Posted by Pattie on 10/06/2005 04:37:00 PM

Extreme Joy, Disappointment and Frustration

or What a Week!

I'm writing from a public library computer right now and so I really can't tell everything that has happened because I'm afraid I will burst out crying and screaming.

I should be picking up my rental car in Nashville right now and heading out to a friends house to stay for the weekend so I could be standing in front of what I hoped to be a crowd of people at the Southern Festival of Books tomorrow afternoon at 1:30 CDT.

Instead, I'm still in Arizona because somehow I got mixed up or Frontier got mixed up and the reservations I made for October 6th were on the books as October 5th. In short, I missed my flight unknowingly and I cannot afford the difference in fare for the last minute trip even with them waiving the penalty and crediting what I've already paid.

The good news is that the fliers and buttons and banners and books will be at the festival and the book will debut. There are other pieces of good news as well, but I'll wait to share until I'm sure they are happening (especially after the past 24 hours).

I thought a trip to the mountains this afternoon (I'm in Payson, AZ right now, about 75 miles northeast of Phoenix) would help get my mind off of things (after all I find myself with some unplanned free time and I'm obviously not paying detailed attention to my life), but I can't seem to relax.

So here I am at the computer, checking e-mail to see if some angel showed up with a private jet offering to get me there in the knick of time. No such luck.

Here's the thing: I am really feeling my limitations this week and I don't like it. On Tuesday, I got my first "handicapped" license plate. I know that I write about disability all the time and that I think about my life with a chronic illness a lot, but the truth is that somewhere in the back of my brain I think my body is just going to snap out of this someday and I will be back to my old self.

I guess that is why I have resisted assistive devices and handicapped plates. I don't want to be ill.

Then to have such a blunder of brain to not pay attention to the date on what might have been one of the most important opportunities of my life (to date, anyway) is incredibly surreal. I am a detailed person. I am usually meticulous. I feel old and feeble for having missed this. And yes, I am beating myself up quite a bit right now.

I don't like being sick. Not one little bit. I don't like being feeble and in pain. I don't like losing and I think I may very well be losing. I am angry and sad and frustrated and I have to stop now because I'm crying in a public library and people are starting to notice.

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