off

i am feeling off today.

it started sometime yesterday, not sure if i could actually pinpoint the time. but by late yesterday afternoon, it was official that i was not feeling like myself. i was achy and stuffed up, so i hoped that perhaps the 'offness' was a result of the onset of a cold, but this morning i awoke sans illness, but still not quite myself.

even as i wrote this morning, it felt strained and unfamiliar.

after getting ready, i walked out of the house and into dog pooh and anger. in retrospect, the anger was probably disproportionate to the amount of pooh stepped in. perhaps it was the cumulative amount of dog pooh i have stepped in over the last few months, or just another symptom of how i am feeling.

then as i walked to work, i almost got run into by a car. while the driver wasn't watching where she was going, it was my fault because i wasn't where i should have been... but that didn't stop me from angrily looking at the driver and asking, 'what on earth is wrong with you?!' through the windshield.

never would i have thought that i would end up being that person.

i am off today.

i'm not even sure what i most need. i only know that i don't feel like myself, now compounded by the guilt of taking my unfounded anger out on an unsuspecting stranger. i pray that she forgets and my outburst does not affect her day.

as in all my more ugly self-aware moments, Rilke words seem to find their way into my mind. these, the last part of the poem, 'I Am Praying Again, Awesome One' seem particularly fitting...

it is here in all the pieces of my shame
that i now find myself again.
i yearn to belong to something, to be contained
in an all-embracing mind that sees me
as a single thing.
i yearn to be held
in the great hands of your heart—
oh let them take me now.

into them i place these fragments, my life,
and you, God— spend them however you want.

—Rilke