excuses, excuses

Tonight, I got on the train in the wrong direction. Not my normal route or station because I went to catch the express one station beyond my usual stop. The red line towards the loop is on one side of the platform, so I assumed the purple line on that side also went towards the loop. It does not. It took me two stops into Evanston to realize this.

I was feeling ditzy and out of it and the gazillions of pills I'm on don't help matters. I was ten minutes later to meeting my dad for dinner than planned, though I'd texted him as soon as I got onto the right train.

According to him, my train mistake is part of my pattern of self-destructive behavior and people don't want to hear the excuses, they just want to hear that I'm sorry and I know it's not ok.

That's the kind of thinking that keeps me depressed and self-hating and crazy, not to mention, it's just not true.

I'm sorry for the intrusion on my dad's time, because he cares about timeliness (which is a serious pot calling the kettle black, but that's enough negative campaigning there, Annabell McCain...), but what are 10 minutes, really? Our reservation wasn't even until the time I showed up.

My "pattern of self-destructive behavior" could be seen as a "pattern" of all kinds of things. It's the pattern you're looking for. Getting on the wrong train is dazed, and this wasn't some major life anything. Plus, the fact that I could ride the train at all should be cause for celebration. My head has been very cranky the past few weeks and my "monthly cycle" is in super-fussy-mode, too. I had enough foresight to check the map from the el stop to the restaurant, knowing I haven't been "all there" and I didn't need to waste time hunting down Wacker when I could look it up before leaving. And I left my apartment with time to spare, as proven by my making it to the restaurant only 10 minutes late with a full wrong-direction train and then more waiting for the right one.

Not every imperfection in life is an excuse. Sometimes, they're just reasons. Because I'm human and I'm trying really hard to let myself be human and have that be ok.