Thrown Off!

Thrown off by a little thing without meaning
plans changed
Took me all day yesterday to mentally prepare
myself for
a day under the glaring sun
wind blowing from all directions
without protection
Unknown noises, voices
me pretending to be normal
smiling to be polite
forcing myself to make eye contact
too much?
too little?
I don’t know
They’re waiting behind us
Are they getting impatient?
They want to talk,
I have nothing to say, just want to be left alone
I’m so nervous.
All day…
All night…
All morning…
I mentally prepared myself
ONE phonecall…
plans are changed.

I am in turmoil
mental and emotional
serious turmoil.
I feel like someone
who has spent
weeks preparing
working hard
for an extraordinary event
Just to have it canceled by something unimportant
I want to cry, to scream
Don’t I matter?
Now, it will take me another
Day to get ‘normal’ again
recouperate from all my ‘hard work’
for nothing.
Another day wasted.

No, it was nothing special. No big trip or exciting big event. Just me watching my husband play golf…for the first time. He had to change plans for something, he found out later, totally unnecessary. It really is no big deal. Totally normal. Just not for someone for whom it takes enormous mental and emotional effort and preparation to go out among people. I do feel like I packed a thousand suitcases. Prepared a thousand snacks, all for nothing. And now I am left with the full ‘luggage’ that I now I have to unpack again and put in their proper places. I feel out of place and disoriented. I am supposed to be somewhere, but I am not. My mind has trouble ‘catching up’ to that.

And yet, this is how my brain is working, has always worked. And it is exhausting…all over a little thing!