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it’s sunday, 6:24 am.

i am watching the sun come up from my living room. i have a migraine. i hurt everywhere. i have a fat nose.

it looks like someone punched me in the face. it feels that way, too. i feel like my soul has been run over by a mack truck.

but right now i am taking care of myself, which i’ve learned is better for my morale than allowing anyone else to. i have already done three things at this early hour that someone i’ve lived with in my life would have frowned about. like dirtying two glasses because i know i’ll want to drink both and i won’t want to get up to get the second. putting ice in the second glass was not an option, as i have none. i am noticing this for the first time.

i have lived here for months without ever slowing down long enough to wish i could enjoy a drink with ice. slowly. i have not been able to savor anything in months. I am reminded of something i read a while back, and feel a little like i should have seen this coming.

i spent the entirety of yesterday in the ER. i am so over doctors.
i am so over pretending like i haven’t googled my symptoms before arriving because they always feel threatened by that. i’m not an unintelligent person. i don’t try to diagnose or treat myself. i trust professionals to do their jobs well. but until i can get that opinion, i know how to read. i am capable of synthesizing information. i am not in the least concerned with undermining or being right. i am concerned with getting better.

i don’t want to talk about what’s wrong with me because i don’t want you to try to diagnose me. it just stresses me out when the doctors have nothing. sometimes i feel like my life is managed by the democratic party. compassionate, good people i have voted into my life with reason and without regret. but goddamnit, could you please stop fucking everything up. thanks. that’s not a specific attack, just a general disappointment.

i still have no phone. the lady who was supposed to mail it went away on business and thought it would be ok to wait a week to send. if you have ever heard my speech about the people who will mail your letter, you understand intimately how much this disappoints me.

it’s tuesday, 10:34pm.

i went back to work today and it was too soon. I really want to be better, but i can’t just will myself to be alert and functional. i returned some emails and got on top of a few things, but i was in a lot of pain and left early.

because nothing in life can just be straightforward and easy, my phone “could not be delivered” to my place. all i wanted to do in life was sleep after work, but instead i went to the nearest post office, per instruction. the postal worker i talked to was my favorite…one who admitted to me years ago that her mother had recently passed away. i didn’t recognize the grief fog for what it was, but i had asked if she was doing ok because it was obvious that something wasn’t quite right with her. she doesn’t know that my dad died, and i doubt she even remembers the conversation, but every time i see her, i feel like i really know her, even though clearly i don’t.

she sent me to another post office, where i was able to retrieve the phone. and still all i wanted to do was sleep, but i made the trek to the sprint store, because having a phone is important. this felt like another thing i had to do to satisfy other people in my life and i resented it.

the woman sold me a phone with a bad battery. the guy i talked to gave me a new one for free. i was too upset to fully appreciate what a nice gesture that was.

it’s thursday. 1:55 am.

i’d been getting sicker. i hated not going into work today, but i woke up at 6:30 knowing it wouldn’t happen. i wrote an email to my coworkers that i couldn’t send until closer to 8:30 because my internet works almost never.

i was half sure i’d have to go back to the ER today, but prior to doing anything so dramatic, i called my favorite clinic and asked if there was any way I could be seen today. I made an appointment and asked the receptionist who I’d be seeing. She gave me the name of a PA I’ve seen before for a physical, and loved. i recalled that she specialized in some things i was particularly concerned about. best of all, she’s a listener. nobody at the ER had time for anything that i had to say.

getting that appointment was the first thing to happen to me in a very long time that felt like the universe was smiling on me.

last night i lent my truck to my neighbor, and like the dumbass i am, forgot to reattach my keys to my wristlet afterward. so no sooner had i hobbled down to my truck did i realize i had no keys. david was my personal angel and left work to take me and get a spare key before the office closed.

by the time i got to the clinic and the nurse came to take my vitals, she noticed that my heart was racing and i had a fever. i think it was just internal combustion. i started crying. she told me not to cry, which made me totally lose it. i never cry in front of people i don’t know.

i was still a blubbering mess when i saw the PA. she was really good. she stayed late. she called over an expert from the medical center. she gave me a diagnosis and a prescription and two bonus shots in each of my butt cheeks. i have a follow-up appointment with her in a week, and I’m definitely going to bring her flowers with a thank you card if i can’t think of anything more appropriate in the meantime.

so i think everything’s going to be ok. now i just wait. and sleep. and i’m going to post this without editing because i know if i read it tomorrow, it won’t feel relevant anymore.

good night, internet.