Feeling Parenthetical Today

The demons are best battled with allies. It might seem like a common sense notion, but I've always been used to battling them alone.
Today started off rough. I am being forced into a (temporary) situation that requires me to cut some corners I would rather not cut and it stresses me out. Apparently the stress was more obvious than I meant it to be this morning. Not long after the advanced class ended and I was back in my office doing some work, there was a little knock upon my door. It was three of my students (and the boyfriend of one of the three students) bearing a sweet little bouquet of flowers for me with a card that said "ganbatte ne!" (means "Keep going. Keep trying") I'm really surprised I didn't cry at them, except it was such an absolutely sweet and thoughtful gesture that I wasn't going to ruin it by crying. They told me they heard me stressing out over the technical difficulties I was having with the computer in class today, which was more like an extension of the technical difficulties I seem to be running into in life these days, and they wanted to cheer me up. I don't know what I'm going to do after this year where there are no more classes they can take in my subject. Most of them have one more year of school left, maybe we can do an independent study or something.
And then before lunch time, I IMed my guy and asked if we could go for a walk together. We work down the street from each other and one of the things I've been looking forward to with the semester coming into session was the chance to kill two birds with one stone, meaning spend some time with him and get some exercise. I could have done what I've done the past couple of weeks, namely stay cooped up in my office working through lunch and feeling stressed and then bummed for being too sedentry. But being back to work seems to inspire me to find the time to create little breaks in my day so it doesn't feel like I'm constantly rushing around for everyone but myself. So, I joined him and his boss (they had already made a plan to walk together) and we walked for about 50 minutes on this most gorgeous day.
So, I started out the day battling demons, but I got some allies on my side and the demons are mostly gone now. It would be much too ungrateful and self-indulgent to feel bad when I've got so many people around me helping me feel better. I try to never let myself get that far gone.