Fragile Me

It's a week today since Adoring Husband's Mum took ill.  She was so ill, that we thought we'd lose her.

Happily, that was not the case, however, it was still very traumatic.

I was sad to be losing our Nellie and sad for Adoring Husband that he had to go through this and worried that I wasn't going to be with him to help him deal with it.

This event also triggered the residue sadness that I felt after the loss of my brother's wife and also my dear friend, Di, in the previous month.

In the midst of this, we had a financial concern, which I won't go into here, but it was stressful at the time.  It has since been resolved, but was an added unwanted stress to handle.

On Thursday, I had a lovely day with a couple of girlfriends, but in doing so, upset another friend who is now acting a little coolly toward me.

So, with all of that in mind, today, I topped off an overwhelming week, with a trip on a bus that did NOT go as planned.

I caught the bus into the Bay, as I do on a Saturday morning, so that I could visit Vegan Chickie and Chicklet.

My bus driver was unable to work the computer to give me a ticket for the trip I wanted to take, so he wrote one out for me to show the next driver, for the second leg of my trip.

When I arrived at the depot, the connecting bus had gone (it left earlier than it should have), so I asked my bus driver which bus I could catch, to take me to the pier.

He told me the number 5, which was the Maryborough bus.  It was pulling into the depot as he spoke.

He jumped off the bus, telling me that he would explain the 'situation' to the other driver, which he did, while I stood in the queue to board the number 5.

So I'm on the bus, and it appears to me that it has taken the route directly to Maryborough.

I'm thinking that it's a real pain in the butt that I have to go all the way to Maryborough (a one hour round trip) to get to the pier, which was only fifteen minutes from where I boarded the bus!

We arrive at a bus stop where the last of the passengers alighted and the driver turns around to look at me and says "This is the last stop".

I reply "Excellent!", thinking that it meant we would now be returning to The Bay.

He said "No, I mean this is it.  I don't return to the Bay for two and a half hours.  What stop did you want?"

When I told him that I wanted to go to the pier, he explained that he had already been to the pier before he picked me up.

Obviously, my original driver was new and inexperienced and when he said he was explaining the 'situation' to this bus driver, he was explaining about the written ticket, NOT explaining that I wanted to go to the pier!

Well, with that, I very uncharacteristically, burst into tears!

The bus driver was very sympathetic, but obviously couldn't drive me all the way back into the Bay.  He kindly went out of his way to drive me back into the CBD of Maryborough, so that I would have something to do for two and a half hours.

When I alighted the bus, I sat down on a brick fence and sobbed like a baby for about ten minutes.

I think it was just the accumulation of everything that's happened in the past couple of months that sent me over the edge.  I struggled to pull myself together and even now, am feeling a little discombobulated.

I'm pretty sure, that some time soon in the future, I will be able to tell this story filled with mocking laughter, but today I felt so anxious and fragile that I didn't even recognise myself.

I'm happy to report that when I finally returned to the Bay, I still got to spend some quality time with Vegan Chickie and Chicklet.

It gave me a happy ending to my miserable day.  Smiles and cuddles from my Chicklet - enough to heal the tender wounds of fragile me.

Tomorrow will be a better day.

Nite all.