The amount of energy I’ve put into wearing the mask I found shoved into a dusty corner apparently takes much more from me than I’ve realized. The mask is simply an attempt to retain sanity and dignity, when what I really want to do right now is scream and cry and try to hold on to things that need to be let go. So the mask stays, but maybe I should start eating a little more again and smoking a little less.

I’ve had an ongoing issue with weight, pretty much all of my life. When under extreme stress, I generally drop weight very quickly, to unhealthy levels (current BMI? underweight), with the exception of the couple of years that I packed on more pounds than I’m comfortable admitting. In the last week, I’ve eaten very little. The box of granola bars that I bought a couple of weeks ago is still sitting in my desk, begging me to partake of the crunchy goodness. But it’s not very appealing to me right now. Weird how women are with the whole weight/food thing.

At any rate, what does this have to do with traffic, right? Well, you know I have a rather interesting commute on a good day. I’ve got that one strip of ten miles or so that can sometimes take 30 minutes. Today? Over an hour from the start of 193 to the beltway.

And believe me, that was a good thing.

I’m guessing the lack of real eating, the stress I’m coping with, the weight of the mask of normalcy, the chain smoking… well, it’s certainly taking its toll. If traffic had actually been moving at more than 3 miles an hour, I would have caused a rather nasty head-on collision.

So I’m watching the clock because I know I’m going to be late, listening to nonsense on Elliot’s show about orgies (gross, totally gross), thinking about the task list for the day at work and what I’m going to be doing tonight, planning out those first couple of weeks in November where I’m going to lose my little mind, you know, basic morning drive time thoughts. And then horns blaring at me, I’m well over the double yellow, and the clock has skipped forward.

So you see, I’m thankful for the craptactular traffic. Everyone was moving far too slowly for my drifting to mean anything. Maybe somebunny is looking out for me after all.

It certainly has given me something to think about. A different perspective, if you will, about what is important to me right now and what is not. Survival? Important. Dignity? Yeah, that’s important too. Pretending to be something/someone I am not? Really, not so important. Realizing that my friends really are going to be there for me, and are here for me now? Very, very important.

Here’s to a crappy beginning of a better day. It only goes up from here.

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 27th, 2007 at 7:37 am and is filed under Driving, Just Another Day in the Life, Navel Gazing and Random Rambling, The Temple of Sabre. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.