This week felt like my body and my life were operating on two completely different schedules.
My body wanted heating pads, pain patches, hot baths, a recliner, and for everybody to leave me the hell alone.
My life said:
Cool. Anyway, you’re going back to work. The kids miss you. Your sister needs help. There are dinosaurs to watch. Somebody is going to walk UP a slide. And apparently you’re going to end the week at a spontaneous photoshoot.
😅
I started the week on my period, which is exhausting enough on its own, but now that I know I have both a fibroid and endometriosis, I’ve been doing what any curious person with access to Google does:
Looking up all the weird shit my body does and going,
Ohhhhh. So THAT’S why.
😂
The lower back pain.
The constant urge to pee.
The horrible cramping when I poop.
The extra bleeding when I do.
Apparently, my body has explanations for things I’ve just been suffering through for years.
And listen—
period poops are already the WORST.
I do not need two separate medical conditions working together to make them worse. 😮💨
Sunday was actually surprisingly good for day two of my period. I barely hurt all day, and I had even slept through the entire night before—which is WILD for me because I’m normally up and down for the first two or three nights because I’m hurting so badly.
Then I pooped.
And apparently that was enough to ruin everybody’s good time.
😂
By 4:30 Monday morning, I was hurting badly enough that I ended up taking an hour-long nap on the toilet so I could free bleed.
Obviously.
Nobody ever talks about how much passing period clots can fucking hurt, either.
This period was super clotty, and whether that had anything to do with recently having surgery or not, I have no idea.
I just know:
boy, I was in pain.
I finally fell back asleep around 7 and slept until 11:30.
Thankfully, my sister had asked Mom to watch the kids that day because I really just could not.
I remembered that the hysterectomy belt my boyfriend’s mom gave me had heating/cooling pads in it, popped those bad boys in the microwave for thirty seconds on each side, and discovered that I basically own a portable heating pad.
Guess who’s taking that bitch to work?
🤷🏻♀️😂
Tuesday morning?
4 AM.
Again.
More pain.
More soaking in the bathtub.
And eventually a PTO day because there was absolutely no way I was going back to work like that.
At one point, I was so over the pain that I genuinely thought about asking my boyfriend if he would be okay with adopting because I just—
cannot keep doing this.
I’m ready for them to get this stuff taken care of.
My periods are exhausting.
Physically.
Emotionally.
All of it.
But somewhere between all the heating pads, pain patches, baths, and me refusing to leave the recliner unless absolutely necessary…
the rest of my life kept happening anyway.
And somehow, by the end of the week, there was a whole lot of good mixed in with the hurting.
☕ This Week’s Comfort
This one is easy.
My heating pad.
😮💨
That thing and I have been in a committed relationship all week.
Monday, it was the heating pads from the hysterectomy belt.
Tuesday, I basically lived in the recliner with my heating pad and only got up when I absolutely needed to.
And then Doodoo showed up.
He was asleep when Mom brought him over, and when he came inside, he looked at me, climbed into my lap, and immediately went right back to sleep.
I sat him on my stomach.
And somehow?
His weight actually helped.
So I leaned the recliner back with this sleeping baby sprawled across me and got maybe thirty or forty-five minutes where I wasn’t hurting much at all.
I was almost asleep myself before the other two came inside.
😂
Apparently Doodoo is also a heating pad.
A significantly heavier one.
With legs.
And opinions.
But I’ll take what I can get.
📷 Through My Lens
I think my favorite part of this week happened today.
I took Doodoo home early, came back, cleaned the living room, got myself ready, and headed to my friend’s house.
And then we just drove around and took pictures.
No real plan.
Just a spontaneous photoshoot.
She took me to 420 Road, which is apparently basically a mile of road where people go to spray paint.
I had never been there before today.
Then we went to take pictures with planes coming in.
😂
And it was actually really fucking fun.
After spending the beginning of the week barely wanting to leave my recliner, ending it out driving around, finding weird places, and taking pictures felt good.
I love photography.
I love finding interesting things to photograph.
And apparently I also love standing around waiting for airplanes to fly over me.
Who knew?
😂
💭 A Thought I’ve Been Carrying
I don’t think you always realize how much you’re part of somebody else’s routine until you disappear from it for a while.
Wednesday was finally my first day back at work.
And all morning I heard:
“Welcome back.”
“Where have you been?”
“I thought you weren’t working here anymore.”
“Are you okay now?”
“What happened?”
“You’ve been missed.”
I didn’t tell everybody where I was going before I left.
Honestly, I only really talk to maybe five people there anyway. The people who mattered knew I had surgery and knew I was going to be gone for a month.
I wasn’t about to make some giant announcement or walk around campus telling everybody individually.
😂
But apparently people noticed.
And then I got on my kiddo’s bus.
He stood up.
Looked at me.
Looked at the bus monitor.
Looked back at me.
And just—
smiled.
This huge smile.
🤣
He genuinely looked flabbergasted for a second.
Like his brain needed a minute to process:
Wait.
She’s back?!
Then he finally remembered he was supposed to grab his bag and get off the bus.
He spent the rest of the day running back over to me for hugs and back scratches.
Although I’m pretty sure he missed my nails more than he actually missed me.
😂
And apparently he wasn’t the only one.
Wednesday evening, Sissy and Doodoo called wanting apples.
So obviously I grabbed my last three apples, a Fudge Round, and a Nutty Bar and went over there.
We played.
Had a little dance party.
Snuggled.
And at one point I had a kid on each hip while another one tried climbing up my leg, slipped on my pajama pants, and pulled my pants down with him.
☠️🤣
My sister had to pull them back up for me.
When I left, Pooh Boy threw a tantrum because he wanted to stay the night.
Then Thursday morning my sister told me he’d been up crying because he wanted to stay with me.
