Interrupted
My Life Thus Far
While I Lay Dying
**
"Nothing is more important than guarding the mind. Let us
constantly keep watch over the wild elephant of the mind,
curbing it with mindfulness and vigilance. This is how one
can avoid being influenced by different external
conditions. But even in retreat in a very secluded place,
if the mind is not kept under control, it will wander all
over the place. Even when completely alone, we can have an
enormous amount of negative emotions."
The Dalai Lama wrote this with me in mind. Lord knows my
mind wanders all over the place and I'm just recently
learning how to wrangle it back in. A wandering mind is
such a hard thing to control, but if it isn't, all sorts
of self-destructive thoughts can be thought.
Am I dead yet? No, not quite, although right about now the
idea of death isn't such a bad one. I'm so weak, so tired.
My stomach is in a knot. I'm not feeling very good, if you
couldn't tell. I wish Snookums was here to take care of
me. Instead, he's 1,300 miles away playing taxi driver to
a captain in a city he's never even set foot in. Unless
you want to count the base. Why can't he be with me? I
know it sounds childish, expecting the Navy to let me have
my husband in my time of need, but a girl can dream, can't
she?
I thought today I'd get a chance to rest and recouperate,
but that didn't happen. Well, not as I'd planned it to. I
dropped the girls off and as soon as I got back to Port
Orchard, Kiki's daycare called to tell me she had a 102.6
temperature. So, I had to turn around and drive back to
get her. She hadn't felt warm when I dressed her this
morning, but babies can become sick at the drop of a hat.
At least, Kiki can. So, anyhow. We came home and I put her
down in her crib with a cup of diluted apple cider (1 part
cider to 3 parts water so she wouldn't get the runs, she's
sensitive to too much juice). She fell asleep right away,
so I lay down too. A couple hours later I woke to my cell
phone ringing. It was Tamara. Apparently, I was supposed
to be at work at noon. I feel so bad about missing work,
but because of all the schedule shuffle that was going on,
I just hadn't realized I'd been given Monday. But, it
didn't matter anyhow. With Kiki sick, she isn't going to
be able to go back to daycare until Wednesday. So, I had
to tell Tamara that I couldn't come in today or tomorrow.
I felt terrible. They worked so hard to accomodate
Snookums schedule and then I turn around and call in sick
two days in a row anyway. When I go back on Thursday, I'm
going to do my best to make up for this week. It's only
Monday and it's already all fucked up. I hope next week
turns out better.
Kiki woke up around 3pm from her 3 and a half hour nap
much more lively and looking less sickly. She had a cup of
milk and some Gerber animal crackers in bed with me while
I lay dying. She even tried to feed them to me, but baby
crackers weren't tempting my appetite at all. After we
picked Annie up from daycare, I went through the
McDonald's drive thru, because there was no way on earth I
was cooking a damn thing. So, I had french fries. Which
aren't a recommended component of a stomach flu sufferer's
diet, but that's the only thing that sounded appealing to
me. I'm going to pay for it later, I can feel my stomach
churning, but hell, I enjoyed it for a moment. Maybe
they'll taste just as good coming back up? Sorry, that was
nasty.
I'm going to bed now. I feel like Sleeping Beauty, all I
want to do is crawl in my bed and sleep. So, that's just
what I'll do. Ciao until tomorrow, if I live that long.
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