How you know your anti-depressants are working

First it's the little things. A third grader (OK, she should be a fourth grader, but she got held back) who falls on the floor and refuses to do any work and then gets made and huffy at you when you tell her she needs to get up and sit in her chair properly. While once this might have bothered me, I found I was mildly amused by it all, and not at all frustrated.

Then it's slightly larger things, like the favorite student from last year with a family crisis who comes to me first thing in the morning to cry on my shoulder and needs serious intervention to help. While once I might be crying with her, or worried about her all day, I found that I could think about her, worry for a second or two, remind myself that she was being taken care of and get back to business in the classroom.

And then the serious test. The house disaster test.

I got an email from Ricardo yesterday. In it he mentions in a very off the cuff sort of way that buying the special drain cleaner from Martin Hardware wasn't going to fix the slow drains in the showers upstairs.

I saw this email and thought, "Huh." So later in the day, not even during my lunch, but at the end of the day, I called to see what had fixed the drains (since it was clear in the email that the showers were open for business upon arrival home).

Let's start with the way I know that my anti-depressants are working, shall we? I have a hole, a rather good sized hole, gaping in the ceiling of my downstairs bathroom. Not only do I have a hole about the size of a generous beach ball, but I am not right now experiencing any elevated blood pressure over it.

Turns out that the pipes that the two upstairs showers share had clogged and rotted through. Water was dripping down into the bathroom. By the time the plumber came it was clear that the ceiling was toast. The plumber checked to see that the showers were not the problem, assessed that the pipe was old, clogged with hair (clearly mine, OK, because Ricardo, very very bald), and needed to be replaced. $350 and a spaniel sized hole later, and I was ready to shower the 3rd grade grime for my ample body.

Now we have to wait for everything to completely dry out so we can replace the whole ceiling in the bathroom.

Not 6 weeks ago this would have left me shaking in a corner. And now? Well better living through chemistry I say!