Well my idea of making breakfast never came to fruition, because by the time I woke up the next morning, just a short 2 hours after I had fallen asleep, I didn’t feel like doing anything. You would think that after I had slept all day the previous days, I would have racked up some extra sleep time and not been too tired, but nope, I was dragging horribly. I hopped into the shower only to start drifting back to sleep standing up. Today was definitely not going to be a fun day. While I contemplated whether I was going to go into work that morning, my daughter yelled from the hallway, “Hurry up mom! You’ve been in there for 30 minutes already!”
I quickly rinsed the conditioner out of my hair, at least I hoped I had already washed it, but didn’t have time to make sure. Not to mention, the water was getting dreadfully cold. I climbed out of the shower and wrapped the towel around my wet body. I used my hand to wipe at the mirror, so I could see myself in the mirror. Two days of sleep and I still had dark circles under my eyes. There wasn’t much I could do about it, as I had only 15 minutes until I needed to leave to take Kristen to school. I toweled my hair dry and walked into the bedroom to don my clothes. I still had it in my head that I was going to make an effort to go into work today. Maybe I wouldn’t last the whole day, but I was going to make an attempt either way. I threw on a pair of black slacks and a blue sweater, ran the brush through my hair and brushed my teeth and was running out the door behind Kristen, who was already annoyed. Neither of us were morning people, but me being late was a horrible thing, especially since it was becoming a normal thing for me.
I dropped her off at school and after she slammed the car door, I rolled down the window to shout, “I love you, have a good day.” She didn’t even look back, but I knew that one would cost me. She would have been totally embarrassed by my showing of love; heck I would have been embarrassed at her age if my mother had done that to me. There were only a handful of kids loitering about, but it wouldn’t matter, the damage was done and I had known what I was doing when I did it. Even knowing that there would be consequences, I laughed and pulled away from the curb. Maybe I should turn on the radio to a country station really loudly just to add the extra annoyance bonus. No, maybe I should leave well enough alone and not cause any more friction that I had already wrought upon myself. Teenagers, can’t live with them, can’t live without them.
I pulled into my work parking lot 10 minutes early and I was so tired. I figured I could shake it off with a 10-15 minute power nap. I set the alarm clock on my phone, grabbed a blanket out of the backseat of my car and put my seat back into a position I could lay down in. A couple minutes and I would be right as rain, hopefully the fog that was in my brain now would clear up some.
I woke up not to the sound of my phone alarm, but to the sound of someone knocking on my window. Donna peered through the window with an odd expression on her face. I glanced at the clock and somehow it was showing that I had slept for an hour. How the heck did I sleep through the darn alarm? I repositioned the seat back into a sitting position and opened up the car door. “Hey Donna, how are you?” She gave me a wan smile and crossed her fingers with an ‘X’ saying “Stay away from me if you are still sick. Why the heck did you come in if you are still sick?” I smiled back and said honestly, “I hate to use my sick days for actual sick time, I like to save them up in case Kristen gets sick, or she has something going on at school that I need to attend. I’m going to try to make it through as much of the day as I can. I just hope that I can shake off this tired feeling.” Donna gave a wan smile. She had kids, so she knew what it was like to want to save her days off for them. Even though she was married, if one of the kids got sick, it was her that stayed home with the sick child, not her husband. I’m not sure it’s that way in every family, but I sure as heck would hope if I ever decided to get married again and have kids (big MAYBE), that my husband would share the duty of staying home with the sick baby. Maybe if I was lucky, I would get to be a stay at home mom, with my only duties being on the PTA board. Yeah, like that would ever happen.
Donna cleared her throat, “Well, if you are going to try to make it through the day, you at least need to get out of your car and go inside.” We both gave a short laugh. “I guess so, I’m just so darn drained, I feel like I haven’t slept in months and I slept the last 2 days away.” She moved back so I could get out of the car and close the door, saying, “I have one of those energy drinks at my desk. I keep it there for emergencies. If you want it, it’s yours.” I gave a sigh. I really hated how those things tasted, but I really thought I needed it today, so I would have to choke it down regardless and see if it would help. “Yeah, that would be great. At this point, anything to help me keep awake, I’ll try.” We walked into the back door of our building and down the long corridor to our office in silence.
I dropped my keys into my purse and my purse into the bottom drawer of my cubicle desk. Donna popped her arm around the corner, extending out the energy drink she kept in her desk drawer for emergencies. At least it was a small bottle and it read ‘Berry Flavored’ on the front, maybe this one wouldn’t be too terrible. I screwed off the cap and tipped back the bottle. It wasn’t horrible and I was fervently hoping that it would give me some energy to get my day started. I yelled thank you to Donna over the cubicle walls, to which she replied, “No problem”.
I booted up my computer which took 5 minutes for everything to come alive. I opened up my email only to find that I had 73 new messages. Uggh, way to start off a day that I had already hated before I even got out of bed. There was nothing to do but to go through each one of them. I opened the first message and got to work immediately. At least with this much work, the day should go by fairly quickly. Before I knew it, we would be going to lunch and then home. At least I could hope it would be that easy.
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