River Brown

I have been under the influence of a virus, which is to say sick.  Flattened.  Like somebody pulled the plug on my energy.  That drain feeling began while sitting in SST meetings last Thursday.

During this haze of lying under the covers, alternately dozing or sitting up to read Vernacular Eloquence I had a few appointments.  On Saturday I dressed and applied make up to go act chirpy and lead a seminar session on connected learning.  I was so grateful for the nice, articulate teachers who showed up.  They made it easy.  And I only forgot one writing piece in the presentation.

But afterward, I paid.  My energy dropped to all time record lows, like the temperatures in the mid west on winter nights.  I was glazed all afternoon.

And early evening I got a hard-to-decipher text from a writing friend, which led to a hard-to-understand phone call with her, which led to resolutely going out to a coffee shop. Not that I felt like it.

She told recent stories, mixed with past pain and went all over the place about writing insights from a recent workshop she’d attended.  I leaned on my elbows and listened.  I slumped in the high chair and listened.  I think that the virus made me not react so much and caused me to really hear her out.  I said a few things, but not much.  I drank hot chocolate and listened. Three and a half hours later, I drove her home.

I listened to her like my writing group has listened to me.  Without answers, without an agenda.  Just hearing, piecing it together, trying to get it all.  I think the virus helped me do that.  Yet I came home frazzled and worried whether or not I had been helpful.  Set back time for the health.

The next morning I was too tired to attempt meeting my pd partner in crime to go over my next prez at the bilingual academy.  I simply did not have the steam and besides it was cold and rainy.

My cat Mickey gave me the look this morning when I crawled back under the covers.  Like, sleeping again?  Are you finally evolving into a cat?

Monday a.m. I  propped myself on pillows and wrote an interim report my principal asked me for — right in the middle of finishing a cycle of intervention.  Why could we not wait until I was finished and had final data?  Monday was a blur, because I didn’t go in to work, but went to my doctor instead.  My set of symptoms did not qualify for the real deal flu and my low grade temperature did not qualify as a fever.  I felt like a real underachiever in the sickness department. But something obviously was going on. Up the fluids.  Get rest.

I got a pneumonia and a flu shot before I left, to take my mind off my sore throat.  I splurged on a bottle of extra strength Robitussin for nights.

And it completely exhausted me to have driven out to Kaiser.  But I had a note from my doctor placing my return to work at Wednesday, tomorrow.

It has been interesting barely knowing what day it is.  Just having one thing to do during the day rather than a gazillion.  Turning into a cocoon.

It all feels like one long day and night.  And perhaps, when the alarm goes off in the early morning, I will unfold my wings and bat about like a butterfly.  Or moth. Ride the exer-cycle and use the arm weights.  Make tea and get moving again.  And hopefully not be so zoned.

Join the workforce.  Make something of myself.