Today was not a good day for me. It started out okay, but sometime during the day things began to sour. I began to waver between morosity and seething anger. I tried to put a finger on what was making me feel so unstable, but I was unable to. I found myself becoming increasingly annoyed with my coworkers. I felt that at any moment I was going to say something I didn’t mean to someone I cared about. In fact, by the end of the day I think I was looking for a fight. I wanted to argue just to get this indefinable frustration off my chest.

If I think about it hard enough, I think I can point to a combination of things that drove me to the precipice of insanity.

1) People kept bugging me at work. One after another. The phone would ring. Three people would instant message me at once. It just became too much. I fear I am too nice at times because I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. But I am starting to see how much of a nuisance I used to be towards certain people. And I regret it now. I’ve apologized to them because I finally see the anxiety it can cause.

2) Thursday night is my bowling night. I used to love to go bowling on Thursdays. Now, I look for ways to get out of it. It is no longer the release that it used to be. Instead, it fills me with a tension, and for reasons I do not wish to go into here. I had drinks before going bowling and if I wasn’t filled with an incredible sense of guilt for not going, I would have stayed at that bar and drank myself into a warm, tingly stupor.

3) While at the bar I had a conversation with two young women who were bemoaning the fact that another woman, an older woman was miserable in her marriage but wouldn’t leave. For some reason this really got under my skin. I always hear people on the outside looking in make statements such as, “Why doesn’t she just leave if she’s so unhappy?” But it ain’t that easy. It’s never that easy, especially when you have a long history with someone. At the point of matrimony, you and me becomes we. And the longer you’re together, the tighter and more f’ed up that bond can become. You don’t even have to be married to experience that. And maybe these ladies were right. Maybe she can just leave. But there are always consequences, no matter what choice you make. Maybe this woman could leave and in the long run be happier on her own. Then again, maybe she could leave and realize that as bad as things were or seemed to be, they just got much worse. What good is changing your position, your situation if you’re still imprisoned by the same mentality?

4) A friend of mine is upset because a guy she was really crazy about, a guy that never gave her a chance is now with a former coworker. It bugged me. What bugged me was that she said she was over him, but obviously there are still some lingering feelings. What bugged me was that as much as I wanted to be more critical of her and tell her to seriously move on, I couldn’t. Because I know exactly how she feels. What is it about certain people that inch under your skin like a tiny sliver of wood and refuse to go away. That feeling won’t budge. And when you finally think that you are able to prod and push and extract that painful sliver from your life, something happens and when you glance down, there it is again. It never really went away. And in some cases, I have to wonder if it ever will.

5) It’s Valentine’s Day. And while I am actually relieved to be single again during this time of the year, I have to wonder if true love will ever come my way. Being single has its perks, but there are a lot of f**ked up people out there. A lot! And when you reach my age, I know that you’re going to have baggage. Baggage I’m fine with. But clinically insane? That’s something altogether different. There are women I know who I once found attractive or intriguing. Things never happened or things went awry between us and they ended up in the arms of someone else. And all I can do when that happens is think, “Thank God! Better you than me, buddy!” I don’t do crazy. Eccentric? Sure. A little weird? I dig weird. But crazy, conniving and self-destructive? Keep walking, sister.

All in all this was not my day. I keep my fingers crossed for tomorrow and hope that the sun shines at my back door — just for a while.