Where O Where to Begin?

It has been quite a week, not in the good way. I don't even know where to start. Last night, I just couldn't write, and today, although everything kind of came to a head, I actually feel better. I'll start at the beginning, more or less, although make sure to stay tuned for the big finish.

As I have mentioned, I started to feel not well last Friday, less well than the normal day-to-day fluctuations. I made it through the weekend with a whole lot of donnatal, which calms intestinal pain, and some careful eating. I did have a really nice day at the SIL's on Sunday. Early Monday evening, the storms began. I wrote about it earlier in the week, but not about how absolutely terrified I was. I was too scared to move, too scared to cry, not just because of the storms but because of all kinds of feelings that they dredged up. The Hubs was his usual hacking-out-a-lung self in the other room, K was at class, and I was sitting perfectly still on the couch where I live, jotting notes on the Palm to share with the therapist. I wrote seven notes over the course of the evening, even after I was better, by which time I was crying. And I'm thinking, I'm not depressed, I don't feel depressed, I feel scared and sad. It's not the same.

Tuesday, do I remember Tuesday? Not well. Oh, right; Tuesday after school we went to get the estimate for fixing K's car and someplace else and I've been making a million phones calls every day to get that ball rolling. Another fire to be putting out. In the meantime, I'm going through this annual end-of-school job I have, The Dreaded Obligations, which always puts me about an inch from the edge of the precipice, if you know what I mean. It makes me go home every summer feeling like the only people I work with in that school are screaming fucking morons. I don't care for this feeling, and would not like to have it anymore. And as I've mentioned, the Martian made random changes this year in a system that was working, and that was pissing me off. All the while, the gut pain train rolls on. Oh, and the toothache, I think I wrote about that.

I have body issues, and not just the kind where you think you're too fat or too skinny. My body issues are making me very sad. I left work early yesterday because of the pain. But the good news was that at about 6:15, when last night's storm was just about revving up, K came home, having done some group work with classmates on campus but then skipping her class for the night. Let it thunder, who cares.

Today. I was going to be leaving school early for a 2:15 Resnick appointment for the whole gut thing. Then the Obligations began. In brief: one of the changes that the Martian made was to restore a procedure that was eliminated years ago because in 1990, it pushed me over the edge and I had to leave school one morning a sobbing blob. Now that, let me tell you, was depression. So each time this year that a teacher asked me about it -- asked me to drop whatever I was doing and sign something for them -- I sweetly said that no, it was an error, I wasn't supposed to sign anything, and it was all under control, taken care of. This morning, one of the newer teachers insisted that I sign for him, and so I did: I scrawled my initials over his whole paper, where about 20 things are listed that need various signatures. Not a good sign. Then I sat at my desk muttering to myself, also not a good sign. Across the library, the SCM could see that an ill wind was blowing.

Then the Martian calls me on the phone and says she's sending someone up, and would I, as a personal favor to her, sign his sheet? Rather than launch into a whole thing, I said Sure, and hung up. Who is she sending up? The Troublemaker. The one who keeps raising issues about the library hours and the librarians not doing anything, and who has the nerve to teach an A.P. Social Studies course that never does library research because, you know, you can Google anything you want. That shit head. I waited while he sauntered up. I signed his sheet, not as big as the first guy's, but then I crumpled it into his hand. And then I went down the the school office and this is what happened.

I marched -- there is no other word -- into the Martian's office, and I stood next to where she sat at her computer and I said -- loud -- YOU'RE KILLING ME. YOU ARE KILLING ME. YOU ARE JUST KILLING ME. And she got up, as if to close the door, and said calmly, "Well, let's talk about it," and I said "Okay!" and since I was closer to the door I closed it, slammed it, hard enough to shake the pictures on the wall. And I have no idea what she said, because at this point I was in a chair with my hands gripping my head, fingers through my hair, repeating YOU'RE KILLING ME, YOU'RE KILLING ME, and then the principal had come in through the adjoining door from his office, and then he opened the door I had slammed and told someone to get the nurse.

I was vaguely aware that he was telling the Martian not to talk to me -- I think she was still trying to clarify her position -- and then the nurse was taking my blood pressure, which, she told me later after I was better, was 190/135. I believe I did say at some point that I was having a stroke and that you -- I indicated the Martian -- are giving it to me. Anyway, I became calm and apparently returned to normal human color and although the principal suggested we not discuss the issues because they were unimportant -- what he said was that all the paperwork and little stuff was bullshit, which amused me -- I said it would be better for me to clear it up. So we did, a little, and I explained my grievances, and the nurse took my BP again and it was good, and I had a cute discussion of que sera, sera with the principal, showed him my tattoo, and he said his grandmother used to sing it to him, too, and I told him he was a mensch, which is Yiddish for a good person, a real person. This was after he had said that the only thing I had to do for the rest of the day was go home and look after myself. Which I did. And went to Resnick, who said it might not be a flare, he's doing some tests, etc.

The only weird thing now is that I think the Colleague is angry at me for blowing my top, mostly because it brings back how terrible it was when it happened in 1990, which it was, but it's not as if a person would do this if s/he had any control over it. So I need to wait a little and then call her tonight.

I'm actually a little charged up now, between writing this and also stopping to tell the Hubs the story when he came home. I have to say, though, that in general, I feel better than I have all week, as if I vented it all out. I feel spent. But I sure have a lot to talk to the therapist about tomorrow.


WATCHING GILMORE GIRLS :: ENTRY #1784