It can't be wrong when it feels so...whatever

I'm sitting in the sun on the back deck enjoying the gentle breeze, reading today's mail, and watching my husband paint the storage shed. Aside from the slap-slap of paintbrush on wood and the occasional birdcall, the scene is silent, serene, soothing. So why am I so agitated?

Because the first faculty meeting of the academic year is about to start and I'm not there.

I ought to be standing in front of my colleagues with gavel in hand, guiding them through the business of the day (which, truth be told, is pretty boring: reports, information, no action items at all). I ought to be in the thick of things, cutting a clear path through campus controversies and making my mark on academic policies. Instead, I sit and and listen: slap-slap, tweet-tweet, slap-slap.

I ought to be grateful for the opportunity to opt out of faculty governance--and I am. I am grateful to the people who are working harder so I can take it easy, and I have tremendous confidence in my colleague who stepped up to serve as Interim Chair while I'm indisposed.

And I have to admit that I just don't have the energy for campus controversies. I've been studiously avoiding knowledge of all controversial issues and staying away from campus gossip centers because radiation leaves me little energy to devote to such matters, no matter how important they might be. Moreover, the worst side effects tend to strike a few hours after treatment--right about the time the faculty meeting begins. It's impossible to run a public meeting while tethered to the rest room.

So instead, I rest. Slap-slap, tweet-tweet, slap-slap. I tell myself that this is the right thing to do, that the academic world will keep turning without my contributions, but it doesn't feel right. It feels wrong.

Then again, so does cancer. In fact, cancer feels more wrong than missing a faculty meeting. So I guess I should be happy to suffer a small wrong--missing a few meetings--in order to remove from my life a much bigger wrong--cancer. The awfulness of the bigger wrong makes the smaller almost insignificant by comparison--almost, indeed, so right.

So right here I'll sit while my colleagues exercise faculty governance. Slap-slap and tweet-tweet never sounded so right.