cracking up

Courage is grace under pressure.
Ernest Hemingway

A bad day. Probably so bad I can't explain it all here. Actually, not really that bad a day. Not really, not when viewed from the calmer pastures of the weekend. Just that it seemed so at the time. For one crucial frantic Friday moment it felt unbearable. But really? No-one died, the world spun, my loved ones were fine, in retrospect it was just a pointless hissy fit. Like the hulk having a Basil Fawlty moment.

I think it just all crystallized into one sharp point on a difficult morning. I was dealing with umpteen simultaneous issues when a minuscule further hindrance scythed right through my last straw like a combine harvester. The grenade pin was pulled. I needed to find a safe space to detonate in T minus 2 seconds. I realise this is a pretty horrible admission and one that very rarely (almost never) happens to me but I share it in the hope you are all human bombs too sometimes.

I turned on my heels and headed straight for the nearest empty room. On entering I positioned a chair back from the table and punched it clean across the room. Boom. I think I was recalling my mother's advice to kick a mattress. New fact for me. Chairs are more solid than mattresses. Another new fact. I am now an angry person with a very very sore right hand. Final new fact. Damn you new facts. You are making me more angry.

Clutching my throbbing paw, I went over to the window and stared down at the street. Far below a guy in a reclining wheelchair was at the bus stop with his carer. Just as I started down the well worn spiral staircase of appreciate-what-you've-got platitudes, he waved at me. He could see me staring and was waving to me. At that precise moment I would have recoiled from a hug, screamed over words and obstinately resisted any rational attempts to calm me down. But his wee wave froze me. I raised my swollen hand and waved back. His bus came. I rubbed my eyes. Breathed. And went back in. I think I just needed someone to be nice to me. In a soft quiet way. Not in a way that needed anything back, not even the right response unless I wanted to give it. I also needed a swift reminder that this pressure cooking microcosm is not the real world. It doesn't really matter all that much...

Later on I texted a friend to moan. I was ready to hear the comforting words he came back with but a few hours afterwards he texted back to explain that he too had just had an altercation with a chair. An argument erupted and the chair got it. No bruised knuckles for him though. He lifted it and launched it. No one was hurt but be warned, chair rage is highly suggestible. What's next? Bare knuckle office fights? punch-holed privates and paper cuts? I don't recommend any of it. I recommend getting as far as away as possible from situations that fundamentally do not agree with you, are not you and you never want to deal with again. And on that note, I have 84 days to go. Approx.

I retell the story to the Joyce support group (a more apt name for our Ulysses reading group) . But it takes just enough pints to make a house party and dancing about like an eejit till 6am feel like a damned good idea.

I wake up with a sore head, but also a plan