I'LL TAKE IT

If you'd asked me this morning how my day would go, I'd have told you I'd be leaving work by 1:00 at the latest and heading home to sleep.  Not only was I iced out of my car, but I felt crappy this morning.  Super crappy.  Crappier than crappiest of crappy. 

This afternoon instead of taking my planning period, I sit down and have some tea with a colleague.  Neither of us gets a damn thing done, but we both feel infinitely better for having taken time out of our equally sucky day to unwind and nurture ourselves. 

I leave work at the regular time, still feeling crappy but much more relaxed, so relaxed, in fact, that I run a couple of errands.  One of the errands sends me to the post office.  I could do the drive-through and put the outgoing mail in the box, but I decide to park and go inside, instead.  This way the way-late birthday card gets a head start (at being less late?) on its way.

As I get out of the car, I look behind at the river that hugs the bank by the lot and winds under a nearby bridge.  I haven't seen this part of the river since the town first disassembled the dam a while back.  I probably even posted pictures of it then.  Usually, though, I see the river from the bridge, not the parking lot, and the water just looks like a pile of soggy hay.  From the post office lot, though, the lively part of the river is visible before it disappears under the overgrown plants that grew quickly after the dam's removal.

Even though I feel like crap-on-a-cracker, my spirits lift looking at and listening to the water.  Maybe spring really is coming -- hard to believe when I was iced out of my car and feeling horrible mere hours ago when my day started.  Now that the day is drawing to a close, I'm glad to have pushed myself just a little bit more.  The sight and sound of real spring is enough to make me feel better ... and make me sneeze, but that could still just be the cold I have.  Either way, I'll take it.