Offsite mail delivery

I get my mail delivered to a private mail box facility. One of the perks is secure package receiving and text alerts when packages arrive. The other day I received a text alerting me a package arrived for me. I spent a few diligent moments thinking about what if any package I was expecting. Nothing jogged my mind. I figured it was “unsolicited” so I made a note to pick it up the next time I ran errands.

A couple of days went by and my errand list was growing too long so I made the effort to get out. I haven’t been feeling well and I can tell my overall energy level is low when I have no motivation to leave my apartment to run errands. But when the list gets too overwhelming that I have to break it up into segments, I know I am not feeling very well at all.

An organized list

As I always do, I organize the stops according to proximity and my destination if I’m actually running errands on the way to an appointment which is what I usually do in an effort to save time, energy, fuel, and leave a lighter footprint on our environment. On this particular day though, I just had errands to run. There were seven errands but it felt like 700 before I even left.

The first stop was to exchange a packet of seeds at the nursery. When I was there the first time, I picked up a wrong variety from the one I had grown before—even though I took the original packet with me the first time. Just another symptom shining through reminding me of my injury and how it complicates my life. The folks at Country Fair Garden Center know me now because it’s taken me three visits to get what I needed and one of the women who helped me also has an acquired brain injury and well, we bonded for obvious reasons. Only those who have brain injuries can truly relate to each other even though no brain injury is alike. For those of us in the “club”, we remember this detail about the people we meet who share this commonality.

First stop done. I head to the grocery store next for a few items. I check out and realize I forgot an item. I thought about running to the aisle and grabbing it but I was in the self-check out since the full-service lanes had lines but couldn’t in good conscience leave my cart and clog the line. I wasn’t going to be “that person”. I complete the self-check out and go back and get the item and proceed to the self-check out for a second time.

I head to the car and can’t find my list. I realize I left it at the self-checkout the first time I checked out. It wasn’t there where I left it and I returned to the same checkout. At this point, I’m exhausted and completely overwhelmed.

Successful and defeated simultaneously

I decide to head home, unload the groceries, and make a new list. Accomplishment: I safely achieved two items of seven on the initial list and I accepted this was all I could manage today.

So “mystery” package remains a mystery for another day.