Take 800 mg of Someone Else's Time

I kissed my husband again and again and again before I was able to pull myself out the door ten minutes late.  My freezing freezing bo-beezing car and a morning of mundane classwork was all that waited for me.  My warm, soft husband was here, inside the heated apartment, looking utterly dashing in a hoodie, boxers, and bedhead hair that grows longer by the minute.  I was not going out that door easily.

"We'll make fun of ourselves later for mornings like this, you know," I said, leaning back into the apartment from the hallway.  

He smiled.  "No, we won't.  Our kids will though."

A perfect answer that warmed me for my hour-and-a-half commute to work.

At school, I stopped in at Heath Services to hook myself up with some free psychological counseling.  You know, while it's still free.  Psych-analysis certainly had the potential to mess me up emotionally and spiritually, but I was up for the risk.

"I'm afraid we don't have any openings for when you are free," the receptionist told me with a surprisingly disappointed frown.

I nodded.  "Oh, okay.  That's okay."

She leaned in closely and paused a moment until I leaned forward in the chair.  She looked at me and stayed silent.  I scooted the chair in and leaned until the desk's edge was groping my breasts.

"What would you like to talk about with our counselors?" she asked discretely.  I knew she wasn't asking to be nosey.  I imagine she could have done some schedule-finangling had I been on the verge of something tragic.  

I leaned back in my chair.  "Oh, I'm about to graduate with no job, I'm recovering from an eating disorder, I have daddy issues like every other twenty-one year old girl, and I have some history of relationship abuse--" She opened her mouth to respond, but--"OH!"  I sighed at remembering.  "And I'm having a minor crisis of faith."

I didn't mean to mess with her.  I just wanted her to know I wasn't suicidal or anything.  But I flustered her to no end, and she went back to her computer scheduling system.

"Let's see," she kept mumbling.  "There must be something..."

I reassured her again and again that I was fine, would come back later to see if anything had opened up, etc.

"Are you sure?" she asked as I stood.  She looked up at me with furrowed eyebrows.

"I'm sure!"  I meant it.  I walked out of Health Services with a smile on my face, wondering if I had actually been healed by the receptionist.