Severe Submission Sickness (SSS)

It should have been novel submission excitement this week, but instead I was struck down, in the prime of lime with the dreaded SSS - Severe Submission Sickness.
Symptoms include but are not limited to:

• Inability to trust any judgement you make. 
• Hating the world, disliking everything. 
• The need to throw things, generally scream, shout and have a tantrum. 
• A break out in spots, akin to that of a prepubescent teen. 
• Additional/rapidly increasing grey hair ratio; the amazing little wiry ones that stick up and out the sides. 
• Punctuation marks become a random assortment of incomprehensible dots and lines that seem to rearrange themselves when you're not looking. 
• Inability to then correct those punctuation marks and therefore hatred of the comma, semicolon and colon. 
• Temperature fluctuations to the extreme. Cold sweats. Hot sweats. Medium sweats. Being so cold you need extra layers, slippers and wrist warmers. Then stripping down to vest and pyjama bottoms. 
• A increased tendency to spill things, drop things, walk into things, injure yourself. 
• A tiredness that aches your bones, weighs down your eyes and makes you cranky. 
• Emotions so close to the surface, it's a laugh or cry moment, every moment. 
• Feeling like that submission will always be twelve steps out of reach, like the end of a rainbow or the mysterious entrance to the Gherkin building. But on the tenth step there's a precipice and you might just fall to your death.                   

So it's been a fun few days. The SSS hit me pretty hard on Tuesday but then I have been pushing it down and ignoring it since then. Wednesday I had to teach 40 kids and then email all the parents and I was too exhausted to think after that. Then yesterday I spent time catching up on The Vampire Diaries and wallowing a little. After this blog I aim to confront my SSS and attempt to take that one step closer to Submission Mountain. Maybe it will be the one step that plummets me off the edge of the precipice, or maybe, just maybe it will be the one step that links to an invisible bridge, granting me safe passage to the Mountain. Or maybe I'll find the entrance to the Gherkin, though I highly doubt it. It's as mythical as.........my submission.

Just in case that was a little too grim for everyone, I'm sorry, but we can't be all happy and positive all the time. What do you mean I am never those things? You're probably right, but just in case, I will leave you with a slightly more optimistic thought:

What if reading books was exercise? I mean, what if ingesting all those words and travelling off with our characters actually burnt calories? I would be so fit!

For instance, you're not stationary when you're reading, even if you are actually stationary. You move with your characters, you experience every thing they do, so why can't that involve the real sacrificial burning of some belly flab? (As my workout DVD lovingly refers to it.)

I have been devouring books lately and have stumbled upon an author I have been meaning to read for such a long time: Lauren Oliver. Oh my. I have been missing out. Ate Panic in just over a day and am onto the first in her bestselling trilogy: Delirium. Frickin' brilliant. I'd like to think by the end of it, especially with all the running the main character does, that maybe I will be trim and fit by the end of it. Though as I am likely to finish it tomorrow, then doubts are high. Shame though. That would be the most enjoyable way of exercising and keeping fit.

Anyhoo, it's Friday, so even if, like me, you are experiencing SSS, maybe wine or vodka or friends or a little break could cure at least one or two of the symptoms. It's not a case of keeping your chin up, it's more like unknotting your stomach, trying to keep your eyes focused, and if all the dots and squiggles become incomprehensible blurs of black, then step away, have a minute, and breathe, but that's a given.

Rants