Be You Very Well

This a.m. I took the offspring into town for some doctoring as he was too sick to attend school. On the way there, as we were pressed for time, I stopped by a major fast food chain to get something completely non-nutritious but yummy for me as I was feeling peckish after only a few slurps of coffee and a tiny bowl of granola with which I’d taken my meds. After arriving and checking in at the doctor’s office—a first come, first served establishment with multiple patients ahead of us—I began to unpack the bag and handed over the two hash brown orders to my teen, who promptly wolfed them down (even a fever and extreme fatigue hadn’t dampened his appetite for a treat!). Looking forward to my sausage gravy w/biscuit I pulled out my order, napkins, and nothing else. That’s right. No utensils. Now I don’t know about where you come from, but both my mom and my grandmothers taught me to eat biscuits and gravy with a fork (and knife, if desired), and I’ve even been known to use a spoon in a pinch, but I definitely was not going to play a game of fondue with my food in the doctor’s waiting room! I’m already known for having a “drinking problem” (spilling drinks on myself, surfaces, others, etc).

So I called the fast food place and they apologized profusely and said they’d replace the entire order. I said all I really needed was utensils, especially since my son had already consumed the hash browns, but they insisted, saying they wanted me to have a fresh, hot order when I picked up the utensils. After a short while of my stomach grumbling and feeling grumpy from low blood sugar, I checked with the receptionist about the wait and explained my caffeine dilemma to her and she said it was perfectly fine to leave a teen in the waiting room while I basically went a tenth or two of a mile back to the food establishment. I said I’d like to add a coffee to my order this time, especially in gratitude for their generosity (but hey—let’s be honest: I needed my full fix!), but they wouldn’t even let me pay for that. Since their coffee is basically unpalatable, I was grateful they let me specify the number of half and half containers I wanted (six).

I returned back to the clinic and ate some of my breakfast and drank some coffee and suddenly I was able to see how nicely how things had turned to be. My son had the extra hash browns (again, a rare treat for him) later in the day and I had a nice breakfast treat for myself to look forward to tomorrow—complete with my own utensils! 🙂

Of course once I got home I dropped my remaining coffee and spent five minutes proving the quicker picker upper is not necessarily quick, followed by the discovery that the pharmacy had filled a 21 count tablet Rx with 12: oopsie! They, too, were very gracious, so I finished my breakfast with the leftover coffee in the carafe here (vastly better tasting) and a glass of milk for lunch. After making sure my son had everything he need I told him I was going to take a short nap—probably 20 minutes or so—since I’d gone to bed late and gotten up early. The next thing I know it my phone is buzzing on mute with the calling tone so I check and it’s my husband so I answer. I couldn’t believe it was two whole hours later, but some days lots of little stress after a long previous (which was very lovely but we were out later than intended) really wears me out. So I booted up my brain with a snack and the DVR’d episode of “Call the Midwife,”which was mostly depressing this time, so I followed it with “Mr. Selfridge,” which likewise barely redeemed the time spent watching it. Sigh. But then I was able to eat some more, get out—for some reason I was still extremely fatigued from the morning’s outing—and pick up the rest of my son’s Rx. There was no waiting in the normally gruesomely long line at that discount store where so many of us find ourselves obliged to do a lot of business, although I do really value their pharmacy staff as they’ve been so good to me over the years. I just went straight to the consult window and got profuse apologies although it seemed perfectly understandable to me: 12 vs 21; after all, it is Monday.

I got in and out of the store and parking lot in record time and was finally able to see how much there was to be grateful for in all of today’s blunders, oversights, unintended events (mega napping), etc. My body just can’t do things like it used to, nor can my brain. I’m grateful that I’m learning to accept my limits and lose some of the shame of asking my husband to get us a pizza and more string cheese on the way home as today I couldn’t handle the overload of the noise of the grocery side of the store when I was in there.

And I’m so appreciative of small town employees who are genuinely sorry for life’s goof-ups and frequently go above and beyond to make up for their mistake. It’s one of the many treasures of rural living’s slower, more personalized pace.

Well, that’s all for now…time to wind down so I can call it an evening and hopefully not need another long nap tomorrow—most days I don’t need a nap at all, but I suspect some planned resting before I wear out—like I used to do when my fibromyalgia was worse—is not a bad idea.

Here’s to learning and accepting one’s limits and learning to live within them with gratitude for what we can still do!