Apparently a few rather quiet days at home with fresh snow and extra fruit were needed, and sorely. They helped to shore up the eroding mental strength required for me to just deal with things people deal with every day. Maybe I keep myself in a bubble too much. Maybe I should just listen.
The flu is not the flu and I'm not pregnant. I'm taking some amazingly kick-ass iron pills that in order to make me feel human and have energy, first they must suck the life out of me and leave me miserable, ready to vomit at the first sign of heat, oxygen or hell, pick something. I have to eat more. They told me to take with food. Apparently coffee is not food. I now take with bagel.
I don't plan to address the whole pregnancy topic with you anymore, internet. If you were around when I was pregnant two years ago then you get that. If not, then next time work on your punctuality.
This morning also brough the sting of hot tears of disappointment, when a tiny little story I had a lot of hope for made it's way back to me from a publication I wanted to be a part of. It's funny, too. I was just describing last evening in an email how this industry is not for the faint of heart and here I am, faint of heart like nothing you've ever seen before, smack in the middle of trying to call it a life. This story was very close, rather personal and it was out for four months and the letter said they considered it and then considered it again, and ultimately they passed on it.
Par for the course, but the sting is still always there and always fresh. In amongst the vomitish, overtired, non-pregnant, freshly-ironed tearful feelings for a Monday morning, you might just catch a glimpse of what keeps it going.
I sit on my knees, hunched over to the ground, my hands cupped around a tiny candle, keeping the flame from the wind. That stupid flame makes me get up, dust off my skirts and take another goddamned iron pill, write another story that's going to take me on a rollercoaster of hope and accomplishment and failure too, and spend another day raising my children without the genetic shackles of faint hearts and fragile egos. Stomping out the fire that licks up my skirt because as always, I'm standing too close.
Back on the horse. I am the lone ranger. Only I'm not lone, nor do I range. Do I range?
I do ramble, I know that much.
