And it's Tuesday

And I'm tired of 2016 and what it's been doing.

A friend is facing what I am assuming is back surgery.

My sister-in-law - I just found this out last night - did something to her knee. She was carrying her daughter (who at 3 1/2 is probably getting a bit big to be carried comfortably) and she "turned funny," and now her knee is swollen and painful.

Still no word on a budget, 10 days from the start of the new fiscal year. I am fully expecting to have to accept a sizable pay cut.

(Though that might be because I'm a Generation X-er. I read somewhere a short summary of someone's stereotypes of the various generations and the comment was that Gen X was the first generation that assumed they won't see the generous federal (or state, or private-pension) programs their parents did, and my reaction was, "yeah, that's pretty much right." I think a lot of gen-xers are deep down slight pessimists, at least about money, because at least the oldest of us remember the 1970s, and lines to buy gas, and thermostats-turned-down-in-winter, and "No, there isn't money for that toy you want" and doing "staycations" before they were given a cute name and we also see - and I suppose some of us are parents of, and so are to blame - kids throwing tantrums in the Target because they are told, "No, I'm not going to buy you a toy this time, you got one last time" and we remember being kids and getting toys at Christmas and our birthdays and mmmmmaybe if we saved up our allowance for MONTHS and got someone to drive us to the toy store, we were allowed to buy one, but other than that, no, no random toys-just-because. Or maybe that was just my family.)

And my favorite restaurant was burglarized last night; the worst that happened was damage to the doors and cash register; they say no money was taken but it makes me sad: it's a small business run by a couple, they have good food, and.....I don't know, it just bugs me.

It does seem crime is going up here. Granted, most of the violent crime is drug-related or otherwise involves circumstances that would not lead to me being involved in it (i.e., it's not random crime on innocent citizens) but still, it's distressing.

Part of what bugs me about the last three items is my wondering if that is part of an ongoing "push" that I need to think about moving on. I don't WANT to move. I have a lot of responsibilities here I don't want to drop (but then again, if my congregation folds - which is a real possibility in the next couple years - that's one set of responsibilities gone). It just feels like everything is getting worse....more crime, fewer nice things, what nice things we do having being damaged....maybe this is true everywhere now and we're just going through a bad period as a culture, I don't know.

I don't know where I'd go or what I'd do. I could see moving back closer to my parents to be able to help them if that became necessary BUT I'd have to get out of academia, or else manage to land a job at a private school, because Illinois' funding for higher ed is even more broken than my state's.

I dunno. The year's not quite half over and I'm just tired.

One thing, which is a good thing but which still brought up a lot of feelings: Sunday was Margaret's birthday. She is the woman who had GI surgery back in January and has had some serious episodes since. She just got home from her latest round in the hospital, but wasn't well enough to come to church. So one of the people got her on speakerphone and we all sang "Happy Birthday" to her....
I was the person standing at the lectern doing announcements and it caught me by surprise, and I had to fight to keep from tearing up a little. I can't even really explain how I felt. On the one hand, yes, I'm happy she's doing better and is home. But I'm still sad she's dealing with this and has had this enormous change in her life. And there was some of the leftover sadness/worry/whatever from those two times where it looked unlikely she would make it. But part of it was just being tired of seeing people I care about having medical problems.

And now it's time to get dressed and get ready for a day of teaching. All I can do is keep on keepin' on, but I'm tired and I want to hear some good news soon, and I mean big good news, not some human-interest story about someone finding their lost dog, something that will materially make the world a better place and not just for one family.

And I DO try to make the world around me a better place, as much as I can. I try to do my best at my job no matter what I'm being paid, because I'm there for the students. And I try to generally be a kind and supportive person - shoot, I try to put all those Elements of Harmony into play (though I can't really wield "magic" and some days "laughter" also escapes me. At least I can be honest and loyal and kind and generous...) But what I can do is so small.  And that's what gets me down, that feeling of spitting at a fire to try to put it out.