Some Days

Chew.

Chew.

Swallow.

Ugh.

Don't get me wrong, it's a perfectly nice apple, and there are worse ways to begin the day than with a lovely, juicy, Honeycrisp.

But today, I don't want to eat. I'm not sick...to my stomach, anyway. I just don't feel like going through the motions. My heart's not in it. My heart's somewhere down near the floor, rolling around between my feet when I walk anywhere, and completely disinterested in trifling things like sustenance.

But I don't have a choice.

Every morning, I have to inject myself with enough insulin to get me through the day. Then I have to eat. Not eating is not an option, even when I don't feel like it.

You wouldn't think someone as overweight as I am would have any trouble with the simple act of breakfasting (breaking fast?). Some days, though, I don't want food. It's all sawdust in my mouth. Swallowing takes more effort than I have in me.

But like it or not, I have to eat. Breakfast. Lunch. Dinner. At night, there are two more injections, and sometimes I have to eat before bed, too.

It wouldn't matter if it was just me. I could do without the medication and without eating for days on end if I didn't feel like 'em. The thing is, it's not just me. There's this poor baby, who made the daft decision to plant herself in my womb. What I want has no bearing right now.

So I'm eating this apple which deserves some reverence because it's a very nice apple and went to all the trouble to grow and ripen, to gather sunshine and rain and earth and wind and shape itself into something quite wonderful...and it may as well be a piece of wood.

You ever have days like that?