I had kind of a crappy day. And it’s all my own fault. Everything that’s a problem in my life right now is my own doing. I’m stuck and flailing in so many areas, and it’s snowballing and making me cranky and short of attention and (oh my nights are so long) some days it makes me want to lash out and rant, but other days, like today, it makes me want to say I’m sorry and get in bed and maybe if I hide everyone will forget to shake their heads at me. Not that anyone’s really shaking their heads at me. Maybe a few people. They should be, though.

One time a few years ago, I boarded a bus in Brooklyn and when I swiped my MetroCard, I realized I didn’t have enough money to cover the fare. I dug into my coat pockets and found two dollar bills, but the bus driver sighed, stared straight ahead, and said, “It has to be exact change, miss.” Everyone on the bus was looking at me (or not) and I was keeping us from going forward and my face got hot and I started digging furiously through my purse for coins, miscounting dimes, and finally the bus driver barked, “Miss! You need to sit down so I can move the bus! You’ll have to do that sitting down!” So I sat down, concentrating really hard on my coin purse, face warm, not looking anywhere but my purse, even though no one else probably cared. At the next stop, I jumped up eagerly to give him my coins, and accidentally blocked an old woman about to board the bus. The bus driver said again, “Miss! You need to move!” so I just got off the bus in embarrassment and walked to where I was going. I was late. While I walked, I kept saying to myself, “I will try to be better on the bus tomorrow.” It was hardly the end of the world, but I just felt like such a useless idiot. This is something I think to myself on days like today, when I need to just get in bed so I’ll stop making it worse, and then once I’m in bed, stop dwelling on how much worse I’ve made it.

I will try to be better on the bus tomorrow.