😭
And Thursday night, after Doodoo and Pooh Boy spent the evening at my house, Mom took them home.
I was still on the phone with my sister when they pulled up, and Doodoo was crying.
He had been perfectly fine when he left my house, so I asked what happened.
My sister opened his door.
And there he was, crying:
“Blah Blah!”
🥲
Baby.
I told him I had to work the next day, but I could come get him afterward and he could stay with me all weekend.
He stopped crying and said okay.
My babies.
😭
It breaks my whole soul when they cry because they want to stay with me and I can’t keep them.
But between them and my kiddo at work this week, I realized something:
being missed is a really strange kind of love.
You aren’t there to see the moment somebody notices you’re gone.
You just come back and find the space they were holding for you.
❤️ This Week’s Gratitude
This week, I’m grateful that I got to come back.
Back to work.
Back to my kiddo.
Back to some kind of normal routine.
Even if my body isn’t completely caught up yet.
Wednesday made that VERY clear.
My hips and sides were killing me. I only made it two laps around the track before I needed to sit down.
I don’t know how much of it was from being off my feet for so long, how much was from surgery and still healing, or how much my period was contributing.
But my body definitely needs some time to get used to being back.
Thursday, my lower back was in knots badly enough that Mom had to bring me a pain patch at work.
I didn’t transition my kiddo nearly as much as I probably should have because I was hurting, and he was not thrilled about that.
Which I understand.
His routine changed because I couldn’t do what I normally do.
And meanwhile, Wednesday he had thrown his only tantrum of the day because I told him to take a break from working and go play.
🤣
Apparently I returned to a tiny workaholic.
But despite the pain and despite realizing that getting back to normal might take a little longer than I wanted—
I got to go back.
And overall?
My first day back was really good.
I’m grateful for that.
😂 This Week’s “Well…That Happened.”
I had options this week.
So many options.
Doodoo had a pull-up situation that very much justified why we call him Doodoo, while repeatedly announcing:
“I SHIT!”
Yes, sir.
Yes, you did.
And you stink.
🤣
Then there was Doodoo trying to manipulate Mawmaw Nesi into letting him go back outside after I already told him no.
Me: “You trying to get Mawmaw in trouble?”
Doodoo:
“Yeah!”
At least he’s honest.
😂
There was Pooh Boy climbing out of the bathtub by himself.
There was my vacuum still sounding like a motorcycle until I finally got down on the floor and changed the brush.
There was my sister dropping her vape into the bathtub.
There was the return of the Medusa doorbell—which, apparently, I have now learned to weaponize against children.
“Line up or I’ll push the button!”
Everybody lined up.
Somebody started crying in the car?
I held up Medusa.
Silence.
☠️🤣
Last week that damn thing scared the absolute shit out of me.
This week?
I’m considering buying one.
Character development.
🤣
But none of those win.
Because Pooh Boy—
my sweet little Pooh Boy—
has apparently decided that walking normally is beneath him.
Thursday, he was outside playing with the Frozen ride-on toy. Mawmaw Nesi had tied a rope around it because the boys can’t figure out how to scoot that particular one across the grass.
Pooh Boy somehow got the rope wrapped around both arms and one leg.
He wasn’t hurt.
He wasn’t in danger.
He was just tired, frustrated, and apparently convinced that the appropriate response was to roll around in the grass screaming.
I kept telling him:
“Pooh Boy, come here and I’ll help you.”
He’d look at me.
Reach toward me.
Cry.
And then—
GO BACK TO ROLLING AROUND.
☠️
Eventually, he got unstuck and went back to playing.
Cool.
Crisis over.
I looked down at my phone for approximately two seconds to read a text from my sister.
I looked back up.
Mawmaw Nesi was running toward the slide.
And Pooh Boy was standing—
STANDING—
at the top of it.
Laughing his little ass off.
He didn’t climb the ladder.
Mawmaw Nesi watched him.
HE WALKED STRAIGHT UP THE SLIDE.
All the way.
Without falling.
Sir.
You cannot take TWO STEPS across solid ground without randomly falling over.
But you can apparently scale playground equipment like a fucking mountain goat?!
IN TWO SECONDS?!
☠️☠️☠️
I don’t understand him.
I have stopped trying.
And now it’s Sunday night.
The boys stayed with us this weekend.
There were a LOT of dinosaurs.
Doodoo and I watched every Jurassic Park/Jurassic World movie Hulu had on Saturday because that baby loves his dinosaurs. 😂
My sister touched up my hair.
The boys got to stay up a little late.
We all slept until nine this morning.
Doodoo and I got one more dinosaur cuddle in before I took him home.
Then I spent the afternoon with my friend taking pictures.
And naturally, as soon as I got home, my sister called because she needed me to take her to get a new vape after dropping hers in the bathtub.
😂
She did get me one of those real-fruit TikTok ice creams, though.
The mango one.
And omggggg.
DELICIOUS.
Unfortunately, cold things trigger my asthma, so now I’m fighting an asthma attack because apparently even eating ice cream has to come with consequences.
☠️
Stupid body.
Stupid cold things.
Stupid asthma.
And now it’s after seven.
Dinner still needs to be cooked.
I’m exhausted.
And I have work tomorrow.
But compared with how this week started?
I’ll take it.
I started the week curled up in pain, wondering how much longer I can keep doing this.
I’m ending it with freshly touched-up hair, a camera full of pictures, a weekend full of dinosaurs and babies, and the knowledge that apparently Medusa can control an entire group of children faster than any adult in this family.
😂
Not a bad ending.
Now somebody please cook dinner for me.
Until next time,
—Destiny
P.S. What’s one completely ordinary thing from your week that ended up meaning more to you than you expected?
destinylaharris 
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