Pollen O'Clock & Fred Rogers

I make no secret of my energy levels being in the toilet. I've got a laundry list of reasons why: Poor sleeping habits/insomnia, school stress, chronically low vitamin D levels, etc. And now, to add to those reasons, it's allergy season. Oh, boy.

This may be the first year that I'm not wondering what is going on when I dry out and my brain suddenly goes on the fritz.  In the past it has taken me sometimes weeks to suss out, with my brain limping along on half-power, that the pollen--nature's way of dumbing me down--is back. I've tried taking antihistamines, but have found that "non-drowsy formula" is a dirty lie. One antihistamine sapped the other half of my brain power and left me unable to do much more than lie in bed. One antihistamine screwed me up so bad that I just stopped being able to pee. Benadryl (diphenhydramine) works, but it turns me into a caffeine-resistant zombie.

Fun times.

I've got a load of homework to do this weekend and The Brain is wanting to do nothing more than stay in bed, tweet insults at Donald Trump and his family of grifters, and watch quilting videos on youtube.

Two cups of real, caffeinated coffee is doing nothing to crank up my motivation either. It's 3:05 in the afternoon and my one real victory today is the shower I took an hour ago.

My desk looks like a well-educated hoarder has taken over my life. The kitchen table looks like a crafty hoarder has taken over my life. All my sets of scrubs are in need of a washing. My exercise bike has an inch thick layer of dust on it. And all I want to do is lie in bed, watch women sew two pieces of fabric together, and tweet insults at the orange fucking nightmare in the white house.

I need a new hobby--preferably something that doesn't involve going outdoors.

Anyway.

So I know it sounds as though I've had a rough time of it in clinicals recently--and I have--but there have been some bright spots, too. Turns out that I get along really, really well with my clinical instructor, who I've heard is largely despised among staff and students alike. (I often get along with difficult people. Go figure.) I like sitting in on meetings with one of the psychiatrists (the one with the deadpan but oddly confrontational sense of humor who I think would have a real shot at success as a stand-up comedian should he ever decide to leave his medical practice). Also, I like the kids, though I have a hard time hearing their stories. They, being children, have small moments of joy in their lives and I like to see and sometimes contribute to that in whatever way I can. (One of the techs on the unit is really good at bringing out very small and quiet moments of joy among the really troubled kids who other people can't or won't reach out to and I enjoy watching him interact with them in small, subtle ways that make them happy.)

With kids, I want them to have the world and to feel loved and safe and welcome and to be able to follow where their curiosity leads them and to have amazing, wondrous childhoods. I hate to see what has been done to these children by adults (the abuse these children have faced at the hands of their parents or relatives would break you, even just hearing about it would break you) including some of the adults who are working in the facility (uncaring, burned out nurses who force or otherwise coerce them to take medications, techs who ignore them or disparage them and refuse even the smallest requests out of spite, massive overreactions to the smallest bit of childish rebelliousness). Pile all abuse that on top of a mental illness or disability, on top of depression and anxiety, on top of autism, on top of PTSD, on top of schizophrenia, on top of learning disabilities...and you can imagine what happens. Or maybe you can't. But I can, especially now.

I start out talking about good things and spin off into this stuff. Sorry.

So what's good?

Oh! David brought me home some daffodils recently, a small bouquet of some of my favorite flowers. I love daffodils because when I was in the first grade, my teacher, Cindy Sanders, brought a whole bucket full of them to class. We looked at them and talked about them and then she put the bucket up by the front door so we could see them when we lined up to go out to recesses and to lunch and, at the end of the day, when we lined up to leave, she handed each of us our own daffodil to take home. No one had ever given me a flower before. I remember carrying that daffodil home, thinking about how amazing it was.

It's those little gestures of kindness that make a childhood.

Here's something: