٩(๑❛ᴗ❛๑)۶
I actually made it to my therapist office with some time to spare. I was running late this morning even though I left on time. Turned my car on and there was this attention-seeking, unrelenting orange-lit picture of a gas pump staring at me! Mind you, I have not driven my car all week and when I left it, she had roughly a half tank. I have my hot tea, which was too hot to drink until I got to my destination. I got gas into my car. I was in a bit of a hurry that I completely ignored the anxiety I get from putting gas in my car. Yes, I get anxiety while standing next to my car, waiting for it to fill up. Only planning on putting $10 in, though ended up filling it up. For some reason I was looking at the bottom… ya know, the gallons of gas being put into the tank. After about 30 seconds I look at the top numbers and I already put $22 in, so I may as well go the rest of the way and fill the car up.
Have you ever driven on a country road? The last stretch is only 16 miles. Sixteen miles of going absolutely straight. I have used cruise control today. I normally don’t. I don’t like it. I feel like I don’t have control of the car if I give up any means of control to the car. Such as managing the speed. I do know that cruise control does save gas, so I tried it today. I saw a few prairie dogs run by and have come to a cognizance. Here in the country, and this has bothered me for the longest time after coming here from a city, people wave to you. It’s just so strange to be driving by and someone is waving at you. When I first moved here I thought something was wrong with me or my car. That’s the only reason anyone would wave at you in the city. So there had to be something wrong with me, or that niceness is so rare that I hardly ever recognize it.
From my drive this morning I figured that people in the country may wave because they are bored. If you think about it… driving down a country road, especially in cruise control cause now I’m even less focused on making sure I’m not speeding, you become bored. There are no other darn cars on the road. You may pass a car or truck or two. Other than that, it’s just you and the open road. This is where your mind starts wandering; thinking about those ghost stories or scary movies where you are driving alone on an empty road and some crazy person or clown suddenly appears on the side of the road. So, it’s just natural that when you see another car, you wave. In view of the fact that, oh my! Another person is on this road. Someone else exists over here and I’m not alone to be vulnerable to some ghost clown suddenly appearing in my back seat! This makes a person very happy to know that someone else is around and thus, people are happy and waving at another person. “Hey, a person! Look, a person!”
I did discuss today how the dosage increase on my medicine is making me too drowsy during the day to focus much and it’s making me pretty anxious. I don’t normally have a high “mania” but it seems to be that my mania is higher than normal. Cyclothymia is a mild form of Bipolar. I do get pretty low and my mania is pretty mild. Though now it seems that I’m getting as high (mania) as I do my lows (depression). I’m to give the medicine another week or so and see how I feel.
Today, I also made a few notes:
.It takes 37 minutes, 25.8 miles (about 41 km) to get to my therapist office. Today I was running late, so I took the freeway so I may have gotten there faster than when I take my usual Rt. 66 direction. (80mph vs. 60mph)
.The last stretch of my trip on that lonely country road is 16 miles, which took 19 minutes to drive. Given that I’m required to start the stretch at 40mph and end at 45mph. With 55-60mph in between.
.Coming home, I did take Rt. 66. Although, I did not go my normal route. I wanted to check the mileage on another stretch of road, so I stayed on Rt. 66 for an extra 5 miles. The other stretch was 3 miles long and took me 5 minutes to drive.
.The normal Rt. 66 direction is 9 miles. I believe this took me roughly 17 or 18 minutes to drive. I have to recheck that. The speed limit starts at 45mph at the beginning and ends at 35mph. The cops like to hang around at the end so I try to be extra careful. The last stretch of Rt. 66 for me, I was able to go 60mph.
.It took me 42 minutes to get home with just taking Rt. 66 and that other stretch that no, I do not know the name of the street. 🙂
.It takes 37 minutes by freeway.
.Now I need to check two more routes. One is a shortcut off of Rt. 66 to the other stretch, which I believe may be the fastest though I’m going to the slowest speed. The other is taking, what I think is an extension of Rt. 66, but I’m not sure.
I like to know these things. I still need to write Karissa’s birth story. I will start that tonight.