Another Night Bites The Dust

I had some friends over last night to watch a movie that we had planned to rent and watch together.

I even made dessert the night before.

The pre-planning was there, but the execution was off.

An hour before my friends came, I got a bad lupus headache. The kind that comes just like that, but you can’t kick for anything.

But, in my infinite need for saving face, I was determined not to cancel. So I didn’t. But I ended up falling asleep during the movie. So out, in fact that my friends really had to wake me when the movie was over.

I could feel myself nodding off, and I counted down the minutes until the movie would be over, but with somewhere between a half-hour and twenty minutes left, sleep kicked in.

I hope those involved know that it wasn’t the movie or the company. It was me, a few days off my immunosuppressive, trying to deal with life, and pushing myself harder than I should have.

Yesterday was my last day of work, which turned into a free-for-all of finishing things up and making plans for future projects. I got home an hour later than usual and still had some tidying up to do before my friends came.

I guess I was just lucky that it happened at my own apartment and not someone else’s.

My friends didn’t act mad, or at least, they pretended not to be. And I guess that’s what I should expect from my friends… understanding.

But I don’t even understand it myself. I don’t understand how I can go from feeling great one minute to feeling awful the next. I don’t understand how one second I can have loads of energy and be zapped entirely the next.

I know, don’t cry over spilled milk. So I shouldn’t cry over a slept through movie.

But if I’m being honest with myself, it’s not just the movie. It’s the fact that this illness is impacting my life. That I’m letting it get in because I can’t stop it. And it’s about the countless nights this year that have been spent falling asleep way too early. And I know it’s only the beginning.

You know, it’s hard when you deal with academics all the time, or at least aspiring academics, who expect you to have the all the answers.

How am I supposed to have answers to the “big” questions, when I don’t even have answers about my own life?