I arrive just in time for work today to make my 10 o'clock meeting, only to find that it has been postponed to a day of another's choosing. Most days I would celebrate this good turn of events, but today, I really, really want structure and to not be interrupted.

So I begin...

I check email. I can act on those and delete those and file those and be done with those. But then, I come across one that requires more than reaction and thought, but feeling, and there I am again. Back where I started.

OK, then, I'll answer my phone when it rings. And that will keep me centered on corporate things, not private and painful things, and I'll be able to vacate the reality of the past few days. But uncertainty shows up in phone calls, and my mind is left wandering to places I want not to go, and I feel anger and guilt and loneliness and regret.

Center, Jill, just center. Maybe the hollowness comes from hunger, so find bread, simple, pure and stable. Pick at it, swallow it down, all the time wondering if it will fill me up, but knowing that it probably won't.

Only a few more hours left of this workday and maybe if I can just be really productive, I'll fool myself into thinking that nothing has changed. So I try, and try again, but again, I can not focus on what is set before me, but rather only on what has gone before this day and the day before.

So finally, the closing bell rings and I can go home to four furry friends who need my attention and there, I will find peace and tasks to keep me busy and my mind occupied so that I don't float to other places. But alas, it doesn't happen. I watch a video tape for 30 minutes, only to rewind it when I realize that I couldn't for the life of me report to anyone what in the world it was about.

I search my books and journals for comfort, knowing that I have lived through other days like these, and wanting to find confirmation for what I know, or thought I knew. That this, too, shall pass. But every page I turn to speaks to me, yet not in the words I need to hear.

So I wait for time to pass and events to pass and memories to fade...

And I look forward to the day, when once again, I'll progress from uncomfortably to comfortably numb.