It just seems cruel for the weather to decide to be sunny today.

Sure, it’s a Saturday, so it’s good to have sun on the weekend.

But I’m not feeling well and it’s the worst stage of not feeling well.

You know, the stage where you *can* do the things that really have to be done but you shouldn’t overdo it?

And the stage where you feel a little bit like you might be malingering just to get out of your tasks?

A part of my brain balks at that immediately – how is resting malingering?

Why do I have these fears of being lazy or fears that I am trying to get away without doing my fair share?

I know that ADHD is part of the answer – it’s wired into my brain that if I tried harder I could do all of the things. Even if those things aren’t mine to do or even if I have already done a lot. If there is more to do, I must not have done enough. (Yes, this is as frustrating to experience as it is to read.)

Consciously, intellectually, I know that resting when I am sick is the right thing to do. Consciously, intellectually, I know that I do enough (and then some.)

But being sick but still recovering puts me into that tangle of fear that I am trying to get away with something.

And weather like this makes it worse.

It’s sunny and beautiful but it’s chilly.

So I’m getting the ‘get outside and do something’ feeling but it is being countered by the fact that I need to rest and that it is too cold (and too early in the season) to do a lot of my outdoor things.

So, yeah, the weather is being mean to me right now.

That jerk.

Gah.

Late yesterday afternoon, I ended up with a gravelly voice and a sore throat. Then I progressed to generally feeling unwell.

My night’s sleep didn’t help.

And my brain is insisting on looping through ‘Are you sick because the rest of your week was so hectic or did the week feel hectic because you were coming down with something?’ Over and over.

It’s not even a useful question but my brain wants to solve the mystery of ‘Why am I sick?’

Hopefully it will decide on one answer or another and shush eventually.

Meanwhile, I must rest.

I just have a bunch of drafts, so I won’t be sharing them here.

In a challenge like this, I find that the poems that I write are the least important parts.

The drafts that I write are interesting, but kind of ordinary. They aren’t brilliant, they aren’t evidence of my singular genius.

They are just snippets of ideas, scraps of something.

But there are a lot of them.

As the month goes on, my brain gets into poem-mode and starts looking for things to write poetically about.

Thinking like that feels really good.

And THAT’S why I like doing this challenge.

I had a rough morning.

All kinds of stuff went wrong. Nothing huge, just annoying stuff.

I felt like I had to carry too many things and that I kept dropping them – metaphorically, not literally.

I felt like I was being pulled in multiple directions as questions popped up while I was in the middle of other stuff.

I realized at lunchtime that I had forgotten to make some oatmeal loaf this morning – something I had promised my son I would do for him today.

Then I dropped an egg on the floor.

And the whole time this was happening, I felt flustered and annoyed and resentful.

And I was feeling stressed about trying to get a few things done that I couldn’t even start until late in the day.

It turns out that I had forgotten to take my meds this morning.

So I was trying to push my unmedicated brain through a very convoluted day and to use that same brain to plan ahead.

Once I took my meds and my brain started to untangle I felt such compassion for myself – not only the me of today but the me of times past who would regularly end up in days that felt like this.

It was a relief to know what was going on and a relief to be able to dig myself out of it.

As I write this I am sitting on my bed being cranky.

I don’t have anything in particular to be cranky about. I just feel out of sorts because today was kind of jumbled and and I’m a bit out of it.

I might be getting a migraine?

It feels like I’m in that neighbourhood, at least.

I started my day at the dentist and getting a filling often puts me at risk of a migraine .

So, yeah, I’m all jumbled.

There was just too much day in my day.