A Parade Of Ex-es - or - Calpurnia's Warning

Things couldn’t be better. Am I exhausted? Overworked? Under-paid? Over extended? Under appreciated? Yes. Yes I am. But I am happy. I am soaked to the bone with my own sweat, stretched to my maximum by my own commitments, pushed to the edge of my physical limits, and ready to wake up and do it all again tomorrow. I am bruised and callused and burned and scared and bandaged and bleeding and happy to show off my battle wounds. There is dirt under my fingernails from last week that, no matter how hard I use that bristle brush, won’t come out. I am living in a torrent of my own design and, in all honesty, haven’t had a day off, a day to myself, a day with no work, a day alone, in over thirty days. I smile more than ever these days, but my body, my muscles, my being whines about the last job with every new job that I take on. My bones are tired. So why is it when I get to rest them, when I finally find some time between the whetstone and the grindstone, when I’m rebuilding my strength, why is it then that my dreams turn into a parade of ex-lovers. It is as if ever past commitment, every pretty face that has turned sour towards me, every lost and shattered relationship is dispatched against me while I sleep. They are beautiful and vindictive and unrelenting; lined up like Senators at the Theater of Pompey. I wake up exhausted, with my heart visibly beating through the thin summer sheets. Last night’s thunderstorm has become this morning’s drizzle.