One of Those Days

It was just one of those days. Everyone has them. But it was an upside down, strange day I knew was headed south the moment I hit the shower. You know the kind you go, “Why did I even get out of bed?”

To start off I got my work schedule wrong, in a good way, sort of. I was a half hour ahead of time. But I didn’t know that till I got to work and couldn’t punch in for twenty-five minutes. So I guess it didn’t really start with that exactly.

I got up to shower at 4:45 am and while I was in there, scrubbing and thinking, and trying to un-stick my eyelids, I had another epiphany about a certain passage in the book I’m writing. and the nervous edge began to emerge. Slowly, instead of walking on solid ground, I was balancing on the edge of a dizzying precipice.

I have to fix that detail–it will make the whole book suck if I don’t get that done and my fearless editor/mentor Demi Stevens is planning to start formatting the e-book file, today! OMG, how much time do I have? 

In a panic, I rushed through the shower and scrambled into clothes, which in itself created a problem later. Stay with me, I’ll get to that.

I damp dried my hair and gave it a spritz of the most luxuriant, cheap, hairspray and dashed for the laptop checking the time in the corner of the screen. I still had half an hour, I can fix this. Besides, I figured it all out in my head while I was scrubbing, thinking, and un-sticking things. So what if I don’t have time to pack a lunch. What about breakfast? I swallowed down a boiled egg and got to work.

And, wonderfully prolific shower writer that I am, I tapped out the words I had been running on replay in the back of my mind since the moment I wet my hair and poured on the shampoo. At last I saved the file, punched out an email to Demi, attached it and hit send, and I still had time to put on my shoes and grab a cup of coffee to go. But that did nothing to ease the upside-down, unsettled feeling that was growing and it was beginning to distract me. Along with an extremely irritating itch on my back, to the right, below my shoulder blade, under my bra strap. So I scratched it, but it kept coming back.

When I finally arrived at work, it hit me, I am too early. I can’t clock in yet. A half hour early, geez how did I manage to screw that up?

Now, I made a sort of commitment to myself not too long ago that I would stop using self-derisive language in my internal conversations. I have long had the habit of calling myself names and berating myself for–well–screw ups. “Wow, Cindy, duh! That was stupid. How dumb are you?” Or something nastier. I promised myself I would stop doing that, but this was one of those days.

So anyway, I got myselves regrouped, ’cause there are a few personalities in here. We gathered our wits and all our stuff and used the time to check emails and Facebook. But that irritating itch on my back, under my bra strap, kept bugging me. Well, I pushed back the unsettled edginess and got moving. ‘Cause that’s what you have to do, right?

I won’t go into detail about the drive and the stuff that kept happening, but it was about two hours after I started driving (I drive for a living) I was scratching my back again and I suddenly realized, I have my whole bra in a twist back there. My panties were fine, I know, I checked. But my bra was twisted around so that–well–it’s hard to explain.

It’s a front-close bra with thin straps and the right cup had spun inside and around the back strap before I put it on, so the whole thing was twisted up and it had been rubbing me the wrong way for the last two hours. Problem was, I was driving and I couldn’t stop at the time. It was another forty-five minutes before I got to stop at a Sheetz convenience store gas station and go into the bathroom, pull off my shirt and bra, and untwist the !*!*!* thing.

Of course I was speaking to myself in derogatory terms the whole time. Yet with the bra strap fixed, a little of the edgy feeling eased. But I also had one of those scary close call moments with a sign post and that’s when I did something I’ve never done before–and I have no idea why I suddenly felt compelled to do it. Except perhaps I was seized by a spirit assigned to watch over the Sheetz parking lot–and I’m not Catholic–never have been– but out of the blue I crossed myself. Really. Now where the bleep in my subconscious or psyche did that come from?

But I figured, what could it hurt? And so I just kept crossing myself throughout the day. ‘Cause it was just one of those days.

Anyway, I have a stressful job dealing with traffic and the public. Some days that’s just fine, I really do like my job. And mostly I’m a mild-mannered driver, but some days . . . and let’s face it, today was one of those days. I wanted so badly to call the guy in the Cadillac Escalade, who was riding my bumper for over a mile, all kinds of unflattering names. Good thing he couldn’t hear my thoughts.

But then the day began to change. I was so edgy and frustrated, I was going to go to Starbucks and consume pastries and some fattening cappuccino stuff when a cafe` next door caught my eye. Mainly because the girl that runs it stepped out on the sidewalk with a big folding chalkboard sign that said, “Healthy Cafe` Inside”. I asked about her special cafe` and I was hooked. I ordered the Spinach Artichoke quiche, a cranberry spring salad with feta cheese and a Strawberry/Blueberry/Kale smoothie. Yum! And the edgy tension eased some more.

Then I looked at my afternoon work schedule and my teeth ground–all by themselves. Yup, it was just one of those days.

The feeling eased from time to time, but it was still there. And as I sit here typing now, it still is. So sometimes, it’s just one of those days and usually it’s not one single thing that causes it nor is there just one single thing that makes it better. But I know it will get better. It always does, but I just crossed myself for good measure again anyway.