Making due

Some days you wake up and everything is fine.

You have a clear passage in which breath enters and leaves your body. 

Your temples do not throb. 

There is no shivering or hot flashes. 

These days are generally the rule in my life. 

But today it was not. 

Today I was in no shape to go to work. 

And yet, knowing this as early as yesterday afternoon I still foolishly turned down a chance to stay home and rest and instead decided that I should be responsible and go to work. 

Because somewhere along the line I decided it was irresponsible to stay home sick convinced that anyone I spoke to about my condition would determine I was pulling a ferris bueler. 

Some days you go into work sick but are rewarded with a cake day of 1 person drops, a long lunch break and a quick coffee on the way home. You might even pass a train that you can hop and head home early to get that test you foolishly turned down earlier. 

Then some

Days you show up and you immediately look for a bus to jump in front of, or a crate to pull over upon yourself because either of those options are better than your reality. 

Guess which type of day today was?

Go ahead, guess. 

I got time. 

I don't need to spend a lot of time on the negative here.
Suffice it to say that the beginning of the day was not fun but, you know, it's weird because it actually was kind of fun. Something about feeling so sick, and having to do this crappy job first thing on arrival, and knowing that I had a full day of driving ahead of me... There is something kind of fun about it, knowing you're in the shit.
I don't know, maybe it is just me looking for a silver lining.

Anyways, today turned around.
We had a courier, one of my favorites.
He is a Father as well, two boys, just like me!
His children are all grown up though, one has a real career and the other is finishing college.
He told me I am doing a good job.
He said I am modeling for my boys very well.
He has a Father's intuition apparently.

And all day we drove around kind of joking, doing our jobs, eating pizza and talking about life.
It was a very pleasant day, despite the traffic and my illness and the length of the day.

On the train ride home I smiled and thought about how nice it all was.
What a nice man I worked with.
How I wished I could meet his sons and tell them how much I enjoyed their fathers company.
He had shown me a picture of them when they were little boys and then he showed me a picture of them as grown men.
It was heart breaking and beautiful.
I could see in their eyes that they had a good father.
They had good lives.
They were lucky.