Be Still

That's the command Max told the Wild Things: "Be Still!" It's a very impressive trick, to get all those Wild Things to stop their wild rumpus, and it's probably much easier to take coming from a kid in a wolf suit, but it didn't work on me.
The number of people who looked at me incredulously, after hearing that I had spent a good chunk of the night before in an emergency room passing a kidney stone, and then admonished me to go home and lie down was just about equal tot he number of people who heard that I had spent a good chunk of the night before in an emergency room passing a kidney stone. What did I think I was going to get? A merit badge of some sort for showing up at work the next day?
I got nothing of the sort. Instead, I got woozy and had to leave two classes into the school day. I also earned myself another day off, since I had no real sense of just how off-kilter my systems were after testing my limits with such an absurd trick.
I should have been at home in bed, but that's not what I do best. I've been pushing myself up off that bed and making my way into work for the past seventeen years in all manner of conditions and states. I like to think that my constitution is as strong as my body and that I can push it to extremes that might seem ridiculous to others. And here was the irony of all of that consistency: I was preparing myself to have my Cal Ripken streak broken by a jury summons for last Monday. When I was excused via phone, I was pleased and happy to think that I was safe from any further distractions for another year. Then I went home and that night went into convulsions that turned into that trip to the emergency room.
It was as if someone was trying to tell me, "Be Still." It wasn't Max, nor was it the voice inside my head. I wanted to get up and face the day in that way I have for so very many days in a row that I have lost count. I just lost my perfect attendance pin. And that kidney stone. Now I get to start climbing that hill all over again. At the bottom of that hill is a resting place where I hope to have learned a lesson.