Avoir le cafard : an Idiom, an Experience

When I first went to select a photo to include in this post, I
thought my Google Photos had an error, since this was the only
photo in my Martinique album since Christmas. In fact, this is
the only photo I've taken in the last week.
In case you're wondering: when the morning after my return, I
had one deep, inexplicable bruise on my leg. The next day, I
found another just like it. I took this photo in case it kept
coming up. No, I haven't WebMDed it to find out that I have
cancer. I'll let you know if that changes.

Well, friends, I am back. Back to the Caribbean, back to Martinique, back to work, back to the grindstone, back to this blog. And let me tell you, it has sucked.

For full disclosure, I have been sick for the last week, and only today have I had time to really rest and try to recover, so all of the events I am about to relate to you have been colored by extra exhaustion.

First, my flight back was a disaster. Norwegian canceled my flight. I accidentally called the Norwegian help line and racked up a $163 phone bill while waiting on hold. My flight was un-canceled and moved 50 miles upstate to bum-fuck Stuart Airport. Then it was delayed. A bunch. I landed in Martinique at nearly 2 am. There were no taxis (and of course there's no public transit out there - don't make me laugh). I hitched a ride with a rando, thankfully not getting murdered (so far) and got to bed at 3 am, only to have to wake at a later-than-usual 6:30 am to get to work.

Being as tired as I was, I didn't remember that two of my classes had swapped slots and missed one as a result. 

I got a survey request that told me that we're going to have another meeting in two weeks, hopefully not led by the same orientation people that insisted that street harassment "wasn't rape", just that "Martinican men appreciate beautiful women and want to tell you about it."

I've already spent nearly an hour in the discount grocery store, mostly standing in line, only to find out they didn't have any damn avocados.

My flatmate, who couldn't take it anymore and quit the assistantship in December, moved out Thursday. She not only left me alone on the weekends, when our other, local flatmate is gone home, but also left the apartment as a Roach Hotel. Apparently over the holidays, she was feeling too down to clean, so, as we do live on a tropical island, the pests followed. What she didn't tell me until after a few days - and a few meals - was that she'd just been spraying roach poison directly onto the dishes when she saw a bug in the drawer. So, Friday, after falling asleep in the meeting room at school, I drug myself home, washed every dish in the house, moved them into the fridge or outside, sprayed roach spray in the kitchen, closed it up then aired it out, chased down and killed all the crazy roaches, cleaned all the horizontal surfaces, then left the cabinets and drawers open to air out.

I suspect that eating roach spray has contributed to my stubborn cough, which has improved today after I slept for approximately fourteen hours in a much-cleaned house.

While there is no such thing as making up lost sleep according to neuroscientists, I am hoping that moving forward I feel better, and I mean that in many ways. As of this week, I am completely overwhelmed by the idea of staying here for another 3-4 months. I'm trying to keep my options to return open. In December when I found out that my flatmate was leaving, I made the decision to stay with a lot of other events on the horizon: my trip home, visits with my friends in New York, and other adventures. Now there's nothing between me and April 30th. I've decided to not decide right now, while I'm sick, whether to stay or to go. However, I'll admit that, at the moment, I'm just looking for an excuse to pack my suitcase right back up, which I more or less fantasize about every day.

If you've soldiered this far into the post, I'll reveal that avoir le cafard or to have the cockroach is a French idiom for feeling blue. And, boy, have I got it.