It seems as though I've been sick ever since our return from Vermont. And maybe that's because, with the exception of a day or two of grace, I have been. This current bug that ails me has an iron will and refuses to be broken, damn the antibiotics - full steam ahead.

When I finally went to the local Doc-in-a-Box late last week, I told him that my symptoms were mono-esque. He peered at me over the top of his glasses and smirked. "You're 46 years old. I doubt very seriously you have mono." Then he did a cursory exam, wrote out a couple of prescriptions and offered up the standard issue, "drink lots of fluids, get some rest, blah blah blah."

I wasn't saying that I *have* mono, mind you, and frankly? His response to my description was both infuriating and a wide right missing of the point.

Four days after his proposed wellness regimen, I feel no better. The lethargy has bloomed into full-bore exhaustion, the congestion and puffy glands remain, and I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired. Four days wasted and another doctor's appointment in the works. It's maddening.

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With sickness comes the frustration of a head full of raging ideas and a heart not into the execution of same. Honestly, I've even been too tired to make lists, an admission that might elicit gasps of surprise from those who've been reading here long enough to know me well. I may never know whether some of the random thought bubbles that have traversed their way through my gray matter in recent days contained minor bits of brilliance or were merely moments of crazed delusion, because there is no scribbled record that they ever existed at all.

*sigh*

________________

I have been reading, though. Following the news and keeping tabs on Twitter as the various workings of the world unfold. But I think...no, I know...that even that bit of engagement in the world around me is doing more harm than good.

After the election a year ago, I labored under no illusion that all sides would come together in a kumbaya spirit of unity for the greater good. And yet, somehow, I never imagined that the opposition would choose to wage all out war against our newly elected President. Perhaps it was naïveté. Perhaps it was placing too much faith in people, generally. Perhaps it was simply that nobody could have seen the levels of hate and vitriol and resolute obtuseness coming to the degree its grotesque underbelly has been exposed.

One year later, I can say with absolute honesty that I would not change a thing for myself. I would - and will - work every bit as hard for this President as I did throughout the campaign. He is proving to be exactly the man I believed him to be, and although every step has most surely not been perfect, I support what he is doing, how he is doing it, and even (most) of the short-term compromises he's been forced to make along the way in order to keep his eye on the long-term vision.

The one significant disappointment I would register regards the tone in Washington. And try I as I might, I see no path to resolving the toxic environment there. Not now, and certainly, not going forward. All I see is escalating deterioration for years to come. As bad as it is today, we're nowhere closing to hitting bottom. It's an endless circle of, "that party did this, we hate it, but we can be worse," that keeps going, and going, and going in a fundamental civil war of words. 

It's ugly, this atmosphere. It's regressive, unproductive, inefficient, unwieldy. It makes everyone who participates a little less intelligent and a little more willing to arm themselves with misleading facts and outright lies in the name of Winning. It was bad when Bush was President. It's worse now. Are we stupid enough to think it will not devolve even further when the next Republican takes the oath of office?

And while I have never been a fan of one-party rule, historic precedent shows that one party in the White House with opposition leadership in Congress is only ever effective at accomplishing exactly nothing. Throw in a big handful of the acid that passes for "opposition" these days, and a functioning government seems like a pipe dream under two-party rule.

So where does that leave us, as a country?

I have no idea.

All I know, and all I can control, is where that leaves me.

I'm removing my particular brand of poison from the well.

I want to be part of the solution, not part of the problem.

I will continue to fight FOR the things I believe in, and disengage myself from the mindless echo chambers that encourage fighting AGAINST anything those on the other side believe. I will fight the all-too-natural instinct to defend against perceived affronts, and take no joy in maliciously affronting others. I will turn the other cheek, bite my tongue and keep my focus forward. I will work to be a reflection of America's greatness, and not of its weakness.

Because to do anything less feels like irresponsible citizenship; uncivilized and counter-intuitive, demeaning and defeatist.

Because to do anything less is not who I am, or, maybe more to the point, who I want to be.

And you know?

It occurs to me that maybe being sick and tired isn't always a bad thing.

Or so my Yogi teabag tells me.

Truth is, particularly when I screw up the courage to wander by this place, I feel quite limited indeed.

I am not limited by outside forces, or lack of support, or finances, or geography, or any number of external obstacles. Rather, I am limited by self-imposed barriers of timidity, excuses and procrastination. And again - as always - it pains me to have such acute awareness of this highly undesirable personal trait.

