all the roads we have to walk along are winding

If there's one thing I hate in this world (because there aren't that many things I can truly despise), it's being sick. Most especially, missing things because I'm sick and this includes school. I knew I was risking being infected, but I let myself spend time with germ-ridden people all week. I hand sanitized like you wouldn't believe, I got more sleep than usual, and I tried to avoid physical contact with the confirmed cases of sickness. But here I am. I think Thursday was the first time I've left school early because of being ill since the third grade when I threw up on the soccer field during gym and I had to go home. I don't think I would have without the 20 + people telling me I looked miserable, without the texts I got from 3 people telling me to go home and get some rest, without Kristen dragging me down the hall to have my temperature checked by the nurse. I was determined to not miss review for my apush test, though I realized that I was showing some symptoms of the flu or some other sickness: fever, uncontrollable shaking/shivering, relentless coughing, sneezing, dizziness, utter exhaustion, total soreness all over in my muscles and joints, and a slight headache. So I called my mother and left during lunch.

But I don't have the flu, thank goodness. I'm not sure what it is, but it isn't the flu. Last night it felt like tuberculosis with all the coughing. I believe I coughed up a lung, so it's a good thing I have two of those. I'm really surprised I haven't coughed my throat raw and it isn't bleeding. But besides the continuous coughing, I'm much better now. My fever is gone, and all that's left is coughing and because of that, a very sore throat.

Towards the second half of yesterday, I started to feel well enough to actually do something, so I read. How great it was to read. I haven't gotten to pick up a book and enjoy it in a really long time, I've been so busy. And because of the book I chose (The Realm of Possibility by David Levithan), I feel like writing, which I also haven't done in a really long time. It's free verse, so I felt like writing poetry about anything and everything. I only wrote one and it's awful, but it's something.

Also, I've allowed my mind some time to think. Think about a lot of things actually. This doesn't really change anything, but I've started to realize lately that everything I thought was true about a good relationship isn't necessarily so. I've always been the type to doubt the "opposites attract" rule, not because I don't think that two opposite people can be attracted to each other, but because I don't think that's a lasting attraction that can hold for long. And I still think this is relatively true, but at the same time, my view has been shaken up a little. For all that we have in common, Paul and I disagree on a lot of subjects, or we have different taste in things. It's not major, but it's kind of amazing. It always seemed before like we were so much alike, and we still are, there are just little things. I didn't even really notice this until yesterday, when I was left to my own devices. Just an observation, though.

Music is such a wonderful thing. I think I'll go back to it now.

Heather

and all the lights that lead us there are blinding