Trudging Through Molasses

Today started in slow motion. The radio weatherman alerted me that it was time to get up, but I didn’t want to. Sleep clouded my brain. I am never a hop-out-of-bed kind of person, but today was even worse.

I let only 10 minutes elapse before I rolled one leg out of bed and sat up. Yawn. Walking, eyes half closed to the closet, I removed a long sleeved shirt and jeans (yeah Friday!); the weatherman said it would be COLD.

In the bathroom: brush teeth, get dressed, wash face, comb hair, look at the clock. It was 7:20. How did so much time go by? And I was hot. The weatherman was wrong.

I put a cooler shirt on that was too low so I had to find a tank top and then different shoes. I was wondering if I’d ever be ready to go to school. Then a hopeful thought crossed my mind: coffee.

I poured a steaming cup of the elixir and sat down at the computer to eat a breakfast bar, check email and be renewed. This is a lovely time of day to me.

A glance at the clock and it was already time to be at school; not leave for school but be at school. My husband likes me to say good-bye, and what’s a few minutes later? It’s not like anybody is going to notice anyway. I said good-bye and then saw my pre-teaching class’s Friday service project. I bagged it up and got to the car when I realized I didn’t have my school bag and I needed the graded papers in the bag because grades went in today for progress reports.

Have you ever had one of those dreams where you keep trying and trying to get somewhere but the more you try the less progress you make? Maybe that’s just my dream and it was coming true.

I walked into the school library and it was only 8:05 a.m. I live really close to school. Within 30 minutes, rain was pouring down and wind was blowing so hard I was sure we'd soon find ourselves in Oz. The temperatures dropped 15 degrees, the weatherman was right after all. The cold and rain kept the kids in their classrooms. I’m in a stand alone building so they’d have to get wet to get to the library. That was OK because I had all those grades to post and some things to grade online.

High school kids had an essay due for English today which means they all waited until today to type it, some even to write it. When the rain stopped, I was overrun with English scholars. A few stayed past noon, which is when I usually leave, and when the bell rang at 12:10 for lunch, they wanted to keep working. I said I had to go but let one boy print his paper first. He’d logged on using his TechEd log on so there was no printer installed and no printer could be installed. I had him save it to a floppy disk. His computer thought it was saved, but my computer couldn’t read it. So we borrowed a flash drive and he saved his essay to it but when I opened the flash drive on my computer and printed the file that was there, he said, “This isn’t the right thing.” He went back to the computer he was using and tried to find his essay. It wasn’t anywhere to be found. He probably closed the file without saving it on the computer after he saved it to the floppy disk. Learning experience. I was in the middle of my dream again. Will I ever leave school?

I pulled into my driveway with ½ hour left until I needed to leave for my public library job. I put my school bag, heavy with school books, over my shoulder and the strap broke dropping the contents in the mud (remember it had been raining?) and splattered mud all over the bottom of my pants.

Things to do: Pick the books and other items out of the mud, get other stuff out of my car and into the house, change clothes, eat lunch.

I got everything carried into the house and the books cleaned off and laid out to dry. But what to wear? New pants which required a different top and different shoes, but not the first ones I put on. It was like I was moving through molasses again. I’d taken up residence in my closet.

I finally settled on something with only time remaining to grab a carton of ricotta cheese, an apple and a fresh cup of coffee.

I didn’t have to rush to the public library, I had plenty of time to get there. Time returned to normal and it was a good afternoon with my coworkers and the public.

A butternut squash soup to go from Atlanta Bread (tasty, warm and drinkable) on the way home and an evening with the grandson who wants to play “Go Fish” after his bath. Clothes in the washer and dryer, I am lethargically finishing this blog post, wondering, “Will I ever make it to bed tonight?”

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