Wednesday afternoon update

 I was just gearing up to do some grading and the chime on my phone indicating I have a new "personal" e-mail went off.

So I checked:

"[the person who was missing] is safe. We have no further information or details but that she is safe."

 

I don't know if "no other details" means that she called from some undisclosed location, or if maybe she's now in a treatment facility and they want to keep it private. 

 But yeah, I just had a couple moments of crying at my desk because I didn't think it was going to come out like this, not nearly 48 hours in.

 ***

Still needing comfort. Still sad and tired. April is, in many ways, the cruelest month - there are numerous bad anniversaries this month; yesterday was the OKC bombing anniversary and while I didn't live here when it happened I do remember seeing it on the news and also just the unsettling feeling that there are people who hate enough to do that. And also the anniversary (today I think) of Columbine, which seemed to usher in the new era of mass shootings, where regularly I declare "I am never going out in public again!"

I think also now April is hard because this feels like, for me, the anniversary of when stuff got really bad during the pandemic - yes, we went all-virtual in March, but that started up for real in April, and also the horrors hit - the bad news, the bad images, and the realization of "this is not going to be just six weeks of sticking close to home, this will likely be *years*" and the beginning of feelings that my life was basically futile, that very little I did was memorable or even helped anyone at all. I made it through (there was one night when I admit I wondered if I would) but still now, I think April carries some shades of those memories. 

And also allergies. And bad changeable weather, and this is the height of our bad storm season - I remember almost two years ago, spending the evening in the bathroom of my house, ready to dive under quilts in the tub, quite convinced I was about to die, as a tornado hit a town not 15 miles from me. 

***

at least if I can buckle down and do the grading, then I'm done for today. In the upset and confusing of yesterday after getting the e-mail about the missing person, I did manage to write all the exams for what remains of the semester, so all I have to do is grade about fifteen short papers (can do that quickly) then I can go home. I still have one serving of the enchiladas left, so I can heat that up for dinner and not cook. 

But yeah. I'm tired. I could finish the black blocks for the color-bar blanket tonight (I think I have two left) and I should probably sew up what I have so far before starting the white ones. 

I would like to think of something "fun" for this weekend but (a) it's supposed to storm and (b) I am out of ideas; going shopping yet again doesn't appeal and if it's storming going to a park is out. And there aren't really any museums I'd want to go to within an easy drive. Movies, meh - don't want to sit in a big room with strangers right now, and I don't think there's anything out I even remotely would want to see. Art museums, none close enough that are open on a Saturday. 

 I feel like I feel when I look at the produce section at the store: Is this all there is? (because half the stuff I'm allergic/dietarily intolerant of, and the stuff I can eat, I eat all the time). Like, there's got to be something out there I am not thinking of, that I can't see....but maybe there isn't? I think here other people have their kids or partners to do stuff with, and that changes the calculation. Or they are people who like gambling or sitting in a bar with other people watching sports. 

Part of it is I do think I'm just kind of worn out, burned out, dealing with too much stuff.. But I don't know how to fix that and get myself back to some kind of baseline level that I once had - some days I feel like a good block of time off to just do fun things would fix it. Other times I feel like some genuine achievement would fix it, but....there are a million tiny things that interrupt my workflow and I've literally had the current paper on my desk for 3 months and it keeps getting buried by shorter-deadline-but-ultimately-less-important items (but still urgent, still a problem if I don't get them done) and I never have the energy to work on it when I have the time. (which is why I have to buckle down and grade, MAYBE tomorrow afternoon, when I have no lab, I will have the energy)