Rising Shards

I was trying to keep up with Zeta explaining her day as we returned home. In spite of her texting anxiety, she didn’t seem too uncomfortable on the drive home, so Stella must have worked her magic to help her anxious sister settle a bit.

“Wait, which class was this again?” I asked.

“Your class!” Zeta said. “The substitute was like, ‘what void monster has the most gaseous emissions when nearing other Cani?’ And Kalei was like, ‘my butt!’ Well, she didn’t say it like that exactly, but everyone was screaming from laughing so hard, and the substitute kicked her out, but Kalei held her arms up like she just won a trophy and everyone cheered! She said Principal Penteldtam said she wouldn’t be in trouble because her joke was ‘objectively super freaking funny,’ but I think she made that part up.”

I imagine a lot of this story was embellished just a tad, but I wasn’t going to call her out on it.

“I probably wouldn’t have kicked her out,” I said. “That would be on me for setting up a joke so easily. The sub didn’t know Kalei’s snark power levels, so it may not be fair for me to judge them.”

“Oh, this was like the third joke Kalei made that class, she smelled blood in the water,” Zeta said.

“I could see that sub being either totally oblivious then, or they set up a fart joke they knew Kalei wouldn’t be able to resist to kick her out.” I said.

“It’s still kinda funny getting the inside scoop on a teacher’s reaction,” Zeta said. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell Kalei.”

Armed with three bags full of fast food (I still remembered Zeta’s order, and of course Stella’s too) we returned to our little abode. Stella was still crashed on the couch, and Zeta approached cautiously, her tail nervously flicking.

“You OK?” Zeta asked as she held out the food.

“I’m fine,” Stella said. “Just a flu bug…of the mental health variety.”

“Well, it’s like you say, that’s what fast food is for,” Zeta said, handing the paper bag over. “On special occasions.”

Stella fell asleep about halfway through dinner.

“She’s pretty burnt out,” I said. “Have you seen her like this before?”

"I don't know," Zeta said. “Usually when she’s had a downer time she keeps to herself about it.  now that I know this one is parent related…I get it, obviously. But this is kinda scary."

“She just needs a bit more time to recuperate,” I said. “I’m sure she’ll be back on her feet soon. But we also can’t rush her into that, because you know she’ll try to get back to it as soon as she can.”

“Mhm,” Zeta said. “It’s like when I got knocked out by the parent situation, maybe it runs in the family that we get sick like this.”

“It could be,” I said. “So you gotta go extra easy when this happens to you, too.”

“Right!” Zeta said. "I'm glad you're here at least, dang. I’ve never been able to convince her to go nap when she’s feeling bad, she usually just pushes through until she crashes.”

“That’s…a shame, but I’ve been there too,” I said.

“I hope you take your own advice,” Zeta said. “I don’t mean that in a judgy way, of course.”

“I gotcha,”

As we hung out and watched TV, leaving to go work on homework and classwork, I thought about how I did need to take care of myself more.

After being single for a while, I stopped thinking as much about self-care, despite telling my students they had to take care of themselves. I put work as a priority, others as a priority. I got burnt out plenty, and just kept going. Something about taking care of Stella as a partner, and being a more official guardian to Zeta broke through that mindset. If I didn’t take care of myself, who would take care of them? Not even just in some over the top scenario where her parents showed up in a magic tank trying to steal Zeta back, more in the mundane. Obviously, Stella was tough enough mentally to raise at least three more Zetas, but she’d be alone when she got burnt out like this. Being part of a family in the role I found myself in was still almost alien to me, but I understood how much I owed it to them to be responsible.

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