That's Not Funny, That's Sick

The next day, I get out of bed feeling kind of yucky, but willing to brave the office. I am sure it is just a winning combination of wine hangover (the worst kind) and lingering cold.

I am dead wrong.

By 10 am I am convinced I am going to be found dead at my desk.

By 11 the germophobe in the office is dusting the vicinity with Lysol. 

By noon I am telling people I'll be leaving shortly.

By 12:30 I am in my car and not at all sure I should be driving. I wonder if there is a law against driving without the will to live.

I get home and get into bed.  I wake up 5 hours later. In the dark. With the cats looking at me funny.

I feed them. I shower. I return to bed.

My alarm goes off. I have a better chance at winning an Olympic medal than I do of getting myself into the office. I feed the cats. I take cold medicine and Advil. I get back in bed.

I wake 3 hours later. Repeat.

I call Charlotte. She is completely horrified at the sound of my voice, which between the cold and the under utilization, sounds much like that of a person who has just eaten ground glass. She wants to know what she can do for me.

There is nothing I tell her, but in my despairing sense that Death is waiting at the next turn, I am again blue about Scott.

There is a sense of loneliness that comes with knowing that you are no one's responsibility. That I am, in return, no one's "in case of emergency" person.  Sure Charlotte cares about me. Always always always. But it is different when it is your partner.

I manage to email my boss in a moment of clarity and tell him I am not sure what the next day will bring. He tells me not to worry, to take care of myself and feel better.

The kindness from a near stranger almost brings me to tears. No one to own the responsibility, so strangers step in.

I feel a tear on my cheek even as I nod off in a haze of cold medicine, hoping all of this will pass by morning.