"get thee to a nunnery!"

yesterday was a well-controlled clusterfuck at work- i was floor tech- felt harried and competent and useful. stayed an hour and a half late. got into my car around 11.30 pm and started for home... and the exit onto the freeway was closed... and the high of work dissolved with a thud, and i was left alone in the dark with my neuroses and a complete disorientation of my surroundings, frittering around the Bad Part of Tacoma (insert "all of tacoma is a Bad Part" joke here), having a full-on fucking panic attack. my hand started to feel odd, heavy, stiff, and terror over 'is this a new bout of symptoms? what happens next? what if i never recover? how am i going to get up the stairs at my place? did i not appreciate the last 10 hours of physical fluidity?'... i took deep breaths. i smoked a few more cigarettes. i sang along with the radio. i held my arm out the open window and fully relished the tangible air. and eventually i found the way to the freeway. a deceptively tidy metaphor, that.
sometimes i really hate my mind... like a chatty, sloppy roommate who lolls around all day... i want to slam the damn door in their face.
things really are good... apart from my fear of the unknown/impending, i am asymptomatic. i dig my vocation. my place feels more like mine. i walked downtown tonight after i got home from work. it was a purely through-glass-observer feeling, and not a terrible one. i passed restaurants with windows open and people smiling in candlelight; one place had a banquet table laden with wine glasses and the group was clapping and taking photographs of each other as i walked by. celebrations... big events in their lives... and just another day in mine... interesting. the cinerama premiered 'snakes on a plane' tonight; on the radio they were interviewing people who'd been camping on the sidewalk since yesterday. when i walked past the movie had already started and the street was littered with debris and someone had written in chalk "this way to SoaP heaven!" and i laughed out loud.
when i got to the silly internet place that i love because it stays open until 1 am and they have good tea and it's always incredibly hot inside, 'i'll be your mirror' was playing, and i had a serene solidified moment of "this is all i need", and i feel much better now.