Sucking It Up Sucks

So far, 2011 is not off to a rip-roaring start. I haven't posted all week because every time I start to compose a post in my head, it quickly degrades into a whine-fest filled with too much information about snot and other bodily fluids.

The shorter and easier to stomach version: Matt and I have both been sick all week. Not sick enough to justify crawling into bed and telling the rest of the world to go away and leave us alone while we sleep it off; just sick enough to be miserable while we carry on doing our best to get stuff done. And since I can never resist heading into TMI territory, my sickness was compounded at various times with cramps and a migraine. Fun!

I'd hoped to be able to post an update on all those 2011 goals I posted last week, but this week my only goals were to breathe through my nose and get through the week without having a break down. I scored on the first one, since this crud has progressed out of my nose and sinuses into my throat and chest. I came close on the second--I made it all the way to Thursday without having to sit down and put my head in my hands and cry, but that was after spending all day in line at the Social Security office for Rob only to find out that they don't recognize power of attorney and that I couldn't do any of the things I'd gone down there to do. And then I found out that the nursing home really should be taking care of his social security, anyway, and so I wasted an entire day feeling sick and miserable while sitting in an uncomfortable chair and waiting for my number to be called for nothing.

That wasn't the only reason. It didn't help that sitting across from me at the Social Security office the entire time was a young mother who'd brought her baby girl in to get a card, and that baby was the same age mine would have been if my first pregnancy had been successful, and I couldn't help wondering why I couldn't be there for such a happy reason, instead of trying to sort out the affairs of my disabled step-father-in-law who has nobody else to take care of him since my mother-in-law died.

See what I mean about devolving into whining?

But yesterday, there was a point where I felt the weight of everything that happened in the last two years, and everything that still needed to be done, and I just couldn't handle it in that moment. But that moment passed, and I remembered that I'm not alone, and that there is a purpose, and I've really got no choice but to suck it up and carry on.

"Suck it up" takes on a whole new meaning when you've had a nasty head cold all week, doesn't it?

Anyway. You guys, I don't want to be a cipher. I really don't. I'm so tired of all this depressing stuff. I want to have happy things to write about. I wish that at the very least I had the talent to make all this misery funny like Pamie or Dooce or Heather Havrilesky. Let's all hope and pray that I'll get over this crud quickly and next week I'll have the strength to start working out, and all those endorphins will remind me what it's like to be happy and full of hope and optimism. Or at least energy. Energy would be nice to have.