The Things That Get Us Out of Bed.

Last spring, packed right between a visit back home to Alabama- the playful, sing-song voices of my niece and nephew still echoing in my ear- and what was supposed to be a visit in the other direction to White Bluff, Tennessee for a visit with my boyfriend’s family…

I got food poisoning.

Yes.

Food. 

Poisoning.

Kept me up all night.

And all night, I swapped between the bathroom and the bed constantly, like a full moon-shaped ping pong ball, tossed between a more-than tipsy Vanderbilt freshman guy and a curly-haired, mascara-heavy girl down at Clyde’s on Church Street. 

Sometimes just racing and praying I make it in time.

If you have ever had this curse of the stomach, this curse of humanity, rather… 

I’m sorry. 

And… you know. 

In a similar way to extreme weather changing your plans and cancelling the concert, postponing the dance or the baseball game or the soccer game... getting sick, (like… food poisoning sick…) literally stops you in your tracks. 

There is no moving around it.

At ALL. 

It has all authority and you have no choice but to play by the rules:

Sleep when you can.

Medicate.

Eventually eat saltines and pray you can hold it down. 

Finally, though...

I make it to my garden.

My plants need water like I need calories.

For the first time in a long time,

I can actually stand up again.

So I know it’s Time.

Here I was, coming out of a stomach bug, dazed and confused like a cast member of the Walking Dead, endlessly roaming.

I wore a blank, grossly pale face.
My limbs were nearly broken, but doing their job...just barely.

And all my movements were sticky, like I was first learning how to walk again.

The things that get us out of bed-

Sometimes they’ll surprise you. 

And there he was.

Mowing my lawn.

I sat down on my front steps, knees drawn in, just watching him.

When he sees me, he stops the lawnmower to come over.

You know... to give me a hug and check in.

I forget about the plants for a moment. 

As soon as he hugs me, I cry.

Like a little girl.

But I was okay with it.

I wanted to be near him.