long hot summer/I'm so tired

The last week, I've been feeling exhausted most of the time. It's been reminding me of my mom, who hated heat, and always said that when it got to late summer like this, she was all worn out from the summer. We didn't have air conditioning back then, or not central air anyway, we had window units, and she always had the room with one, but I never really thought she meant it was from too many nights of not being able to sleep very well, I think she literally meant that the summer heat made her tired.

So I thought that was what was wrong with me, worn out by the summer, plus peri-menopause - I'd been having headaches, like estrogen headaches, and feeling vaguely queasey all the time, like early pregnancy - I figured it hormones.

I've been wanting to just curl up in a little ball and not do anything.

Mark said maybe I am overworked as well, trying to keep up with an online class with 58 students while simultaneously planning a face-to-face class on the same topic .... not to mention assorted and sundry other work stuff .... and John in Milwaukee between apartments ...

It was mom's yahrzeit Sunday, July 22 - 3 years she has been gone, so that made me think about her too.

And then last night, Mark came home sick, feverish, nauseated. And he fell, in the bathroom. Got dizzy after taking a pee. I heard this thud and went upstairs, and sat on the edge of the tub and provided moral support until he could stand up again. We put him to bed with a big glass of water and tylenol. But it was a little too much like when my mom was sick, and I was in that bathroom with her, and down here listening for the thud of a falling body. It wasn't as bad as the last time I gave her a bath, when we realized we needed Hospice for that, because neither her legs or all my strength could hold her up anymore, especially slippery and wet.

But I got email from another 50-something woman friend today - she is caring for a mom with Alzheimers, and two exchange students and her own son, they want to do a 2nd biopsy on calcifications in her breasts, and her sort-of boyfriend seems to be preferring someone else to her at the moment - a boyfriend of mine preferred that same someone else over me for a summer too - so what have I got to worry about?