scream of consciousness

There's something wrong with my new laptop. I've been sitting here for an hour and I still don't have anything written. Did I read the ads wrong? Do I really still have to write the post myself? Is there software I can buy to change that? Because if not, I just have one thing to say.


Damn.


It doesn't help that I have celebration brain. A whole week of Christmas buildup was bad enough, but yesterday was birthday day to boot. For the second time in three days I woke up to boys hurtling themselves at my prone body and screaming for presents. The fact that my room was still kind of dark when this happened only made it more traumatic. Then there was the shopping trip to redeem birthday bucks and Christmas gift cards - the trip in which every wacko in my zip code was walking the same aisles I was.


There was the Mennonite woman in cap and regulation dress complaining loudly that the store we were in didn't carry porn films. There was the twenty something man and woman who were having some kind of a fight that involved him grabbing her by the neck and dragging her toward the front of the store, before she broke free and, flipping him the bird and screaming profanity, raced away from him at top speed on her Heelie shoes. A bunch of us were watching warily, unable to tell if they were really fighting or screwing around. When they all burst into laughter we assumed they were messing with us, but it still unnerved me.


On Christmas Eve I took care of an elderly woman at work - for nine hours. That's a long time to be in an ER, and it felt twice as long to me, as she really didn't stop screaming for help the entire time she was there. She had had a sudden onset psychotic/paranoid break and was convinced we were all trying to kill her. You can only imagine how much fun I had starting an IV and putting in a catheter. She fought at me hard enough to dislodge her IV, which meant I had to give her meds to calm her down via a real shot, with a needle and everything. Twice. Dodging kicking feet and swinging fists the entire time.


It was at that point that she looked at me and damned me to an eternity in hell for everything I was doing to hurt her. Damned me to burn for "torturing an old lady" like I was. Told me I was no better than the devil for all the pain I was causing her. And those are just the things I can repeat. Let's just say she left no word unturned.


And, as strange as this sounds, I've felt slightly off balance ever since. I'm no stranger to patients calling me every name in the book and taking swings at me. I've done my time with psych patients who really couldn't in any way be held responsible for what they did. But to be condemned for eternity was a new one on me, and I didn't like it in the least.










It doesn't help that Christmas has been problematic the last few years. My grandfather died on Christmas Day a couple of years ago. My mom fell last year on Christmas Eve and busted her arm but good. I found out about it the next morning because neither she nor Stu wanted to bother me with it the night before. I've gotten to the point where this holiday can make me a little nervous. I've had a whole bunch of completely non-eventful December 25ths, but I guess a few bad apples can tinge the whole basket.


And we've had a lovely holiday across the board. But, except for a quick walk to the grocery store last night, I haven't been out of my house since I got home from work Monday night. It's been very cocoon-like and peaceful. And going out today just brought back all that unease.
The fact that it was so chaotic didn't help much. Note to self: no shopping immediately after Christmas again ever.


Well, looky there. I did manage to get something written. It's disjointed and fragmented and I'm not entirely sure what my whole point was, but it's there. We can call it a stream of consciousness post, okay?


Or we could just blame the laptop.