A post in which I lay my burden down

I woke up at 5:30 this morning feeling like a complete zombie. I had left time to be up by going to bed early last night, but I had used that and then some. I had taken a sleeping pill at 8pm, and was back up at 10:30pm. I was up another time as well. I felt bleary, salty-eyed, weighted down like an old donkey, and kind of like Frodo felt in that last part of the trek through Mordor. But I had month end to do, and had already taken Monday off. There was no help for it – I had to go to work.

Miss Kat knew that I was in need of help because I had reached out to her. I’m sure she knew I was waiting for her call also. She called at 7:40 this morning to give me the go-ahead to come talk tonight. I longed for that time as pants the hart for cooling streams. But I had to get through the day first.

There was a lot to do. After looking at my tat this morning, I had decided that I needed another ointment day. Sigh. But it’s a lot easier to replace underwear than improperly-healed tattoos, not to mention less expensive. So I threw the ointment back in my bag.

At work I had to re-cut the numbers yet again to reflect the new divisions, which is detailed work. I did OK, but then couldn’t get the numbers from last month to balance with the re-cut. By this time it was late in the afternoon, and my compartmentalization way beginning to fray. Finally it was time to go.

I got home, did my tat care, and fixed a quick supper. Now that it was time to go, I was reluctant. I really didn’t want to drag all this out. I didn’t want to burden Miss Kat and dana with the things I needed to say. It’s been a rough couple of days. And I was so very, very tired. But I knew that the only way to deal with this was head-on. So I stiffened my upper lip and headed out.

I got there and gave dana a couple of little birthday cercies. I showed them my new tattoo, which has remained stubbornly fresh – maybe I’m taking care of it too well – but I was glad they got to see it before the ugly peeling stage sets in. They're the first ones to see it.

And then we just got down to it. It was a great relief to just get it out there. Once it was out of my head it seemed to lose a lot of its power and pain. Miss Kat is an excellent listener. In the end though, it was dana who really capped the whole thing. dana is not an eloquent speaker, but she’s very no bullshit. When I got done telling my tale, I asked them if they thought this made me broken. dana just looked at me as if surprised, and said “There’s nothing broken about you, baby. You’re fine.” We talked about it some more, and Miss Kat helped me to understand why that was the right answer, but really as soon as dana said that I felt the stone roll off my shoulders.

So after that I actually got to enjoy the visit, which was great, and such a HUGE relief. So I enjoyed spending some time with them. Then I went home to bed; to sleep, God willing. I could certainly use it.