Summer Draws Nigh

I apologize to my faithful readers for being away from Blogville for so long. I was dealing both with end-of-the year stuff and a worse-than-usual flare of lupus. I dreamed about the flare-up before it happened (the dream involved looking at my face in a mirror and seeing half my face covered with a bright red rash). A few days later, my body did just that, but not much on my face beyond the "butterfly" rash that is typical of lupus--I broke out in a huge rash that covered all my large joints, and became rapidly very sick. When I went to the doctor, she put me on a course of prednisone, which I was very upset about--it makes me feel good and it does bring the illness down, but it has bad side effects (none of which I ended up experiencing this time, though).

I felt better within a few days, but it was a reminder to take care of myself, get enough sleep and exercise, and generally be a lot more mindful of my health.

In the wake of this, I said goodbye to my beloved class of engineering (and a few other) students, most of whom have been with me all year. It has been, I think, one of the most challenging years of my entire life, incorporating the grief of losing family members and accepting that it was going to take time to feel anywhere in the realm of normal again. I think as time goes on, I miss my sister and mother more, but in different ways and with less of the acute grief.

I also was very stressed about work, as I had not gotten word of being re-hired, and would have been very happy with a composition course again. However, my appointment was well beyond anything I had hoped--I was given Introduction to Creative Writing!
I was so happy that I went to the department chair (who deserves some sort of medal for all he's done to try and save jobs in the wake of horrific budget cuts) and thanked him. Of course, it's going to be a challenging class and different from the one I taught in Summer '08--I have almost no memory of what I taught in that class because my sister died during the session and I went on automatic pilot. Still, I am grateful to have work, as much as my illness will allow me to do, and I am glad to still be at the alma mater, teaching wonderful students.

I have a visualization I started doing when I got sick with this flare-up. One thing I've noticed is how I will often not believe good things are supposed to happen for me. This is an old, old thought, something that comes from childhood and has lingered in my adult life. My visualization involved seeing all my hopelessness, lack of self-worth, anything negative I still carry in my heart, as a wall. During the visualization, I was guided to start seeing cracks in that wall, through which blue sky and sun begin to pour through, as a metaphor for hope and trust that the universe is not hostile and that there are good things in store for me. This gave me a lot of comfort when I thought for sure that there would be no work for me next semester, and with other things.

As for an update on agents--they are still looking at the book! Yes, it does take time--I've accepted that wholeheartedly! :)