I’m awake. After hours of a manmade sleep. It is like going to bed in an actual bed and waking up on a piece of
driftwood in the middle of the sea. You know, drifting. I couldn’t make a fist when I first woke up. Now I can.

I woke up with a migraine and tried to be tough. Pleaded with the head and limbs to behave long enough for me to
get to work and do my job. Bargained with the self. Okay, so you have class tonight. Forget about class. Focus on
getting to work. Get to work. Focus on doing things.

Sat in the meeting with three fingers pressed to the left temple. Pushing and pushing against the pressure there. I
was trying to think past the instinct of getting up and heaving in the trash can. Meeting adjourned and I made it but a
coworker is worried and gives me words of encouragement. Appreciated but I can’t do much with them.

Realize that my hair is a mess. I tied it back but it’s coming loose.

I walk to my supervisor’s office and he already knows I’m sick. I leave for home after a 1/2 day of effort, and every
step on the concrete hurts. I wish I could explain it without sounding silly. It’s a painful vibration from each foot
connecting–the tuning fork travels all the way up to my head somehow. I get on the bus. I spread my scarf out on
my lap because I don’t have a plastic bag and I’m going to lose my breakfast. I’m sitting in the very back, casually
glancing at the others sitting nearby, trying to imagine their reaction to me cupping fabric around my mouth. I play
the little mantra in my head (It’s-okay-it’s-okay-it’s-okay-you-are-almost-home). I thwart the instinct and stumble onto
my street. I am walking like a drunk but I’m sober.

I slept and now I’m awake, reeling in the afterbirth of what comes with the usual. Disoriented and alone but not really
lonely. More like relief, to be honest. I do not want anyone to see me this way, and I’m kind of glad that I don’t have
to call and tell anyone about it. It’s too hard and too sad and “I’m tired of this” roles off my tongue like the easiest
thing. I’m not you–I can’t make it through my Monday. This is the only time I want to be different, something inanimate.

I think about my supervisor bashing FMLA after I told him that it might be my only option in terms of health and job
security. I don’t want to believe his naysaying when it comes to protection. What else can I do? It’s easy for someone
that isn’t dealing with a chronic illness to be so jaded and dismissive. I want to prove him wrong. I’m also incredibly
worried that he is right, that the protection promised will not be for my benefit in the end. I have 3 various doctor appointments
this wee so I will just have to see. Then what? Tests, worry, hope? Waiting?

I tell myself everyday that I am more than pain, more than an illness. But some days I have a hard time listening.
Some days I sleep and I sleep and I wake up on driftwood, and I wait for nothing except an acceptable time to go back
to bed because I don’t feel well enough to do anything else. Afraid to make plans because I don’t want to break them,
afraid to speak because I can’t do shit with your pity.

It’s 8:48pm. I stop here. Reasonable time to retire.