Or so I tell myself.

Truth is, if that were true? I'd have fixed it by now. Ended it. Allowed ambition to wreak havoc on indolence. Engaged in the reckless abandon of temerity over the safety of diffidence.

But I haven't done that, have I?

Instead, over the (god, so many) years I've been posting here, I have taken great pains to deny a simple truth. I've coyly fended off the comments of others and even willfully ignored the obvious prods of the voices inside my own head. I've hidden behind a never ending barrage of banal excuses - too little time, too much reality. I've told myself I had to wait - for the right moment, the perfect circumstances, the ideal. And I've done all of that out of little more than base, crass fear. Of failure. Of appearances. Of arrogance. Of audacity.

"You are unlimited."

Or so the teabag says.

A nudging challenge? A blatant dare?

Maybe something much simpler than that.

Maybe just three little words seen at the right time, in the right place. Maybe just what I needed to read to set myself free. Maybe just a phrase, a mantra, a sign: if you really want something, you have to put it out in the world and make it real.

Okay then.

I want to write.

I need to write.

I am a writer, with a voice, with a purpose, with stories to tell.

If not me, who?

If not now, when?

I am unlimited.

Or so I think I am finally ready to tell myself.

No.

I am ready.

So I tell myself, "I am unlimited."

And I start to believe.

1. Today's first line title is from John Irving's latest, Last Night in Twisted River. Irving is (she claimed without hesitation) one of a handful of authors I feel I was born to read, and the wait for each new book he puts out is deliciously agonizing to endure.

2. I cannot locate an available flu shot within a fifty mile radius of home. You know what this means, right? I am doomed. The only time I missed getting a flu shot in the past 11 years, I came down with the world's worst case of it - just in time for Christmas.

3. Any Adam Lambert fans out there? Have I got a treat for YOU.

4. Spent part of this past Sunday afternoon moving my sweaters down to their seasonal front-and-center position in my closet. Related: the weather here has gone from 50 degrees to 75 degrees over the course of this week. It's kinda like the whole washing your car brings certain rain showers deal-io for me. Never fails.

5. There is a solo road trip in my future. Tomorrow, to be exact. I'm heading to Kentucky to visit my folks. But only after I stop at our farmer's market to procure six York apples to hand deliver to my mother. I may not be allowed in the house without them!

6. I saw 'Where the Wild Things Are' and have nothing but love to express for the film, in every respect. Well, except one, perhaps. Parents taking their four year olds to this movie in hopes of seeing a Disney-fied re-telling of a beloved classic are in for a rude awakening. The movie is more artistically ambitious than that, and if you care to, you can read for yourself about the novelization of the children's tale and its relativity to the grown up audience. Suffice to say: it was beautiful, and I cried. More than once.

7. During a meeting at #1 job on Tuesday, there was a somewhat disturbing point raised about the continuation of my contract situation. I believe all will be well and the status quo will carry on, but there is a slight - say 3% - possibility that worst case scenarios could play out and the wonderfulness of my current arrangement could alter radically.

8. Granted - this worst case scenario is not completely terrible. But it would mean drastic change in the daily routine (i.e. lack thereof) I have become accustomed to - and grateful for!

9. And in #2 job news, I've become a book buyer. Can you say FANTASY LAND?! Seriously. Too bad #1 job pays about 8 times more on an hourly basis than does #2 job. But so it goes.

10. Any of you familiar with The Greenbrier? Well...its new owner did a wonderful thing this week in offering a 'Tribute to the Virginias' package. Residents of West Virginia and Virginia were offered rooms for $59 a night over four weekends between now and February. It's an unprecedented and amazingly generous offer - one truly too good to pass up when you consider that normal rates for these dates can run as high as ten times that amount or more.

11. Guess where my honey and I are going for a weekend in January?! (see #10)

12. We're having a 'homemade' Christmas this year on my side of the family in an effort to stem the tide of ridiculous spending and overindulging on gifts. It's grown to absurd proportions and is threatening to turn a joyful family-centric holiday into a stressful outdo the other person competition. So...homemade it is and I've got several ideas brewing. I think the whole idea is fabulous.

13. One more list of thirteen to mark another Thursday gone by. And one more wistful glance at this space I love, but take too much for granted. It might not always be here, you know, and *then* where will the words go?