The End

It's been 11 days since I posted last.

I avoided, during the school term, talking about how shitty the term was. I mean, I did a lot of complaining of course (I always do, even if the term is going well), but I didn't talk about the true extent of the awfulness and ugliness of the instructors and, though they generally weren't directly awful or ugly to me--most of them wouldn't dare, except for the worst of them, the woman I wrote about who obliquely accused me of stealing from another instructor's office--they created a culture of it in the classroom that brought everyone down in a profound way. Even the most dedicated students began to question if they wanted to work in a field where the behavior of the instructors was acceptable. It made the lectures we had on lateral violence a laughable taunt.

I was one of those students who began to question just why I would want to continue in a field with people like that, and that questioning stayed with me through the end of the term and into the break, and I began to sink.

I slipped into a mini depression, worse than the usual end-of-term let down. I had trouble getting out of bed. I slept all day. I didn't shower or leave the house for days. It lasted about 10 days and then mostly lifted.

When I say it mostly lifted, I mean I pulled out my paints and painted my way out. I started drawing again. I returned to my gratitude journal. I returned to SuperBetter online. I started reading again.

It's mostly better now.

I'm house- and dog-sitting for Kelly and Keven while they are off chasing the eclipse (we'll only get a partial eclipse here, and they were after the full-eclipse experience). The dogs sleep on the bed with me, not bothered by the episodes of The Andy Griffith Show that use to lull myself to sleep. Aunt Bea makes terrible pickles. That's the plot of one show. Opie gets a job delivering groceries. That's another show. It's numbing and necessary for me right now.

Yesterday Dave took out his recorder and played a little tune while he was waiting for me to finish getting ready to go out to lunch with my brother, mother, and aunt. I laughed at him and then had to explain that I was laughing because his tune made me think of a Loony Toons cartoon called "Pigs in a Polka."

Specifically the part that begins at 2:12.

Searching for that online reminded me of another cartoon, where Daffy Duck plays Robin Hood and Porky Pig the disbelieving Friar Tuck.  There are only snippets of that online, but I swear, it was one of my favorite cartoons when I was about 6 or 7 years old. I found it hilarious. My brothers and I would even quote lines from it to each other when we were being obnoxious.

I loved cartoons. And this week, I needed the laugh.