Going from place to place, day to day, I come across people who seem to be comfortable everywhere they go. Everyplace is like home, and that is exactly how they seem. I am not one of those people. Just today I was standing in line to pay for something and the person ahead of me was jabbering with the person behind the counter like it was their sister. Occasionally, the person behind the counter would look up with a kind of pleading look on her face; a look that said: “would you happen to have a large, preferably heavy, blunt object on you?” After rescheduling a follow-up appointment twice and learning that woman checking out didn’t like to miss bible study, that she liked coming to doctor’s appointments alone less, that she was busy most days of the week with regular activities but felt inconvenienced having to come in twice in one month (once for herself and once for her husband’s appointment), that she just got that new credit card in the mail, that it may not work because she may have forgotten to activate it, that she didn’t have another one to try when the new one didn’t work, that she shared the account with her husband, that they both really liked the account and all of the membership benefits, that she had activated the new card after all, and that she didn’t care for the cool weather we’re having – she left. I was every bit the antithesis of the person before me. I was in and out in under four words. In case you’re wondering, they were: “yes”, “you’re”, and “welcome”.

I am not at home, I am in a doctor’s office. Should there be a difference?

This week has been a mover. Have you ever had the kind of day where you come in, start working, and the next thing you know you’re checking your watch and it’s about half an hour past the time you normally go home for the day? Now imagine that you are so single mindedly involved in your work that stopping is kind of like waking from a deep sleep. There is this period of disorientation afterwards where things don’t seem quite right. You don’t need to tell me, I’m scaring myself.