I know it sounds crazy to say I was fortunate to have Covid—but there was an upside.
When I caught it, I felt horrible: relentless fever, intense body aches, and a throat so sore it hurt to swallow. At first, I thought it was the flu. Then I realized I couldn’t taste or smell anything. I found an old test kit in the medicine cabinet, and sure enough—it was Covid.
The first bit of luck: my breathing was never affected.
During those five down-and-out days, I didn’t drink coffee. I didn’t enjoy food. And, of course, I didn’t have my all-too-common evening glass of wine. Mostly, I slept. And while I was sick, that sleep felt like the only relief I had.
But when I began to recover, I noticed something remarkable. I still didn’t want coffee. My taste and smell took a full three weeks to return, and in the meantime, even my favorite things—like a hot cup of morning coffee—didn’t appeal. When I finally tried coffee again, it made me feel tense. Later that week, I had a glass of wine and found myself wide awake at 3 a.m., anxious and restless.
That’s when it hit me: maybe the deep rest I’d had while sick wasn’t just from exhaustion—it was from a body cleared of caffeine and alcohol. Covid, oddly enough, had done the hard part of withdrawal for me.
And with that reset, I noticed something deeper. I had more consistent energy and less of that background buzz of stress. I’ve been trying to frame it in financial terms, and the best analogy I can find is this: my human capital—my ability to think clearly, to rest well, to show up fully—is worth more than the $80 I save each month by skipping wine and coffee.
We often think of financial capital as the foundation for security and opportunity, but human capital—our time, attention, vitality, and mental clarity—is every bit its equal. The irony is that we sometimes spend our human capital trying to gain or maintain financial capital. We push ourselves with caffeine to be more productive, we soften the edges of long days with alcohol to be more social or agreeable. But in doing so, we quietly erode the very resource we most rely on: ourselves.
For years, I believed I couldn’t function without coffee. That I'd be unproductive or unfocused. And to be fair, without the jolt, some days I do feel a little flakey. But I’m learning to live without the artificial push and pull—no longer revving up with caffeine, then winding down with wine. It’s not natural to push the body that hard in both directions.
What surprises me most is how this change has held. I’ve gone to social events—ones I thought would require a glass of wine just to feel comfortable—and had a fine time without. I couldn’t be more surprised.
Recovering from Covid also gave me time to think about health in a broader sense. I thought about how terrifying it must have been in the early days of the pandemic, and how many people are still dealing with long Covid. I thought about how lucky I am to wake up and be able to smell.
Maybe this shift is also a sign that I’m getting older—and that I need to take better care of this one body I’ve been given. I don’t bounce back as fast anymore. I don’t want to live on fumes.
The only time I really struggle is when I clean the house. That used to be a day I powered through on lots of coffee and rewarded myself with wine. Now, I just pace myself. I don’t get as much done, but maybe that’s okay too.
Looking back, I think my need for coffee and wine was really about control—trying to command my energy, my emotions, even the tempo of my days. But maybe I’ve been asking too much from my body for too long. I’m learning to trust a slower rhythm.
And oddly, that feels like wealth. Not the kind you measure in dollars, but in presence. In peace. In waking up every day a little more rested and a little more whole.
My Upside of Covid
