For the most part, my life has been ok. Not great, not bad. I don’t really have qualifiers for how things have been going so I am still sticking to the stock answer of “Fine.”

Yesterday on the other hand, was rather crappy. It didn’t start out well and it ended even worse.

I was trying to meditate first thing in the morning. For those that know me, please note this is before eating anything and you will get the full effect of the events on me. I was sitting there, in the dark, trying very hard to get my thoughts to calm down. It is not going well, I seem to be convinced that I will be interrupted and need to be prepared for that. I go through the list of why that isn’t so, I live alone, everyone that would call me knows not to do so that early, businesses and telemarketers wouldn’t call that early, my neighbor’s don’t knock on my door… etc. I am starting to calm down and lo, the phone rings. They are calling for my mother who hasn’t used my phone number for over 2 years and has worked hard to get my number off her affairs. Seems she just called them and they are needing additional information. I know they have had the number changed and are usually good about propagating new information so this was unusual. After grilling them on both sides and garnishing them with my disdain, I hang up and figure that the universe is telling me that this mornings meditation is a bust. Fine, on with the day.

Little things add up all day to being a pain:

I am walking into work before I realize that I left my wallet at home. I have no money, ATM, ID… you get the idea. I did happen to have commuter checks in my purse so I can get bart tickets and get home so that is ok.

Yahoo has changed their GUI just a little so I am finding myself deleting email that I am trying to reply to.

I am having lunch with a friend (who nicely paid for my food, thanks C, I owe you) and I get totally turned around in bart while waiting for my train. As a train pulls up, I realize that my train is on the other side, I turn to see the doors closed and then it leaves. I have to wait for the next one and now I am late. Fiddle sticks.

I lose my sun glasses at lunch (I found out this weekend that the place I got them from no longer carries them so I know I can’t replace them now). Feh.

I can’t find the paperwork for updates that have been assigned to me at work. My desk is getting cleaner but it isn’t showing up. I am going to have to admit I lost the edits.

After work, I run for the bart train and it appears I lost my library book out of my pants pocket at that time. It isn’t there when I am on the train and it isn’t at work. Hopefully someone will find it and it will either be in bart lost and found over the next week or it will find its way back to the Berkeley library.

All this is just run of the mill ick stuff. A not good day. Some nice things happened, not enough to over-shadow the bad stuff but it isn’t that bad. Now, we go to the toppers for the day.

My therapist is back in town after a three week vacation. While he was gone, I found other places to work on stuff. These other things are important and I want to continue so I tell him I want to switch from twice a week to once a week. He is very resistant. Turns out that he is focusing his practice to multiple sessions a week. Now, I am feeling like his advice and counseling is more for what works for him not what is best for me. It raises questions about the last 6 months of sessions. It raises questions on whether or not I am going to stick with him or quit after investing over 2 years on the relationship. Something I thought was solid is showing some severe cracks. I leave feeling like all I want to do is go home and hide for awhile. (This is just setting the scene).

I make it to Rockridge bart, and cool, there is a train that just pulled up. It claims to be a 10 car train but is only half way down the platform. As I walk up to it, I see that many people are getting off and clustering around a bart employee getting information. From my fellow passengers, I find out that bart suspects a suicide and they are clearing the train. The station agent is saying we have to find our own way to the next station, they are closing down the station and he doesn’t know how long this is going to take. Remember, I don’t have any money, ATM, credit cards, or ID. I have bart tickets and checks but no way to cash any checks with no ID. Can’t do bus or cab. I get to walk home. And my car is a mile past home. I am standing there, being lost, not knowing what to do. I need to eat, my energy is low and I am a rather long walk from home. And how am I going to deal with my car?

I watch at least 7 fire/rescue people show up and run up the stairs and a couple of Oakland police officers. I can’t help but think that 1 person has lost their life and so many officials are yanked off whatever they are doing because of it and so many commuters lives are thrown into turmoil/inconvenienced. The person is already dead, what does it matter? Before anybody even starts on me, I understand why and the precautions that need to be taken and investigation that need to happen in case it wasn’t a suicide and all that. But it doesn’t change how I feel and I feel like the cause and effect are grossly mis-balanced. I do remember thinking that if there is a person under the train, I hope it was a suicide and not a murder, that the person wanted out of life and not had it taken from them against their wishes.

After awhile, an announcement that another train will be coming in on the other platform (the station agent is clueless, his first notification was me telling him to listen to the announcement). The signs flash that the train won’t stop. It stops before getting to the station. Waits a little bit, pulls up and, thank god, lets us on. We head off to MacArthur. In transferring platforms to catch a Richmond train, bart announces that trains will be stopping in Rockridge on a different platform. A few minutes later, they announce that due to a medical emergency, trains will NOT be stopping in Rockridge, you need to take this AC bus to that AC bus to get to some other station. I am so glad the one train stopped and got us out of there. I would have really been screwed if all this had happened with the previous train. I get to North Berkeley station and there doesn’t seem to be any affect of the whole drama. I talk to the station agent about lost and found because of my missing library book and then I walk the 5 blocks to my car. It isn’t until I just start driving home that I remember to be envious. I guess that is an improvement in my life by some standards.

When I get home, there are messages waiting for me on the phone and I don’t bother with them. I curl up on the couch watching tv. I am done with this day. It is more than I want to deal with. I caused a lot of my troubles by not thinking the right thing, not paying attention, being out of sorts, your basic “woke up on the wrong side of the bed” syndrome. Then there are the things that are out of my control that compound the problems I made for myself. I just wanted to skip to the next day and let this one go.

The up side to all this is that it was not a totally crappy day. It wasn’t a good day by any means but I dealt with it. I even had food at my desk so I didn’t need to borrow money. And I have people I could borrow money from. I could walk home, I wouldn’t fall over. I could take care of myself. Yesterday had the potential to be really, really bad but it turned out to be just a pain. I guess that is what I have to learn from all that.

Today is a more normal day other than the casual carpool driver forgetting I was in the back seat and needed to be dropped off at the corner. After I called her on it, I only had a block to walk back. Other than that, the day is ok, back to normal I guess I might even say. Not good, not bad, no accurate qualifiers, stock answer is “Fine.”