Off

It was a day today. You know. One of those days. I walked into the office this morning and declared I was "off". I was. I spent the day knowing I had it all wrong. The world had me all wrong and I had it all wrong and everything was just wrong. It was how the humidity holds you on a hot day; even in the air conditioning you can't shake it off. I realized early afternoon that it was my perspective. My perspective was all wrong. As if I had been wearing someone else's glasses for the past few hours. Or the past few years.

I took a lunch break and read a book. I haven't taken a real lunch break in years. I haven't read a book "for fun" during a lunch break in years and years. It helped me breathe through the afternoon. It kept me out of a bathroom stall in tears. "I'll figure it out," I vowed. I'll figure out how to take off these glasses. I'll figure out how to find my own. Again, perhaps. Still, the afternoon hours were all wrong, wrong, wrong.

Early evening, I asked her what day it was. I meant which day of the week. "Wednesday, July 11th," she responded. Wednesday. I was unexpectedly right on that. July 11th, I was unexpectedly wrong about that. All day I thought it was the 10th.

July 11th.

No wonder my heart is heavy. Of course I felt as though it was somewhere else. That I was operating without it, my compass, my glasses.

It was with someone else who needs it more than I today. It knew better than I. And off it went. Thank goodness, off it went.