Meeting Your Maker

Sometimes, after a night of rumble-tossing guts and nightmares, you wake up to a morning that couldn't have started any worse. And then worse sours into something you can't swallow but must but cannot but absolutely have to!

And then you almost crash on the way to work and you tell the other driver that's he's #1 in your book, but you're not entirely sure that it wasn't YOUR fault because in the moment you honestly couldn't have cared enough about crashing to try and avoid much less assess it in the dwindling aftermath.

And then you get to school and your back gives our and you run your shoulder into a locked door for no reason and you skip breakfast and you don't say "good morning" to the library staff like you usually and you pile awful on top of awful until you finally get to the place where people are required to leave you in peace.

And then you get back from a one-quick-second-and-I'll-be-right-back trip to the bathroom to find your iPad is missing. And you look everywhere. And then you look EVERYWHERE. And then you feel something like giving up only set on fire.

And then you punch-kick-chaos your way down to the front desk like a rabid tornado. And she's not going to believe you and YES you can describe it and she doesn't understand that your academic everythings are on that iPad and ok of course you'll wait and you KNOW she's just going to come back and say, "I'm sorry. We don't have it" because that's what the day had been.
But you wait anyway, brooding like a thunderhead, sapping the happiness and electric joy from the air around you, clenching your fists, unclenching, clenching again, weaponizing the blood and water in your veins.

And then they find it. And they give it to you. And you're going to be late for class but hats ok now because this. And then you say thank you too many and not enough times, depressurized with gratitude, future-shamed and guilty of what you might have done. And the security guard takes you aside and says:

"It's none of my business but you seem like a man who carries all of his problems at once. Maybe you should start carrying what you can. Believe me, the other troubles well be right there waiting for you once you're strong enough."

You say "thanks" again, but it means something different this time. And then it hits you - maybe you're the problem.

And you think about that for a while. And you take the long way to class so you can sup and get breakfast. And you smile and say hello because it's who you are. And you raise your hand in class even though you don't know the answer. Because not knowing is OK. And you get that now.

And you start your day again, this time carrying only what you can. And you get on with getting on. And you do just fine.