Stressful in Earth and Sky

My day started off absolutely awful. I just want to write about it to get it out into the universe so I can put it behind me and go to sleep.

I made a call on Wednesday to the hospitals CONCERN EAP program to get the ball rolling to see a therapist. My appointment was scheduled for this morning at 10am which was going to be perfect because Tim had his interview for the ED tech position at the same time. He and I woke up early, showered, had coffee and breakfast, and got ourselves ready. Around 9am I look at my phone and see a text message that reads EXACTLY like this:

“Gd morning it’s Candice from concern. A reminder that we r scheduled to meet today Friday August 28th @ 2 o’clock. Please confirm that you will b attending this appointment. Ty”

So at first I’m like, “The fuck is this”? I’ve never even met this woman and she’s fucking texting me? And then I realize the time and I freak out. I had specifically made the appointment for 10am because I work second shift and cannot do afternoon appointments. So I hurriedly call the office and reach their call center. The young girl on the other end of the phone tries to call Candice with no luck and tells me she’ll keep trying. It’s 9:15 at this point and I’m all but keeping it together because it had taken YEARS for me to even get the courage to make an appointment to see a therapist and I felt like my entire world was crumbling beneath me.

To make a long story short, I finally get a call from Candice and she’s extremely apologetic. Lines were crossed somewhere and the woman who initially took my appointment information told her 2 instead of 10. I tried so hard to keep it together on the phone but I just couldn’t. Through sobs and gasps and tears I managed to reschedule for Monday at 9am, but not without intense reservations about this whole thing.

After I got off of the phone I completely lost it. I wouldn’t even look at my husband as I ripped all of my clothes off and sobbed uncontrollably with snot and tears and wails that, “This was all a waste of time” and “Why did I even bother.” He grabbed me and held me and I cried harder and harder and just collapsed into a 225 pound, pregnant mess onto the bed. By 9:30 my entire world seemed to be crumbling around me and my poor husband had to leave me like that to go for a job interview (which he got, by the way).

After he left I laid in bed for a while and just alternated between loud bursts of crying and silent sobs. Once I’d calmed down enough, I threw a robe on and made my way to the kitchen. I took some coffee out of the fridge, grabbed some colored pencils, printed a blank mandala, put on some instrumental music, and I started coloring. For 2 hours I sat there in perfect silence and just colored this beautiful design until every inch of it was decorated in every color of the rainbow.

And when I was done, I threw it away.

Tim came home about an hour in to my session and talked to me about his interview and how it went. He made breakfast and gave me kisses and just let me sit there with my coffee and my pencils and just color. And once I felt like it was complete, just like the Tibetan monks do with their sand mandalas… I “blew it away”. It was an outlet for anger and frustration and heartache and despair and while it was something beautiful, it would have always reminded me of how I felt this morning, and I didn’t need that. So I crumpled it up and I threw it in the garbage.

And I can’t tell you how good that made me feel.