I guess I need to be knocked on the head with a safe box to finally open my eyes and set my priorities straight. Which reminds me of the 3 times in my life that I barely escaped bodily harm from falling objects. The first happened while waiting for a bus. I was standing against the wall of a highrise apartment building There was a woman standing about a foot away from me. From the side, I heard her yell…OMG….are you ok?? I looked at her like a deer stuck in the headlights. “What? Of course I’m ok….but I’ll be even better when I get home and hit the sack” She said NO NO…the bottle..the bottle!!! It seems that, while I was daydreaming waiting for the 42 bus, someone had thrown a glass bottle of beer from a high floor out of their window . It had missed me by about 2 inches. There it was…my potential killer…pieces of glass on the sidewalk just glistening up at me..almost mocking me with their shininess. The second dodging of a falling object occurred about a month later. I was on my lunchbreak, minding my own business, when I felt something wet on my face. A few people, walking towards me, had shocked looks on their faces. Hmm…what had they seen. I think they saw the glass baby milk bottle that was thrown out of a window and missed my head, leaving drops of warm milk on my clueless face. The third, was the most disturbing. I used to walk to work, using the back alley. ..it was just a shortcut.. ..right..almost a shortcut to my death. Many of the building’s fire escapes faced the alley and cars were parked there. So, I’m casually walking to work when I hear a loud thud. I looked around and saw nothing. When I got to work, the sad word had spread through my workplace. “Did you hear??? So sad!!! This poor girl jumped to her death and landed on the roof of a car. The car I had just passed while “casually walking to work”
Ok, back to priorities. This year has been hard for me, emotionally and physically. It started with a bad fall. I don’t mind falling. What I do mind is that it was totally ridiculous and left me badly bruised. Then, there is this expensive repair project going on in our building, that is costing the owners their life savings. I spent the past 2 months applying for and getting approved for a home equity loan. Last week, I went to the bank, armed with all the paperwork they told me to bring, including photo ID. After climbing over mountains of ice ( yes, we’ve had almost 58 inches of snow this winter), I dragged myself into the bank that held my financial security. “Oh, I’m so sorry..we can’t accept your photo ID. It has expired.” No it hasn’t, I said as I showed them the updated paperwork with the recently renewed ID that included my signature. “Oh, we still can’t accept it…the new expiration date is not ON the photo ID.” Excuse me, I said…I just came from another bank and they accepted it and I have not had a problem in other establishments. Long story short……….i bolted out of their establishment not knowing what to do. Another long story short….I’m in the process of getting approval from another bank who DID accept my ID. The problem is, that I need to make a full payment to my apartment building next week. Oh well.
Now, for the building improvements. In the past week, a minimum of 15 workers have been in and out of my unit. Banging holes in the walls, replacing pipes, using glue that made me feel oh so mellow yellow, insulated the walls, moving the furniture that is covered in plastic …kind of reminds me of my grandmother’s place …plastic slipcovers haha. Next week, I entertain the plasterer and dry wall people. Oh Boy.
Oh, what’s wrong with me. I forgot to mention how I burned my eyeball while rinsing out a pot… haha
This is just the half of it. What I’m trying to say is…… the things that seemed so important 2 months ago…and even as recently as last week, mean absolutely nothing. They are trivial. We get so caught up in superficial things. Maybe it’s a form of denial…not wanting to face what is really going on in our lives. We make the small things, big and the big things, small. The infamous defense mechanism. I am exhausted and beat but not beaten. I have just taken my “to do” list and revamped it into reality. Well, hello, reality…you look pretty good to me. Even with all of your roadblocks and flaws, you are sure looking better than my fantasies. Don’t get me wrong. Fantasies are cool, but we just have to put them in perspective.
Symptoms of a Brain Cloud 