Dear Reader,

Here's the official news:  I am the worst mildly sick person on the planet.  I cannot tolerate being sick enough to feel miserable but not sick enough to avoid being a functional human in my relationships and at work.    It makes me almost misanthropic.  Everything and everyone GETS. ON. MY. NERVES.   Students playing minor scales and messing up the fingering on the way down from the second octave actually causes my head to explode when I've got a cold/sinus infection/whatever this is.    Someone making more than one brief, innocuous comment about something I have no interest in or concern about during a faculty meeting makes me want to punch them in the face.   People at the grocery store who interrupt my quest for cold medicine to tell me how cute my kids are make me TOTALLY CRAZY.    Yeah, I get it.  I have adorable children.  Now, out of my way before I tackle you.   Sigh.  This is not a charming quality I have here.   I will say that I have been seriously ill only once before in my life (the kind when they have to inject some medicine into you to stop your heart and make it start again) and I am quite the opposite in that situation, at least.   Real illness makes me quiet and submissive and calm.   I become overly concerned with making everybody else feel OK.   But give me a stuffy nose and a mildly sore throat, and I become a wild-eyed harridan.   That's right.  A harridan.  

So that was today...

You know, sometimes when I look back on various blog posts, I wonder if it doesn't appear to the dear reader as if I am emotionally unstable.   Ha.   I think it's just interesting to document my emotional life in this way, because what you begin to see is that no emotional state lasts forever.   The things that remain are the things that I am striving for - self-acceptance, kindness, compassion, honesty, authenticity (an overused word, but still appropriate), wholeheartedness.   So, on Monday I can be giddy with the pleasures of spring and on Thursday, I can be a total whiner about being sick.   Such is life, I suppose.   I have felt some of the insidious effects of the "grey fog" (my term for depression) start seeping back into the edges of my mind lately, so I may have been overcompensating with my recent enthusiasm about spring.  Not that I don't feel all of those things.   But, I have noticed (in the past) that the more I try to push an emotion away, the stronger a hold it takes on me.  I really need to practice the whole mindfulness thing with regard to my emotional life.  Every time I have an experience of a negative emotion, I judge myself.   Harshly.   Whew.   That is clearly not getting me anywhere.   So, I need to acknowledge the emotion and let it either remain or drift away.   That is sooooo much easier said than done for me.   I am constantly trying to forcibly make myself into a "better" person who "gets over things" more quickly or more fully because, well, I think that I "should."   Should is an awful word, isn't it?   Seriously.    Because, nobody ever really wants to do the things that they "should" do.....  I shouldn't think negative thoughts about my body.  I shouldn't have doubts about my lovability.   I shouldn't allow depression to creep into my mind and heart.   I shouldn't use food to fill an emotional void.   And on and on and on.  

So, I am really going to try my hardest to focus on the things that I CAN DO.   I can notice the negativity and counteract it consciously with positive things.   I can be GRATEFUL for what I have and for what is in the world.   I can accept that I'm going to have bad days and good days and that things will sometimes work out and sometimes not work out the way that I wish they would, but that that doesn't have anything to do with my own worthiness.  

I had really hoped to be back on track with my fitness/wellness goals by this point in the week, but life has a way of getting in the way.   One of my other not-so-great qualities is a tendency to be overambitious about goals and then be seriously disappointed when I don't reach those goals, even when they might be unrealistic.   And, life is being a bit unreasonably busy this week.   Add on to that this sickness and I probably need to dial down my expectations a bit.  But, the fitbit is charged and I plan to put it on and sync it up tomorrow.   If I am feeling well enough, I will take my walk around campus with my friend, and I will calculate my calories in and out.  And, I will blog again tomorrow and maybe once over the weekend and will start weighing myself again next Monday.  

Things I am grateful for right now:

1) This freakishly beautiful dress:

Seriously, dear reader, this dress was MADE FOR ME.   It feels great and it looks great and I LOVE IT.   And, it makes me like my body RIGHT NOW for what it looks like RIGHT NOW.   I cannot tell you how significant that is.  

2) Sunshine.  

3) The multicolored tulips in my front yard.

4) The fact that my daughter let me brush her hair this morning.

5) The fact that the students in my Beethoven's Ninth class humor me enough to laugh at my cornball Beethoven jokes.

6) The fact that we are apparently going to have the world's shortest music department jury day next Wednesday.  

7) The fact that today was the VERY LAST FACULTY MEETING OF THE YEAR.

8) The fact that I have two really, really cosmically good friends that allow me to text my feelings to them on an hourly basis, even though I KNOW THAT THEY MUST FIND THIS TO BE TEDIOUS.  :)

All right, dear reader.   I must do laundry and go to bed.   I shall see you on the morrow with more statistics and more thoughts.

Thanks for reading!