04: the refill

Short version: I'm out. Long version below, and I'm writing it because the log says I write things down, not because it's interesting.

I take a controlled substance, which means I can't get it refilled early, I can't get it refilled automatically, and every month there's a window of about three days where I'm supposed to call it in and I don't, and then I'm counting pills on a Sunday. Everybody who takes this stuff knows the drug dance. This month I actually did the dance on time. I called it in last Friday, and the pharmacy said it was on hold for a prior authorization, which is a thing my insurance does roughly once a year for no reason other than to give me a hard time. So I've been calling. Tuesday I took my last one. Wednesday I didn't. Today I didn't. The second day is harder.

Day two. For the log.

Wed 3/25, 7:38am, corridor. Four doors. Clock seven minutes slow, crack where it lives. Nothing.

Wed 3/25, 7:44am, fixture 14. Nothing. Fixture 16 still has the molded nails. I've stopped writing that down every day because it's not changing, it's just what it is now.

Thu 3/26, 7:41am, corridor. Four doors. Nothing.

So the world is fine. I want to make a note of that. I'm two days off and the corridor is a corridor. Hallways gonna hallway I guess.

What isn't fine is me, which is expected, and I'm going to describe it anyway because I've never actually written down what it's like and I think it might be useful to have.

Day one you feel fine. Better than fine, really, a little loose, like the collar of your shirt got bigger. You get a lot done, but it's all the wrong stuff. Yesterday I reorganized the accessories wall, which nobody asked for, and I forgot to send in the weekly recap, which somebody else fortunately did. Day two is today, and today is where it starts to go. Everything's loud. Not noise loud, but like, existence loud? Everything's the same volume, that's the problem, the register bleeping and the customer bitching about a return and the HVAC system and my own thoughts all come in at exactly the same level and there's no control knob, no filter.

My roommate Kate noticed immediately before I even said anything. I came home Wednesday and she looked at me for a split second before she asked "pharmacy come through?" I hadn't told her about the pharmacy. I'd told her a couple months ago that I take something to keep me focused, casually, at some point, but I don't think I ever said the name of it. She said it. The actual name, the brand, correctly. She said she could call them for me in the morning if I wanted, she's good on the phone, it's basically her job. I said no, I've got it, and she said okay and made me eat something. I guess she could see that I was off my game.

It was nice. Nice to know I had a roommate that actually cares. I'm writing it down because it WAS nice, and because I'm two days off and I know that two days off I start doing the thing where I read too much into everything, so I'm putting it here in the nice column on purpose before the other part of my brain gets to it.

The apartment is the other thing. I want to describe the apartment.

When I'm on, the apartment is a place I live. When I'm off, it becomes a sort of... I don't know. A loop. A place where I just, exist. There's always a stack of dishes by the sink, and I've done them, I know I've done them, I did them yesterday, and there's a stack of dishes by the sink. And the light through the blinds does the same slant at the same time and the same podcast is playing because I never picked a new one, and the day feels used. Like I'm walking through a stale day that already happened and somebody left it out overnight.

I know what this is, it's executive dysfunction. It's what my pill is supposed to help keep in line, and it presents as time getting soft and squishy and tasks going in circles or landing in doom piles. I have read about it. I am a person who has read about it. I know the difference between a symptom and a sign, and this is a symptom, and I'm noting it as one.

But I'll just say this and move on. The feeling in the apartment on day two and the feeling in the cereal aisle are not two different feelings. They're the same feeling at different scales. One was a minute, this is a day. And when I was in the cereal aisle I was fully medicated and on my game, and I don't have a symptom to explain that one.

Anyway. Pharmacy says maybe tomorrow. Kate is going to call them, actually, I said yes in the end because she asked again and it was easier, and she seemed... pleased isn't the word. Settled. Like an item out of place had been put back where it belongs.

I'll do the hallway again in the morning. If it's four doors I'll write four doors.

Something I keep thinking about and don't have a place for so it goes here: my medication doesn't make me see better. That's not how it works. It makes me see less, and the less is just the right amount. That's what focus is, it's a subtraction, horse blinders. Everybody knows that. I'm just noticing it tonight because for the first time in a long time I'm not subtracting anything and the room is very, very full.