Wednesday

I woke up shaky at 5 am after around 2.5 hours sleep. After getting home quite late I had informed Hubby about the death of M.R and must have seemed relatively non-chalant about the whole affair to him, I remember having passionate sex and then being shitty that it was too late at night to smoke a joint because I had to be up early for work the next morning. I then spent the majority of the night trying to cry as silently as possible. Everything was hitting me at once and my thoughts were racing.

The next thing I remember I was driving on the way to work for my second last shift ever, potentially my last and watching the early morning light glisten on the tall gum trees, wet from last night’s rain. I was thinking about how everything was ending and how this was the first morning in over 82 years that M.R would not take a breath. 

The next thing I remember after that was about 40 minutes later, I was in heavy traffic and wondering if I was disassociating or just sad and dreamy from lack of sleep, I thought out loud “What the hell is wrong with me” and a car cut me off – it’s number plate began with the letters ‘BP’ then I said aloud “fuck you universe, stop talking to me in number plates” when that happens it’s a known sign that I am right on the edge. 

Glanced over into the next lane before merging and the number plate of that car literally started with the letters ‘NO’ that’s when I started laughing manically. Then I was behind a car with a bumper sticker that said “Let it be” for about a km half laughing half crying and just as I turned into the street that my work is located on the song “Closing Time” started randomly playing on my iPod. I shouted “REALLY!?!?” and then two guys ran across the road in front of my car and I had to hit the brakes. Hang on a minute…

TOM? WTF!!!??? This random long haired man running across a street in an industrial part of the city at 8am was bit not only a friend of mine (was also friends with the crackhead in high school) but was my best friend through my formative years whom I have been thinking about a lot lately, he lives 400km away and has this really bizarre habit of appearing to me like some sort of muso busker guardian angel in really odd locations at odd times just as I need him.

At that moment I honestly didn’t know if I had hallucinated him up or it was real. I kept driving repeating ‘keep it together, keep it together’ I pulled up at work and got out of the car ‘keep it together…’ I sent Tom a text asking if I had just nearly run him over. My boss opened the door to let me in, it was him alright. I took one look at my boss and burst into tears.

My boss is like a second mother to me and she just hugged me and let me cry on her shoulder without explanation for a while. I apologised and started trying to explain without looking completely bonkers, I told her about M.R dying and she said I should have stayed home, obviously I couldn’t explain that I NEEDED to be there because it might be my last shift as I didn’t know if I would go crazy and kill myself on Friday, and signs of going crazy were increasing by the minute.

After I calmed down a bit I busied myself doing routine work stuff and then checked my phone quickly, there was a reply, it was Tom that had run in front of my car. Part of me had half convinced myself in my sleepless mildly psychotic state the previous night that I along with crackhead friend ‘A’ and Tom had all actually died back in high school and like the final episode of lost had to come back together to set each other free from limbo. So the fact that it actually WAS him was even more disturbing in my current state than if he had been a hallucination.

My other colleague arrived and I managed to blurt out some garbled explanation about M.R and the fact that we are closing as she noticed my mascara stained cheeks. She hugged me too and then smiled and said “I brought chocolate, I think you need it.” I am so lucky to have worked with people who just accept me, crazy blubbering and all.

I think I managed to pull myself together for the most part and survived the day, I ate half the family sized block of chocolate in the process though wondering if I would actually return on Saturday or not as I walked out the door despite the chocolate which would normally simply have not happened or resulted in severe punishment, but there was still no word from Bel, I figured at this point she’s either dead or saving up ammunition.  

By the time I got home my thoughts were on fire, I was suddenly feeling deeply suicidal and I was shaking again and while I was desperately trying to cover it up, I couldn’t even talk to the kids or hubby without yelling at them unreasonably, I went for a run which didn’t really help the way it normally does. I have been off all of my meds since I made the “deal with the devil” but that night I decided to take the antipsychotic. It’s a fast acting one used to bring down acute mania and psychosis and as much as it hurt to admit it, at that moment I knew I needed it.