I'm in class all this week. It's a grad class, six weeks of material and work slam-dunked into five days, eight hours a day plus about the same amount of time for homework and projects each evening. This does not include my two-hour daily commute.
I am exasperated and exhausted and exhilarated, inspired and infused, and insomniac-ated (I made that one up). In short, I am pressing myself to the limits of physical, emotional, and creative endurance.
I haven't been feeling well for a variety of reasons, and I finally hit the wall both figuratively and literally.
I don't admit defeat lightly, and halfway through, I cannot believe I'm wavering about my ability to actually pull this off, pass the requirement, survive the course, and not die an unhealthy death in the process.
I wander into the upstairs woman's room and discover that I am sitting down inside the quiet stall with nothing to do but listen to the silence (oh, and pee, of course, but it would be way creepy if I just went in there to sightsee or fraternize). No one is requiring me to write anything, there are no projects to assemble, no articles to disassemble, no thinking required. It's tough, truly tough, to stand up and go back to class because it's so damn quiet and curiously peaceful inside the facility cubicle.
I lean forward to unlock the stall door when I see it scrawled in large letters, fresh amongst the recently scoured walls:
HELLO BEAUTIFUL!
Since I'm the only one in this stall (again, because sightseeing and fraternizing would not just be weird but are probably illegal in at least twenty states), surely this message must be for me. A waggish smile lights my lips, and I suddenly have the energy to go back to the table and write. (It helps that I no longer have to pee, but that really is beside the point.)
I'm halfway through, my projects are started, some of the writing is done, and, damnit, the door to my toilet thinks I'm beautiful.
Life is good. This class rocks. I can survive anything now.
Plus, there are free muffins served at 10:00 and free cookies at 2:00. That helps, too.
I'm just saying.
(For the record, THIS CLASS TOTALLY ROCKS. I'm just being a whinebag because I don't feel well. Don't tell anyone I'm hiding in the bathroom.)
