Which Do I Deserve?

Today has been a study in contrasts.  I slept off the migraine from last night and got a good night's rest.  I took the time to put supper in the crockpot before I left the house so it would be ready when I got home, took the time to walk around to the back yard and cut more daffodils to take to my classroom to replace the faded ones I threw away yesterday. When I got to school, one of my wonderful AP students brought me a lovely green and yellow metal owl.  I put a nail in the window frame and hung it up. It makes me smile every time  I look at it.

Then the day changed.  Old enemies emerged: apathy, immaturity, out-and-out rudeness, my own physical weakness.  I had to take a Maxalt by 5th period. I fought the after-effects and the rest of it the remainder of the day.  Tuesday, the day that always, always finds some way to suck, had stealthily crept up behind me and struck.

When the bell ran and I finished my bus duty, I came back to my room, called my Mom to check in.  She asked me, "So tell me again, why are you still there?"  I told her that I don't want to leave the seniors, that I don't want to leave the AP.  That I'm not so sure that it's not this way everywhere.  That there are still things, students, challenges, plans in the future that I'm looking forward to.

But I can't lie.  The sweet, no matter how sweet it is, is increasingly becoming unable to outweigh the other.  What am I supposed to do?  Which is the right thing to pick?  Why can't I decide?

I packed my things, locked my door, brought myself home.  I got to see my Dad for a minute or two, opened a package from amazon.com that contained my shipment of Ito En green tea.  I ate my supper, had a piece of pie.  I'm sitting on my couch surrounded by purring cats and an affection-greedy pit bull, and I'm going to reclaim those shattered shards of good that this day began with.  By God, if nothing else, I think I at least deserve that.