Tonight I Sit in a Gray Mushroom Cloud

I am having one of those days.

One of those days when you wake up, feel fine, then upon your first interaction with someone (in my case, a business someone), you feel like an idiot.  When your mind says to you "Whatever that crap is that is coming out of your mouth, just STOP!"

But somehow you don't stop.  You try again - because you know you can do better.  So you (the YOU here being ME) say something else in say, oh I don't know, a meeting setting where there are many people judging your every word.  And there you go ahead again, saying something that makes them look at you with confusion and a hint of pity (that poor girl).  Because the meeting is a couple of hours, this scene repeats itself a few times.  I manage to say something smart "Anyone want some more coffee?" but then keeping watching as the disaster of myself unfolds. 

Or is it all in my head?  It's one of those days.

So I end that portion of the day, return to the sanctuary of my hotel.  I decide to go buy a magazine and the woman in the shop is mean.  I am sure it's my fault.  I must have done something.  Attempting to try something else, I go for a run.  And I feel great - like a rock star!  People are looking at me running in 50 degree weather wearing short sleeves and thinking "Wow, this woman is SERIOUS!" and I like that.  I feel fast.

Then I come back and track how fast I ran.  A new low.  WAY slower than I thought. 

And then I get a call from someone I don't want to be an ass with.  I sound too chipper.  I decide to sound more serious.  I don't want to look or sound like an ass.  We talk, I sound like an ass.  It's awkward.  Maybe it's that hideous 1 second cell phone delay - "wait what - oh no, you go ahead".  You know what I mean.  Just awkward.  Make it stop. 

How could I be so very off today?  My perceptions of everything that have happened are just wrong.  And I am not sure what to correct.  I am not myself. 

So I go back to my hotel room post run and hunker down.  Hunker down for a couple hours of solitude.  Time to regroup.  Be by myself and not interact with anything.  No judgments or gremlins, no questions about my intelligence or value-add (I hate that fucking phrase - value add.  What if you are not "value add"?  The contrary - value detraction - is just awful.  Nobody should be value detraction.)

And here I am.  I am not sure I feel better.  But at least I am not out in public feeling like everything I say or do is silly or VALUE DETRACTION.  Days like this are odd - I am not depressed, I am not sad, I am kind of gray plus radioactive (gray...kind of blehhhh; radioactive...should not be around anyone).  So here I sit in my little gray mushroom cloud and enjoy my solitude.  And I start to realize hope it is in my head.  I let said head chill out for a bit, let it get to know me again and like me again - stop bossing me around and saying bad things. 

Now I really sound like a schitzo.  But that is the risk I take - this is my account of my day.  Thank god I feel it's worthy of a posting - that means it must not be ordinary - this type of day is extraordinary, rare, an infrequent occurrence.  OK, there is reassurance in that.  I am 34 for heaven's sake - I should be past this crap, right, RIGHT!!??!??!  Honey, you are only young once, but you can be insecure forever! 

I go back to my prior thought - this, my friends, MUST have been an extraordinary, anomaly of a day...right?

Comments

[Kathleen]

bizzare.... i think we had the exact same day. seriously. except i didn't run...i should have, but didn't. you did better than me. BUT today is another day and it is already MUCH better! smile... you are a smart, beautiful woman. Definitely a value ADD!! :)