It’s been one of those weeks.

You know the ones when everything feels heavy? Or the littlest thing sets you off? Or you just don’t have the energy to handle one more crisis?

Yep, one of those.

It started last Wednesday when I woke up sick: congested, achy, coughing, and with a headache that wouldn’t quit. I thought, This is it…after more than two years, COVID finally got me. It ended up just being a pretty aggressive cold and sinus headache, but it felt like the life and joy were being sucked out of me. Did I mention that it’s been seven days and I’m only now starting to feel normal?

And all this was happening over Easter weekend—the first Easter that my sisters and I, and their children, were celebrating with my parents. So even though I felt like the literal walking dead, I had to muster up the energy to be “on” because there were kiddos to entertain and meals to cook and Easter baskets to fill and chocolate-filled eggs to hide. Did I mention that by this point I couldn’t breathe efficiently out of my nose or my mouth? Yeah, good times.

On Monday I took off from work, but not for a rest day—which I desperately needed. Instead, I went to a long-overdue hair appointment on the one day in the past week that called for 24 hours of rain. Did I mention I have curly hair?

Then I took my squirmy, cuddly, normally vet-loving dog to the doctor for not one but five vaccinations and an allergy shot, and quickly realized that he no longer likes the vet. It took both me and a tech to hold this 40-pound ball of energy down so he could receive his shots. We then drove an hour home, in the rain, just to realize that he had an ear infection that the doctor couldn’t see because he wouldn’t keep still during the exam. I see another vet visit in our very immediate future. Did I mention that the vet had to prescribe anti-anxiety meds for my little guy? I wish she would’ve prescribed some for me.

But the cherry on top was looking out my apartment window yesterday to realize that the back passenger side window of my car was broken. Well, shattered is probably a better word. So, lucky me got to spend some quality time with Officer Flemmers, who was kind and comforting, and chatting with my Geico rep, and doing what felt like calculus in head to figure out how I was going to manage all these unexpected expenses. Did I mention that the glass repair guy can’t come to fix my car until Saturday between 8 a.m. and 12 p.m., which we all know actually means like 3 p.m. or later? There goes my weekend…

Like I said, it’s been one of those weeks.

All I’ve wanted to do is sleep—or join the witness protection program and start a new life. Honestly, either option sounds promising to me.

Then I ran across this Rupi Kaur poem that has slowly (I’m talking at a snail’s pace) started pulling me out of my funk:

 

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It’s simple but it’s true. Even though I’ve wanted to give up at least a hundred times in the past week, I know that eventually all these minor life setbacks and inconveniences that feel catastrophic in the moment (because they do, in fact, suck) will be barely a memory in the not-so-distant future. And in their place will be hundreds of tiny, daily victories.

At least, that’s what I’m going to keep telling myself as I sit at home with my freshly cut hair and infected dog and semi-blocked nasal passages and slightly less full bank account waiting for the glass repair guy to give me back my freedom.

~