Day Fifty - Eight or Getting Ahead of Myself

So I got a great lesson in slowing down today.



As I mentioned previously, I have been under the weather as of late. (What does that phrase mean "under the weather"? Are we ever over the weather? I mean, I've heard of Over the Rainbow but where is Over the Weather? All right, all right, I digress.) I've been under the weather so long that my two-year old daughter has taken to asking in her delightful two-year old dialect "You betta mommy? You not sick animah?" (translation -- anymore) You know it's bad when your child wants a daily health forecast.

So despite being less than 100%, I had my teaching gig today. And before you worry, I am not contagious!!! I have a couple of conditions (of which I will spare you the less than exciting details) that cause me to feel rotten for a long time after I am a carrier of anything. I have no cough. My temperature has stayed safely below the 100.3 marker and I have the "okay". Most importantly, is that I LOVE my kids. Teaching is a real passion and I would NEVER do anything to endanger my kids. So I hope that is cleared up. Now back to regular programming.

This morning. I was moving slowly and I left a little late for work. SO what does one do when they are running late? Certainly not speed. Certainly not me. So of course those were not red and blue lights spinning behind me. No, not me. Not this morning. Not when I am already running late.

The truth is, I needed to slow down. I was actually stopped by a truly nice officer who only gave me a warning, despite the fact that my husband forgot (AGAIN!) to put the new insurance card in the car. ("It was in my wallet, babe" is not helpful when the officer needs proof.) He was nice enough to say that I wasn't speeding too badly -- only 58 in a 45. Whoa! I'd hate to see bad. But really, what was I doing? I was so caught up in my anxiety about being late that I had no idea how fast I was going. As I said, I needed to slow down.

Now I should interject here. I hate, Hate, HATE being late. Although I am not nor ever have been together, I am usually punctual. I literally get physically ill when I am running late. But...

I needed to slow down. So I sat there while the gentleman (he really was!) filled out all the computer info and I thought about the fact that I had lost sight of what I was doing in the moment and was worried about what might happen if I was late. If I was late. Here's the kicker. It took twelve minutes to get the non-ticket and I was six minutes late! So, even with my less than average math skills, I wouldn't have been late. I would have had SIX minutes. If I had just slowed down. So thank you Officer H. You were right...

I needed to slow down.