Day 4,139—Some Kind of Animal—

 

        Her eyes didn’t reflect yellow, and her ears stood up tall. I could tell she thought she was hidden. I had turned right to go towards Watson and ran through the trail in the retirement home. Originally, I was thinking of staying left, but something in me told me to go a different way, and I am glad I did. Seeing the animal made me reconsider my initial guess—it must be a cat, but cats usually act different. I had been listening to music, but I turned it off and continued this week's trend of going slow.

        At least I have been getting up on time, but I am not going to sleep until after 10, and I worry it will be hard to get up early over the weekend. The first day of school went by without too much craziness. I helped create schedules for kids who just showed up yesterday and some who were registered but didn’t have a complete schedule. There was such a mixture of kids excited for the day and some who were dreading it and wanted to be anywhere but there. Some kids couldn’t speak a word of English and others didn’t know how they were going to get home at the end of the day.

        I got there at 6:30 and didn’t leave until after 3:30. Not every day will be this long, but there always felt like there was so much to do and so many kids waiting around needing someone to help them. I could have gone to sleep when I got home, but a tree branch fell on the sidewalk in front of my house. I couldn’t leave it there. My neighbor chuckled when she saw me approaching to clean it up, “Good luck.” I felt plunged into a haze. I am glad I got running and books.