42.2 Days

I've been thinking a lot about time. Every day it walks around with me on my wrist, in my head, and now even on my computer. We bought a new computer recently and because of the ridiculously short life of computers, I had to reload all of my music. It took over a week. CD in, hit IMPORT, CD out and do it all again. At the bottom of the iTunes window I watched the minutes, the hours, and the days count up. Now, if I played my library from beginning to end it would run for 42.2 days.

A lot can happen in 42.2 days.

Today, for instance. My allergies returned. Full throttle. I could scratch my eyes out and perhaps feel better. I could rub my knuckle deep into my skin and perhaps relieve the pain from the unending itch. Instead, I'm taking too much Benadryl and trying to stay calm.

Today, part two. Rubin went in to have a tooth removed. It came in crooked. So crooked, in fact, it dug a hole in the roof of his mouth. So crooked, all the other teeth shifted and now his once minor underbite is a major underbite. Tonight he is groggy and wobbly and disoriented. He wants to sleep, but he finds himself staring out the back door window, slightly leaning, with an occasional "woof" escaping from his drooling mouth.

42.2 days. That's a long time to listen to music.

In 6 months I will no longer be a teacher. I've submitted my intent to resign at the end of the school year. Then I jump my ship of certainty for something wobbly and groggy. I'll stand at the back door of my life and drool. 6 months seems like an eternity though where every day I must face students who make demands, ask questions, feel insecure, want my attention, create crises, walk around self-absorbed.

They don't know I'm leaving, yet, and frankly, I don't want them to know until the day after school gets out.

I don't like goodbyes. But that's still 6 very long months away.

Then I remember FossilGuy, my surrogate uncle. A man I've known since I was 8 or 9 or maybe 10. No one seems to quite remember. FossilGuy is dying. He's been given 6 months at the most.

Ironic. We have the same time though my time marks a shift and his, well, his marks a more permanent one I suppose.

6 months is too short. When I think of FossilGuy breathing through his oxygen tank 6 months feels too long, too.

Rubin has finally fallen asleep in his bed behind my chair. His head is still up, but now resting against the side of the bed. His breathing is heavy.

My eyes are itching and I just popped in two more Benadryl and an Allegra for good measure. Soon I'll be floating. I floated this afternoon almost down the stairs when I came home from work early to rest and attempt to get through this allergy attack. I was wobbly and groggy from the medications and only wanted to put on my pajamas and take a nap with a cold, damp cloth over my eyes. I felt as if my feet weren't touching the ground. The stairs moved and I caught myself on the railing.

I slept. I slept like the dead. I didn't move and when I woke, Rubin was there, wagging his tail and falling over. Ann picked him up from the vet hospital and she came in stroke my forehead and tell me about Rubin's tooth removal.

I have yet to listen to any of the music on the computer. I feel almost compelled to play it straight through -- 42.2 days straight through.

But I can't start. I don't want to measure time in songs. I don't want to measure time in transitions. I don't want to measure time in medication. I don't want to measure time in death.

I can feel the Benadryl coursing through me. My eyes are a tad less itchy. Still swollen and red, but not as unbearable as they were before.

I should stop complaining.

My heart is sad tonight. Not because of Rubin's tooth or my puffy eyes, but because I don't know what to say, what to do about FossilGuy. There's nothing to do. I can just send love his way. I can't fix it. I can't slow down time. I can't speed it up either.

It took me a week to download 42.2 days of music. There must be some kind of meaning in all of this, isn't there?

No. No meaning. Just time.