Where'd My "Get Up And Go" Go?

May 7, 2010

I don’t know if it’s all in my head, or because of my old ladyness, or what, but I just haven’t felt motivated the way I did two weeks ago.

Two weeks ago I went to New York, my former homeland, and spoke about the book and saw a ton of pals and went to the terrific ASJA writing conference. While there, I was excited, psyched, bubbling with ideas for new writing opportunities, and, of course, pumped to see old pals and meet new ones at the book event.

I came home with laryngitis, a sore throat, and three days after I got home, my right eye began tearing. It was effing annoying, all of it. We also had our first kid birthday for Preschooler L, complete with a rented gym and pizza and birthday cake, party favors, the whole shebang. Less than 24 hours after I drove myself home from New York.

Did I also mention I’d been up til 5am for the two nights before I went to New York, just because I had deadlines I needed to meet before I left town?

So for two weeks since, I’ve been completely unmotivated to follow up on most of the editors or story ideas I came up with at the conference. I haven’t felt like de-cluttering the many corners of our house that need it. For a day or two, I’ve just flopped on the couch and caught up on a lot of DVR’d television.

I never do this. During the week, when Preschooler L is in school, I consider it terrific and precious crucal time to Get. Stuff. Done.

I will say that the week we got back, we had to bring Preschooler L in for an EEG for some weird moments when he seemed to be off somewhere else. The episodes haven’t happened again, and the EEG came back entirely normal, but we had to keep him up late one night and then wake him up early the next day (sleep deprivation is a crucial part of the EEG) and honestly, who do you think helped deprive him? Which only added to my own feeling of health deprivation.

Almost two weeks later, my eye finally stopped tearing up and itching, which means it is no longer swollen. It also means I can stop wondering if a good antihistamine would help me feel better, even though the eye doc says “I’d skip it during pregnancy.” Oy, pregnancy.

And my voice is basically OK now, and I finally don’t have a trace of a sore throat. The laryngitis business used to happen every time I went back to college after a semester’s break. I’d get excited to see people, I’d talk up a storm, and sure enough, I’d lose my voice.

But these days, it’s really annoying to be sick, with a kid, with another one on the way (eight weeks and five days today) and not be able to network at a conference or do a phone interview or even follow up on things via phone (email doesn’t work for everyone) because my voice is shot and my throat is sore and my damn eye is leaking all over the place.

Ugh.

Hooray for being past that whole mess. I always think people who write about how sick they are are being completely boring, and I find the question “how are you?” to be a mere pleasantry, not a real probe on the state of anyone’s health, but damn, it is annoying to be sick.