Bad Day

Sun streaming in the window, dancing across my wall. Suddenly jolted awake. What time is it? Where am I? Who am? My arms and shoulders ache with any movement. Crap. You slept in. Its Monday morning. You're in in bed. You're you, and you shouldn't still be in bed.

Burning coffee slopped down my shirt, inhaled cereal choking me. Bike chain clanks off in the middle of an intersection. Sweaty, soggy with coffee, hands covered in bike grease I roll into the clinic. Busy waiting room. Late late late. Rushing to change in the washroom cubicle. My hands are itching like crazy due to the THREE separate knuckles that some kind of sick evil mosquito feasted on over the weekend. Shirt, pants... no scivies... typical. One sandal off, second sandal--splash. Sandal in toilet. I'm late, I have no underwear, I'm hot and bothered and my sandal is IN THE TOILET!

This is the worst day ever.

Enter patient number one. A tall, well-built, Persian man in a stylish black leather jacket. Swollen black eye, staples across the shaved side of his scalp, arm in a sling, limps in. I saw him two weeks ago, he has been clean for seven months and moved out to Burnaby from the DTES this past weekend. He was excited about the move, and the sobriety. But on Saturday when he stopped at the pharmacy downtown he was assaulted and left on the sidewalk, where he lay unconscious for 12 hours before anyone called an ambulance. Just another passed out junkie. Quickly wiping tears away he shared how it felt... being left worthless on the street. Pain. Loneliness.

Memo to me: GET OVER YOURSELF.