Not Today

Today was not a good day. I made the conclusion this day would be awful at 6:34 am. I got up, scurried around the house in search of my phone charger… mysteriously missing from my prepared belongings, and still managed to get out the house door by 5:09 and in the gym door by 5:25. My favorite teacher was absent, her sub was a noticeable four minutes late. The workout began at 5:34 am, yet managed to conclude at normal 6:30. I was done, absolutely spent; I could barely move. My body was screaming louder than any music I planned to run to could. To give up on an hour is unlike me; usually I proceed into the next hour with relative ease. Not today.

I climbed right on that treadmill, ignoring every signal in my body. I lasted a minute… barely… and I was walking. First the charger. Then the teacher. And finally an inability to numb my pained body. The day was shot. Never before have I craved my bed, even sweat soaked sheets from the night before—Hooray! It is 90 degrees in April, and we H’s like to conserve energy, ahem cut costs!—sounded more enticing than work. I needed an attitude adjustment in the form of a Panera multigrain bagel. Normally mood and hunger are positively correlated for me. Not today.

Today was a not shaping up. With an empty plate, I attempted to configure my multi-state taxes, those ones due today. Fail. I am worthless. My spirits dampened further, I telephoned Pops, the man responsible for filling them out, to inquire about a late penalty. He relieved me… or said we can assemble them tonight—I am not worth much, which I suppose translates lightly in the slap on the wrist department. (And in Virginia, I will not even be late!) This looming task will nevertheless irk me till completed. I got to work, excited to have an assignment boldly waiting for me in my inbox. After interpreting I was even more excited I had a tiny clue what to do with the task. But I should have known… not today.

I googled and googled and googled to no avail. Then I worried I would be fired. I used to have nightmares. Now I have daymares. At 10:00 I realized NASA's Discovery shuttle was going to be flying over my office (a photograph received from a witness below), but with most my team out, I was unsure what protocol was on spending a non-lunch hour on the office building lawn waiting for something I thought was fascinating. So like anyone paranoid of being fired, I researched right through it. Already frustrated I had almost nothing to show for this hour of time, headquarter distribution emails of the plane/shuttle combination start dinging in my inbox. And then there was pizza for lunch to celebrate. There was nothing to celebrate. Not today.

The rest of the day continued angrily and bitterly and stupidly. Nothing could salvage today. I made that clear to myself as the sun rose through the gym windows. Here I sit, wondering how I survive with my four-year-old behavior patterns. I am seriously inconsolable… unless, on days like today, I get exactly what I want, when I want it--a rarity. That could have been many things. My bed around 7:00 am. A second attempt at a mid-morning run in the 70 degree sun… instead of the stuffy gym confines circa early bird hour. An extra large black iced-coffee this afternoon—in my hand as Louis chased his friends at the dog park. Or a king-size bag of Peanut Butter M&M’s and on the couch in time for ESPN’s Pardon the Interruption. Unfinished workout, unfinished taxes, incomplete work, leftovers, and an early bedtime will instead mark today. There are no repeats in this life. There is tomorrow.