home for the entirety of my senior year of high school. My high school graduation was one of the worst days of my life. It was plagued with fears of catching COVID-19, I felt isolated from classmates who had forgotten I still went to school with them, and my name was spelled wrong on my diploma. The worst part of the whole ordeal was my family’s dinner after the ceremony - where I threw up. I don’t know what made me sick - maybe it was the heat of the stuffy gym filled to the brim with people, maybe something was cooked incorrectly in my meal, maybe it was the overwhelming talk of my undefined future. It doesn’t really matter why I was sick. It mattered that I was sick. Me - the person who only gets sick once a year. The one who only gets a bad cold. I got sick in front of my family who hadn’t seen me in years. I got sick in front of a whole restaurant filled with people trying to enjoy their night. I felt like I ruined the entire event and I still can’t stop thinking about it. As I transitioned from high school to college, every new place I went I would search for the nearest bathroom, the nearest exit, or the nearest trash can in case I threw up again. I’m now a senior in college who still thinks about my last day in high school every time I eat in public. While this anxiety seems to be something I am stuck with for the rest of my life, I’ve developed some ways to work around it. Peppermint gum and ginger tea have been my constant companions throughout my college career. Each has anti-nausea and anti-anxiety properties, which I cash in the benefits of every time my thoughts turn anxious and my nausea amps up in response. The most annoying tool that has helped me deal with my anxiety is time. I had to give myself the time to slowly go back to restaurants and build up the confidence to handle group dinners. Though it took forever, I can’t deny that the continual worries about vomiting have become more like background noise to me - rather than the screaming voice that used to take over my brain. However, time has also been my friend. Taking the time to allow myself to feel nauseous and work through the worry ultimately helped me to come to terms with the daily episodes - even though that work took three whole years. I’ve finally stopped bullying myself when I am nauseous - kicking myself for potentially getting people around me sick or having to cancel trips because I was dry-heaving in parking lots when the nausea got too bad. Even if I do get sick, I’ve slowly realized it’s not the end of the world. I’ve finally stopped having sob-fests in the car after I throw up anywhere. I finally understand it’s OK to be sick. Though it’s not fun, I can’t stop myself from being sick. I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t get sick. Being sick, or getting sick, has been my biggest worry for the last three years of my life. But I have finally begun to move on from those worries. I’m sick of worrying about being sick.