On the Mend (I hope)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, folks, healing is going to be a very slow process.  Sometimes, I’m having a decent time of it, and I dare get some things done.  Other times, I just want something to let me sleep.  The reality that we are breakable is not a happy one.

I was out of work for a week and a half.  Different teachers covered my class.  They were impressed with the good feeling of working with my students.  I was proud.  I wasn’t at meetings though, and no one can be my voice and cover for me in that way.  So I was feeling like things are going on without me and without my input.  Just as some people missed me, I’m sure others were thrilled with my absence.  My students were glad I was back, but I do wonder if I’m pushing it.  With my evening job, I ran out of paid sick time.  I returned last night.  Though my students there were glad, even some of them asked if I was back too soon.  Some have had fractured ribs and said they were out of work longer.

I did get to a comedy open mic because I need to keep it going and not get rusty.  The Divorced Divas show is coming up on December 5^th.  I also met with some of the others for brainstorming solutions and ideas.  So I’ve been in motion.  Sometimes too much motion.

Next week, I have a follow-up appointment.  I’m thinking I may need something more than an x-ray.

My best friend continues to help me with dog-walking.  But my buddy has a life too, and sometimes, I’ve had to walk the dog myself.  It becomes less of a walk and more of a letting him out to do his business and then returning home. 

Watching the news can feel horrifying. 

 

It makes me sometimes not want to leave my house at all.  On other levels, it makes me want to research other countries to live.

 

1) Republicans not only want to reduce women's access to abortion care, they're actually trying to redefine rape. After a major backlash, they promised to stop. But they haven't yet. Shocker.

2) A state legislator in Georgia wants to change the legal term for victims of rape, stalking, and domestic violence to "accuser." But victims of other less gendered crimes, like burglary, would remain "victims."

3) In South Dakota, Republicans proposed a bill that could make it legal to murder a doctor who provides abortion care. (Yep, for real.)

4) Republicans want to cut nearly a billion dollars of food and other aid to low-income pregnant women, mothers, babies, and kids. 

5) In Congress, Republicans have a bill that would let hospitals allow a woman to die rather than perform an abortion necessary to save her life.

6) Maryland Republicans ended all county money for a low-income kids' preschool program. Why? No need, they said. Women should really be home with the kids, not out working.

7) And at the federal level, Republicans want to cut that same program, Head Start, by $1 billion. That means over 200,000 kids could lose their spots in preschool.

8) Two-thirds of the elderly poor are women, and Republicans are taking aim at them too. A spending bill would cut funding for employment services, meals, and housing for senior citizens.

9) Congress just voted for a Republican amendment to cut all federal funding from Planned Parenthood health centers, one of the most trusted providers of basic health care and family planning in our country.

10) And if that wasn't enough, Republicans are pushing to eliminate all funds for the only federal family planning program. (For humans. But Republican Dan Burton has a bill to provide contraception for wild horses. You can't make this stuff up).

 

Now it is 28 degrees.  Being so cold makes my body tense.  Then my rib cage hurts more.  Even with all my aching, I am very aware how much worse it could have been.  I am, among other things, grateful it wasn’t my hip or my head.

On a more positive note, I had a blast at the open mic on Sunday night.  It was exceptional.  And there was something else positive.  Someone who I thought I was very close with for many years, and then had a heartbreaking smashing of the friendship which was more painful than most things, has been in touch.  We are occasionally in touch.  But this time, it felt different.  It feels like if one or both of us die today, we will have left things on a better note.