Day Off

I know I need to write, I need to post. It seems like forever since Fri.  And now I just hit my funny bone in my knee- much worse than the elbow- the pain that goes to your center, creating nausea. Wow!
Harrison looks at me, pushes my elbow, "The sun is shining.  What are you doing at the computer, again?" I just let him out. I want to write before Katie comes home from her classes. Sleepiness covered me right before she left. She knew, too, writing was in the forecast. I thought I do it before the sun came back after an eternity of hiding behind those rain clouds. Welcome to western Pennsylvania.
This is not so much writer's block as life block. Some kind of sinus irritation giving me horrific headaches. I worked the weekend, meaning long distances between patients. No per diem could help and so I had the whole territory for the two days. 148 miles on Saturday and 110 on Sunday, but I only had 5 visits on Sunday. Add the dreariness and sudden severe darkness that follows fall's arrival. The best part of my job is the wonderful people I meet and the stories I love to hear and tell. The nagging at the back of my mind as I jot down sometimes up to thirty medicines that have to be entered into the computer, I have so much work yet to do. Coming  home does not mean my job is done, as I struggle to keep my eyes open on the long drives. Thank You, Jesus for protecting me.
I would sit at the computer when I was alone and the head pounded. This is what I want to do. This is what I love. Why won't my body cooperate? How much is the headache from stress? Or as I asked myself a week ago, Is the headache from depression or depression from the headache?  Waking without a headache this morning, I know the answer for me. The depression is from the headache.
So how do I work through this? I walk when I can. I try to sleep enough. I can't move out of this climate, yet. My prospects for a new location are in a way, even worse. The Poconos have fog until noon some days. It would be lighter in the morning, due to being farther East in the time zone. I can't quit my job, yet, and what other job has the flexibility and only work every seventh weekend, for nurse?
I feel sometimes I'm plugging away at the writing. Soon, I will get a lap top that I hope will free up more computer time. Sharing the one with a family of computer lovers, has limited me somewhat. Oh, they are understanding and get off when I ask, but I, too, am weak, getting sucked into The Office, 30 Rock, Parks and Rec, as well as other short videos.  So much for getting rid of cable...
My goals for November is to do National Novel Writing Month, so I'm not sure how much blogging will get done that month. The urge to write pure fiction arises. I have several novels that I had been plotting. Working full time and life make it difficult to do all the kinds of writing I want. Mostly, not having a lap top with which to hide away and write.
I find myself thinking in hyperbole lately.  My comments about driving a thousand miles. Thinking just now that I feel refreshed after my million hour nap. Hardly, only an hour and a half, on the couch. Deep dreams about being in a dormitory, getting ready to teach some middle schoolers. I wish dreams stayed with me more and I could really understand some of them. A book I'm reading of Catherine Marshall's diary snippets, Closer Walk, she mentions her dreams a lot and what they mean. This book is very helpful to me, as most of her writings are. Can you believe though, I never read her most famous book, Christy? Julie, I identified with because the heroine, a senior in high school, writes, wants to make a choice between two suitors. I felt somewhat like that my senior year. Julie is set in the Great Depression, in Johnstown, where a dam breaks. She wrote in her journal how that novel almost didn't come to fruition.  I wondered at missing so many books that are never written, too. Catherine also wrote about her husband, Peter Marshall, a great Scotsman Presbyterian preacher in the 30's and 40's, chaplain in the US senate. The book always sat on our book shelve growing up,  A Man Called Peter, but I didn't read it until after I bought the movie on sale and loved it. Catherine's second husband edited Guideposts. She often had articles in there.
Well, this is a day off to regroup. I still have medicines to enter and yesterday's admission's care plan to finish. Then tomorrow I start all over again, with new admissions, visits and driving.