Down Time

Work has been kicking my ass all week. Between the early mornings and shifting over from student life to a highly regimented work schedule I come home so tired in the evenings I can't stay awake through dinner, let alone long enough to produce any sort of quality writing. I was going to write tonight about how I came to be in the doctor's office in this post. However, it's still difficult for me to talk about, and I'm too tired right now to do it justice.

I just remembered that I had written a short essay about my initial experience a few days after I was diagnosed. It was posted on a message board I frequent, but I don't really want to give out where that is. Instead I'll repost my story here:

Tears stung at my eyes as the words formed and tumbled out of my reluctant mouth. I was wading through the overwhelming depths of sticky blackness in my mind, searching for the words to describe what was happening to me. I sat there, pouring out my troubles to a stranger; eyes riveted to the wall, trying to avoid his gaze. The sound of a pen scratching paper interspersed the poignant silences in our hushed conversation. My voice trembled as I ran out of words and came to the end of a very one-sided conversation.

Then it was my turn to sit silently, stunned, while this man proceeded to rip through the fragile threads of my well-constructed denial. Confusion quickly followed, and a whirlwind of explanations and administrations followed. Before I knew it, I was sitting in another sterile white office, again recounting my little dark secret to another stranger- but there was something different in this person. She was smiling, forgiving, and compassionate. The mischievous twinkle in her eye told me that this too would pass. She slipped a little package of tiny bright pink pills and a stiff white note into my hand and made me promise to return in a few days.

I slowly walked out through the glass doors and stepped into the bright sunlight. As the sharp breeze played on my face I mused over the past 24 hours. It hardly seemed like it was the same world I had walked out into that morning. I scowled at the brown, dried and curled leaves that swirled around my angry feet. How could this be possible? How could my life have turned so upside down in the blink of an eye?

That evening I reluctantly swallowed down the little pink pill and hoped for the best. I gazed into the bottom of my empty glass and resolved to understand my situation and embrace the people that would help me find a way out. As I lay in bed feeling drowsy and emotionally exhausted I fell asleep with the thought that tomorrow would bring a new day, with a new start.