Another day of no progress

I don't usually say a lot about my personal life in this blog, but I need to today. One of my cats is dying. He's been sick for a while, but over the break, he's taken a significant turn for the worse, and I have put in a call to a vet who does compassionate euthanasia house-calls: there's a whole lot involved here, which I won't get into, but tomorrow or Saturday, if my cat, Jack, hasn't given up on his own, I will get the vet here to put him to sleep. I've known this was coming for some time, but that doesn't make it any easier--and the emotional drain of the decision to be ready to put Jack down, the grief that is already very present and will only get more acute once he's gone, makes it very difficult to work, to think, to do anything except to try to distract myself with mindless fluff. I had hoped I could use work as what Bruce would call a "meaningful distraction," but grading essays requires a fair amount of physical energy to support the mental effort--and I am drained. I don't have it in me. And the next few days are likely to be as bad if not worse.

So, no: I won't get much done over the break. I have contacted students who didn't upload essays to Turnitin, or who didn't submit essays period, and I've replied to their emails. I marked a few essays--one completely awful, one mostly awful, one potentially good but missing a solid center--and some accompanying homework, and that's it for today. I refuse to beat myself up over it. The work will get done. Not today, but it will.

I don't have the heart to say much more in this post. I don't know if I'll post again before next week. I'm just breathing through each moment as it comes.