The Eyes of March

They say the eyes are the windows to the soul. If that's the case, my demons  have been on display of late. At first it was an annoyance. Then, I was diagnosed with pink eye. After a week of eye drops and no significant improvement, a new diagnosis: not pink eye at all but a deeper eye infection.

Through it all, I was, to put it kindly, hideous. On one of my good days - as measured by the amount of gorp oozing from my swollen eyes, I ran into a friend I see too rarely. She thought I was grief-stricken.

I've tried to keep to myself for the most part. I'm not contagious, so I go to work but man it's been rough.

Today, 24 hours after the antibiotics started streaming through my system, I think I'm actually on the mend. Finally.

Being clear-eyed again will be great, but I suspect I'll have to start carrying my own weight again pretty fast. Neither Jeff nor Ali really want me touching their food so kitchen duty has been an occasional dish-washing duty. I've been laying around more than usual, which will be evident when we hit the beach in a few weeks.

The plan is to be completely free of ick well ahead of spring break.  If the Jamaican sun can't burn the rest of this gunk out of me, nothing will.

Alison has gone to the gym with me a couple of times lately. We're doing Zombie Run missions, separately but kind of together. Today I convinced her to walk into Broad Ripple with me and we stumbled into a Pitaya sale.

With vacation coming up, it made sense to at least look. I did have one moment when I was in the dressing room and I flashed back to the time Jeff took me to Bebe. I am not a Bebe shape or size or age. Wasn't 15 years ago when he took me. I am also not the Pitaya demographic, but the clothes are really cute, the sale was good and it's easy to forget you have gotten old.

Until, of course, you find yourself stuck in a dress you can't get off and you can see that belly fat in the mirror as you struggle with a skinny girl dress on a pudgy girl's body. I managed to get out of the thing without damage. Unless you count the sweat that beaded up as I thought for a few seconds that I'd have to either call for help or rip the damn thing off.

Anyway, we emerged with a few things. On the walk home, I was lamenting my lack of discipline and the fact that I'm a bit away from my goal weight.

"Mom, come on. You don't look bad," said my little angel. "I mean, you're NOT 20 but that's OK. You shouldn't compare yourself to that. You should be OK with your body no matter how old you are."

I love her. Even if she is a size 0 and eats ice cream like it's her last meal.

In the last bit of news: Welcome Spring! Ali dragged us out of the house this morning to see our first proof that the best seasons are upon us.