I was sitting at my very teacher-esq desk at school the other day, looking around at the pile of papers, homework and tests I need to grade, the pile of stuff I need to copy, the state standards I need to consult before writing the new lessons I need to teach, and wondering how I am going to get it all in by April 21st…T Day. (The first of 5 days of standardized testing for 4th and 5th grade in Ohio)
As I reached for the pile to grade, I felt my eye begin to twitch. I thought to myself “Oh, great! Just what I need now.” Later in the hallway I was complaining about my stupid twitching eye and a fellow teacher says to me, “ oh, that is a sign of stress and fatigue.” Great! Even better.

I have been eye twitching for a few days now, and last night, completely unprovoked, my twitching eye begin to water… tear after tear after tear was falling down my cheek. I looked over at Troy and said
“ Wonderful my darn twitching eye has decided to cry. I don’t have time for a complete breakdown, so my left eye has decided to do it for me. Tomorrow it was probably be so depressed it won’t be able to get out of bed and then due to constant stress it will slip into an eye coma… I will have to wear a patch.”
Troy, who is used to my drama-humor when I am upset or annoyed with something laughed as I continued to describe the perils of having to live your life while one of your eyes is in a coma.

Later I was talking to my best friend and I told her I was so stressed out right now that my eye was twitching non-stop. Between the daily life of a teacher, add to it, a union and school board struggling in the public eye to reach a new contract, being evaluated as an individual for job renewal by an administrator that I am unsure of, desperately trying to find the energy to finish a long over due graduate project, needing to finish said project by an ever looming deadline, so I can renew my license with the state, so that I can legally have the job that is being evaluated in the district with a public union/school board struggle.
All of this is enough to send any eye into a twitching frenzy, and none of this even counts what is going on in my personal life.
Thankfully I have a wonderful husband, a solid marriage, and the dog is much more calm than she used to be.

Shannan (the afore mentioned best friend) said I needed to rest, and that maybe I should consider a full on coma not just an eye coma.
I said if I were going to go into a coma, I’d go into a soap opera coma. This is the kind of coma, where you lie in a comfortable bed, surrounded by flowers, and attractive medical staff. You are in nice silk pajamas, with your hair and make-up done perfectly. You have no medical equipment hooked up to you except for the tiny plastic tube that lies under your nose so you can breath pure oxygen. I think this would be great. Especially since no one will have to visit my coma bedside to admit they secretly love me, or tried to murder me, resulting in the coma. Soap Opera comas are the best; because they always solve whatever looming problem the character was involved in prior to the coma. Everyone in the immediate world of the coma victim is so happy when the coma victim awakes, that everything else seems to just take care of itself. This is the kind of coma I want to take part in…. but then again wouldn’t we all?
During my Soap Opera coma someone will finish my project, the contract issues to be resolved, and Troy will finish hanging the new light fixtures in the house… wait scratch that last one, I may never wake up if I have to wait for that.
(Sorry honey!)