I didn't go to work today, which is at least in part the cause of my improved state of mind. I woke up at about 2 AM with bad stomach cramps--I don't know whether it was the chicken, methadone withdrawal, or stress, but I was nauseous as hell. I got up and took a little more methadone, and munched a few Rolaids, but by the time I got back to sleep for real, it was almost 4 and there was just no way I was going in. I got up and e-mailed work that I wasn't going to be in, then went back to bed.
I woke up just before noon because my phone was ringing: Bob the Plumber, who's apparently STILL in St. Louis, but who promised to be here tomorrow. I will believe THAT if and when it happens.
I figured I could get a few things done, being home from work, and one of the main things that needed to be taken care of was the car. They've been putting me off for nearly a month now, on the excuse that their mechanic hadn't yet come back from Mexico--but meanwhile, the car wasn't getting fixed, and the first payment is due. I knew the finance company wouldn't look kindly on that--so I got their number, but then on a hunch I decided to be merciful, and called the dealership instead.
Well, lo and behold: the mechanic is allegedly back from Mexico and will allegedly be in to work later today, they tell me. I wait for them to call back to let me know whether or not they have a loaner to give us.
Meanwhile, I find a job app online and fill it out. I doubt anything will come of it--I'm not strictly qualified--but what the hell, right? Anything's possible, and it's downtown (I think) and THAT alone would be a HUGE relief.
So the time comes to go to the dealership, and just on a whim I ask LJ "You wanna go with me?" And to my surprise, he actually says yes!
This is the point at which things improved quite drastically.
As we're getting ready to leave, I say something about some bill or another--probably the car note, I'm thinking.
"Are you still stressin' about all that?" he asks me. "Why?"
"Why?" I ask him. "Because they're not going AWAY, THAT's why. Once they're gone, I'll stop stressing about them...believe me, I'd be more than happy NOT to worry, but as long as they're here to worry about...."
He doesn't say anything further til we're in the car. We end up taking the long way to the dealer--the Eisenhower was just a mob scene, so he takes us through alll the suburbs via side-streets and everything else. But as we're driving, he's laying out his plan, which is substantially better than I would have guessed it to be. (Among the highlights--he admitted that he sorta felt bad about putting down much less money on the car than I did, and that for the first couple of months he plans to pay the car note and the insurance to "even things up" as he put it.)
There was a lot more to it than that, of course--but the end result was that I felt a LOT better, about almost everything.
As I told him: I consistently underestimate him. There are a couple of reasons for this; one, very simply, is my history, particularly what I went through with CR. The other reason, though, is that most of what he does, even if it's to improve our situation, is done so far under my radar that I often don't know about it til I've worried myself into a stomachache.
But, as I also told him: he's a good influence on me. ("I bet nobody ever told you THAT before," I said immediately after.) But he is--he's got exactly the right outlook on the world to counter my worrying and occasional catastrophizing. "I don't even study that shit," as he put it, "because I know everything will turn out all right."
And--though I'm still not EXACTLY sure of how it'll happen--I suppose he's right. I mean, the worst that can happen--whatever it is--would be a far sight better than how I -was- living!
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