Disgusted Noise (Untypable)

3.6.18

Don’t look at me like that; you know the noise I mean. A contemptuous click of the back of the tongue against the throat – the untypable sound that means in any language around the world (and probably across the galaxy) “Christ, what a moron.”

I use it when someone cuts me off on the highway, or a client wants me to rewrite perfectly good copy… but I’m MOST likely to use it on self-inflicted stupidity.

You might recall, depending on just how bored you’ve been lately, that I’ve been missing appointments. First, it was unwittingly standing up Eleanor and her family at a restaurant that I’d invited them to. Then it was a phone call with my high school reunion committee.

Most horribly of late, I went about my day while a new client (who doesn’t yet know that I’m worth this nonsense) waited on a conference line, making embarrassing small talk with HIS client, who he’d assured was going to love this great new writer. I knew I had a call at two. I simply didn’t make a critical connection. I never dialed in. I try not to swear too much in this blog, but FUCK.

Barbara, my Body Dynamics fitness trainer and wizard, has watched me move farther and farther away from balanced as the anniversary of Jonathan’s death has been approaching. Last week, when I was fighting back tears during a discussion of kettle bells (sort of), she gently pointed me to the biofeedback counselors at Body Dynamics. Maybe they could help me figure out some coping mechanisms.

So I made an appointment with Regina. Because just maybe I’m losing my ever-loving mind… and when you run out of anger at the Dead Husband Situation, the next stop on that train is depression – so maybe let’s take this seriously, before I lose ALL my clients.

Do I have to tell you what happened next?

Given that I made that disgusted sound (untypable)?

That’s right. I forgot about the appointment.

I was driving home from my Body Dynamics massage with the amazing Gwynn when I got a text from Regina. “Aren’t we supposed to be meeting now?”

Disgusted sound (untypable). Bootlegger’s turn in the middle of the Capitol Beltway. (Not really.) I made it back with 30 minutes of my appointment still available.

Regina was totally cool about it; she explained that the right side of the brain has no concept of time. It’s always “NOW” on the right side… which is the seat of emotion. The LEFT side holds the internal clock. It’s rational and does the analysis.

And the left side really DOES pay attention to anniversaries. Even though I can’t imagine that my brain cares about “twelve months equals a year” or “This is how long it takes for the earth to travel around the sun,” the reality is that anniversaries bear weight in the left hemisphere of the brain.

And as an unsuspected clock ticks down to the day Jonathan died at the door of the garden shed (and then the following day, when he died again in the hospital), a large percentage of my mental oxygen is being consumed by past trauma. Enough, for example, that I might utterly lose track of time needs – appointments, restaurant reservations, phone calls.

“You mean I can STILL use the “Dead Husband” excuse?” I asked, astonished.

“For a long time. Maybe three years – maybe longer,” she replied.

We set up appointments through April. Clearly I have much to learn. I hope I remember to go.

Yeah. You know the noise I mean, don’t you?