The Way I Feel

The way I feel is like a robin/Whose babes have flown to come no more 
Like a tall oak tree alone and cryin'/When the birds have flown and the nest is bare.
--Gordon Lightfoot

Work has been insane lately.  This whole month, Boss Jason was supposed to be in back to back trials.  All the cases ended up settling or getting kicked--that's the legal expression for not making it high enough on the docket to get into the courtroom.  It's like getting bumped from an airplane.  You have a reserved seat, but so do several other people, and only one of you can sit there, so the Airline Employees (mysterious creatures, them) determine who goes and who stays.  In court, it's the Court Coordinator who decides, and she (she's usually a she) is even more mysterious than the Airline Employees.  There's really no point in asking her why she's doing what she's doing because the answer's almost always going to be, "That's how Judge _____ likes it."  Remember, kids, the Judge is the one with the robe, the one you don't want to piss off.  But you don't want to piss off the Court Coordinator, either.  She's the one who decides if you get the nice seat at the front of the courtroom or the one in the back next to the restroom and the woman with the two screaming babies. 

Anyway, the settling of a case is usually a Good Thing, and while the kicking of a case is generally a bad thing, there's usually a little sigh of relief that goes on.  There wasn't in this instance.  I was counting on my boss to be gone for long stretches of time so I could work on the six (count them! Six!) sets of discovery that were due the last few days of the month.  We moved them all to a span of about four days because we were pretty sure that those would be the only four days in the month that Jason would actually be around to read, edit and sign.  I was pretty much counting on his being away so I'd have the necessary stretches of time required to write the things.  There's a lot of writing involved in discovery.  You use some of the same phrases over and over again (among my favorites: burdensome, oppressive and harassing; not reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence; vague, misleading and calls for speculation), but it's still writing, and hey, I like to write stuff.  The thing is, when Boss Jason's around he interrupts me a lot. Not to be a jerk; it's just the way his brain works.  From the beginning of January I had blocked out how many days I'd need to do each set, with extra time for editing and gathering exhibits, and set up a schedule based on what was due first.  Then the trials started getting canceled and I watched it all not-happen.

So the last two weeks have been sort of a mad scramble as I'm trying to get these things written, edited, over to Jason for signing and out in the mail to opposing counsel.  I mailed the fourth set today and there's only two left, but I. Am. Exhausted.  It doesn't help that I picked up an ear infection somewhere (ear infections are for kids; what am I doing with a blocked eustachian tube and thick fluid sloshing around behind my ear drum?) I put up with it for about four days before it started growing a knot on my neck, at which point I finally went in to see the doc.  I don't know if it was the delay in treatment, or what, but the sucker's taking forever to go away.  (The knot in my neck is gone, though.) 

The ear infection has kept me out of the pool for almost two weeks.  I'm in chlorine withdrawal and I'm afraid I'm gonna forget how to do the breaststroke kick at this rate.  I can't get back in the water until we confirm there's no hole in my ear drum, which won't be until next Tuesday.  I'd be working out in the gym in my office basement but, uh, it was closed for three days due to a water leak.  Then when it reopened, I couldn't seem to get down there.  I had every kind of bad luck; a deposition scheduled right before lunch.  A doctor's appointment that couldn't be at any other time. My bag's been sitting under my desk, unused, since Monday.  It's starting to look like I might finally get there tomorrow. 

Ear infection plus lots of work stress plus the ongoing fun of trying to sell a house and looking for a house, plus no exercise plus stuff that's been going on in therapy that's, well, very sad, has all combined to make Jen not a very happy camper these days.  In fact, I'm pretty darn mopey.  You know, I take my meds, I go to therapy, I do what I'm told for the most part, but it's kinda depressing how easy it is to set me off. All it takes is knocking me out of my routine, and not even for that long. It's like I hang around up here on a little four-footed stool of exercise, meds, work and good self-care (enough sleep, good food, that sort of thing).  Lose one of those and things get shaky.  Lose two and the whole thing falls over sideways. 

Well, I'm gonna do something halfway amazing and show up on time to my OA meeting tonight.  Maybe.  And maybe if I do I'll get a foot back.