Ep. 19: Eating 12 Grapes, Kissing a Stranger, and Getting Covid

Note: This is the transcription from episode 19.

You know that super trendy audio that's all over Instagram right now? It's like, “Surprise, surprise.” Well, that was going through my head all week last week, because, my big surprise was that I had COVID. I started feeling kind of like shivery, kind of achy on Tuesday of last week, so about a week and a half ago.

And I was like, “You know, I'm probably getting a cold. but I'm gonna go do a workout. I'm gonna eat healthy tonight and everything's gonna be fine.” Well, I wake up the next morning and I felt really achy and I was like, “Do I have a fever?” Like, I just kind of feel hot and I didn't think anything extreme of it, but a couple hours later when I was thinking about the happy hour I was going to that night, I was like, “I should probably just take a COVID test just in case.”

Well, I took the test and it turns out it was positive and I had COVID. I got COVID in 2020, February/March of 2020, and it was awful, but I had no idea what was around the corner for me this time. And so that was my big “surprise, surprise” of last week. I haven't been working for a full week. But I am so excited to be here to be recording a podcast episode because I have been on the couch sleeping mostly for the past week and a half and I'm excited to be back.

On today's episode, I wanted to share a few things that I learned a lot about in myself, in my life, in my business while having COVID. I'm not going to talk about COVID a lot, so don't worry about that. But I'm going to talk about a couple of realizations that came to me, and this is going to be a super short episode because I am still recovering from COVID and I'm going to lose my voice at any minute, but I wanted to just share a few things that came to me because I truly feel like they were life changing, like truly.

I want to first start this episode by telling you how I got COVID because a lot of you have asked me like, How did you get COVID? Did you have family members who had it? So I wasn't going to share this publicly, but because people asked me, and because this is my podcast and I can do whatever I want, I'm going to share this story.

So this is exclusive to you. On New Year's Eve, I went clubbing. It was my friend's birthday, and I was like, “Let's go for it.” I obviously wore all black, because that's what you do in a club when you're a millennial. You have no idea what to wear in a club anymore. So that's what I came up with. And it's not like a bougie club, it's like a cool kids club, right? They're all Gen Z in this club, except for like half of them are millennials who all wore black. So that's where we went. And before we went, my friend Karen was like, “Do you have any grapes?” And I was like, “Yes, I have grapes, Karen, actually. I went to the store yesterday and I randomly bought grapes. But why are you asking me this?” And she said, “I need 12 of them. Can you bring me 12?” And I was like, “I can bring you 12. But again, why are you asking me for grapes, Karen?” And she said, “Because at midnight you have to eat 12 grapes to basically manifest your partner.”

So I was like, “Okay, Karen, I will bring you 12 grapes. And I'm also going to bring 12 grapes for myself.” So I did. I had my club purse…a little bag that was like a crossbody bag and I had two baggies of 12 grapes each in there and that's what I brought to the club. Karen actually left early because she was sick so she went home and at midnight she got under her table because that's like apparently like you're super manifesting someone if you're under the table eating 12 grapes.

And what did I do? At midnight I took out my baggie of 12 grapes and I ate them in the middle of the dance floor. Okay? And Sober Lindsay would never have done this. But non-sober Lindsay did and I took the grapes out one by one and I ate them with my clubbing hands. It grosses me out thinking about it, but I was like, “Hell yeah, I'm gonna manifest my husband this year.” Well right after that after I ate the grapes after the countdown after we welcomed 2024, I turned around and there was this guy standing there with this glow stick necklace. And I was like, “I love your necklace. Where did you get your necklace?” And he gave me this look like, “Okay, I'm gonna take it off and give it to you.” And I was like, “Oh no, feel free. You don't have to do that.” But he did anyway. He puts it on me and I turn around to say thank you and he kisses me. So we're making out on the dance floor after I just ate 12 grapes with my club hands.

And, you know, again, not thinking anything of it. Well, that was, what, Sunday to Monday, and Tuesday is when I started feeling a little bit sick, and then Wednesday, it was like, boom, “surprise, surprise," you have a fever, and now you have COVID. So that's how I got COVID. I'm just gonna get that story out of the way.

There you go. But now I'm gonna tell you what I learned while I had COVID.

Sometimes you just have to freaking rest.

So again, having COVID, I was like, this is going to be no big deal. It's going to be cold like symptoms. That's what everyone's saying, right? It's not a big deal anymore. Well, I had fevers for four or five days. I was knocked off my ass. I was so sick. The only thing that I could do was lay on the couch and watch TV. I couldn't even read a book. I couldn't open my computer. I couldn't go anywhere, like even walking to the kitchen or letting my dogs outside. That was a big task for me.

So I had to rest. And it sucks that my body had to get to the point where I had COVID so severely that I only could rest and I only could nap. But that showed me that We have to rest, even if that means taking a day off to go to Costco or taking a day off to just lay in bed all day or taking a week off or a month off to go on a vacation.

We have to rest. So whether you're an entrepreneur like me, you're running a business, maybe you're a stay at home mom, whatever you're doing, you have to allow yourself to rest because our bodies need it. Our mental health needs it. I definitely learned that big time this week.

The people in your life matter so much, especially when you're in distress.

I have so many incredible friends. I have so many best friends that I've met in the last couple of years and I love hanging out with them. I love texting them every day. I love going to happy hour, having parties, hanging out. But what I realized through this experience is like, these people made such an impact, a positive impact on this past week. I was so sick. I couldn't do anything for myself. But I was also so bored and having my friends text me every morning, “How are you feeling? Are you getting any better? Do you need anything?”

It was just so nice. So shout out to all of my friends, but especially Karen and especially Steph because you texted me every single day. You checked on me and I'm just so grateful to have you in my life as my besties. And it just made all the difference. And I'm also so grateful for my family. As soon as I told my parents, they sent over care packages. They brought over soup and medicine and juice. And it was just so nice to feel like I don't have to go to the grocery store. I don't have to order anything. I am prepared because of my family and my friends, and I can just rest and I can just get better and I would not have healed as quickly. I don't think through COVID if I didn't have such amazing people in my life. So I am so grateful.

I cannot control everything.

This is a really hard one because I am A-type. I am an Enneagram 8, so I am a leader in my own life. I'm an entrepreneur. I'm a solopreneur. I do everything for myself in my life, but there's one thing I realize, and that's I can't control everything. When I realized that I had COVID, the first thing I did was Google how to get rid of COVID as quickly as possible. And apparently there are a lot of people who searched that on Google because there were like a million search results and newsflash, there's really not a quick way to get rid of COVID. I did all the things on that list and it still lasted, you know, I'm on day seven now, I think, and I still basically have COVID.

So you can't control everything. You can't just work your way through COVID as quickly as possible. Sometimes, again, you have to rest. But also, like, we can't control all these things that are happening in our lives, right? So I had to release control. I had to just take care of myself. And I'm still healing. I'm still working through it.

And you know what is so weird? Side note. I have phantom smells. Okay, look up the word phantom smells. That's associated with COVID or any respiratory illness. But as soon as I started getting my sense of smell back, I started smelling the weirdest things. I'm not even kidding you. I all of a sudden smelled sawdust in my house, and there's no sawdust in my house. I was like, “What is going on? Why am I smelling sawdust? Like, is that mold? Like, what's going on?” And I looked it up and as soon as I said, “I can't stop smelling sawdust,” It said phantom smell." You've probably had COVID or a cold or something because you're getting your smell back and your brain can't process what you're smelling.

Like even my perfume that I don't know why I've been spraying it on myself because I'm the only one here and I haven't seen any humans for a long time, but it smells differently. So anyway, I can't control my smell. I can't control my health, but I'm working on it. We're gonna be okay, but you know, sometimes we just need the reminder that you can't control everything.

The world still goes on when you're sick.

And this was a really hard one for me because I was so worried that I was going to lose clients or not get any new business and not make any money in January. I was freaking out, but the weirdest thing happened when I took time off and I released that to just heal through COVID.

I actually signed two new clients last week. Like it was insane. And I did it from my phone because I couldn't do it from my computer. So the fact that I had COVID, I was completely knocked out and I still brought on two clients that I'm really excited about, that I promise I'm going to do incredible SEO and website work for when I'm healthy and all the things.

I'm just so grateful for that. And it gives me so much peace of mind. Like again, we can take time off. We can take a sick day or a sick week or go on vacation for a long time and not worry about our businesses being run into the ground, right? And I'm just so grateful for that. Also, I had sales for my digital products.

So all of this goes to say, Like you definitely need to optimize your website. I'm so grateful that my website is optimized. It has keywords. It's set up with SEO, which is search engine optimization. Because people found me even when I was sick, I didn't have to show up on my website. It was already for them and they filled out lead forms.

They purchased services from me. They booked meetings and I'm just really grateful for that. So things don't stop when you're sick. Business can still go on. You can still make money and you can focus on your health all while that is happening. But I also want to say, I am so grateful for my clients. I know a lot of people listening to this podcast, our clients or past clients.

And I'm so grateful for you because when I posted that I was out of office and that I had COVID, I got so many nice messages. So I just want to shout out to all my clients. You mean the world to me. Thank you so much for understanding. And I'm ready to go back into the office. The last thing I want to mention is, this is going to sound really cliche, but life is so precious.

Like, we have no idea what's going to happen tomorrow or next week or next month or in 2024 in general. And for me, this experience just being completely knocked out for an entire week, I'm so grateful for every day now. Every day that I wake up feeling a little bit better. being able to go for a little walk, being able to cook dinner.

I'm just so grateful for this life that I have. I know COVID is kind of a big deal for a lot of people who have health problems and it could have been a lot worse. I'm just so grateful for my health, even though I've been so. sick. I'm so grateful that my body is healing and picking me back up. And I'm grateful for life.

Like seriously, this turned into a silly little podcast episode, but I am so grateful for life and you just, you never know what's going to happen. And so for me, I'm just going to take advantage of every single day. I'm going to wake up being grateful. I'm going to, you know, eat healthy so that I can go do all the things I love and get energized and all the things.

And I'm going to spend time with my people because it's really hard when you can't see your friends and you can't see your family. And my nieces and nephew. I just want to hang out with them, but obviously I don't want to get them sick. So I'm grateful for life. I know how precious life is and we never know if we're going to be sick one week and we're going to have to cancel all of our plans. So I just encourage you to make the most out of every day, out of every week and call your people more and hang out with them more.

This also taught me that like, I would love a husband. I would love to meet my man this year because I would love for him to either be sick with me or just be able to take care of me because it is a lot of work to take care of yourself when you're sick. And again, I'm so grateful for my friends and my parents and my family for being there for me. But you know what? I am ready for my freaking man. I ate 12 grapes for you on the dance floor of a club. Don't worry about the you know, kissing another guy part this it's fine. It was like a year ago, whatever. But I'm ready to meet the man of my dreams and to live life together and to be happy. All right, guys, that is all my COVID voice will allow me to share in this episode. But I just want to say I'm grateful for you. I'm so glad you're here. And I'm obsessed with this community. Stay healthy out there.