This Isn't As Depressing a Post As It May Seem At First. Cross My (Fractured) Heart.

I'm not entirely sure what I did and whom I ticked off, but apparently I'm being punished this week.

At least I'm not alone: numerous friends and coworkers and students and family members have also been having a miserable week. So perhaps it's less about karma and more about...oh, I don't know, the impending doom of 2012 or some other lovely apocalyptic theory. At least we're all miserable together.

If it wasn't enough that I had my heart bruised and lost a relative, I also managed to injure my lower back. Multiple visits to the chiropractor and massage therapist have resulted in only temporary relief: this morning I tried to bend over to pull on my jeans and nearly had a coronary from the pain. Thank God my beloved brother stayed the night and was there to help me get the boys ready this morning. Okay, truth be told, he did everything from getting them dressed to buckling them into their car seats.

(You think he'd consider moving in and staying on the couch? No? Dammit.)

(I should have stayed in Detroit. I really am not fond of this birdnesting situation.)

I also have come down with the plague a horrific cold. Not only do I have the full force sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching, fever, can't-sleep-and-Nyquil-can-suck-it sort of cold; every time I hack up a portion of lung, my back goes into spasms. Oh, and of course I look just sexy as all get out, yo. Exactly the sort of thing that makes one feel just peachy when one's self-esteem has already taken a major hit.

Tuesday, which was possibly the worst day of the week (it's hard to tell right now), I lost my temper with a student and said some things I should not have said. As a result, I ended up in a sit-down with an administrator and received my first-ever write-up. I was in the wrong, so I was rather resigned and mainly angry with myself for letting myself be so unprofessional.

There have been some bright spots. Yesterday that administrator decided to change the write-up to a verbal warning, since my history has been excellent otherwise. He knows I've been going through a great deal of hardship in this last year, and he specifically mentioned in the original write-up (as well as to my face) that he is impressed with my energy and determination to continue being an effective teacher despite my personal troubles. Hey: at least I'm not disappearing off the face of the earth like I did last year.

Earlier this week I had some delightful laughs at the expense of students' inadvertent malapropisms--there were some others that wouldn't convert well to storytelling (you had to be there)--and yesterday I found another. While looking over a student's rough draft, I read this sentence: There has been a penile system in place dating all the way back to when our country was first founded.

Well, if one looks at American history from a devoutly feminist point of view, he wasn't all that off the mark.

A truly bright spot, however, appeared this morning in the form of a visit from four of my tenth grade students. They showed up in my first hour class bearing gifts: a gorgeous bouquet of flowers, a box of homemade brownies, three of my favorite chocolate bar of all time (the Dark Chocolate with Raspberry, of course), and an extremely sweet card that read:

For now,
the important thing
is to know
you are not alone--
you're surrounded
by the loving thoughts
of so many
who care about you...
...so just be sure
to take care of yourself,
and do whatever
you need to do
to feel better.

And they signed it with the words: Hope your week gets better! <3 We love you.

So am I slipping into a black hole of depression this week? No. I'm hurting, yes. My heart, head, nose, throat, chest, back, hips...I'm a wreck. But even in the loneliest times, there always seems to be someone or something to keep me from heading into despair. I'm grateful.

Besides, I already have a permanent reminder that even in the worst of times, there is hope. The bird is singing. All I have to do is listen.