Yesterday I had one of the strangest days of my life, and not in the normal way. I'm writing it out in order to release it into the world and get it away from me.
Let's start with some context. Saturday was my wife's birthday, we went out and had a great time just us. Sunday we were supposed to go over a friend's house to help set up some DnD stuff, but we were socially exhausted from the day before. And yes, we were alone on Saturday, but still we put in a lot of mental effort in stores and restaurants. Anyway so we texted and said my wife was hungover and we weren't going to make it. Acceptable exaggeration of the truth. We did drink, but we were fine. It's a case of too polite and too anxious to say "we don't want to hang out today." (working on it) Then we did things around the house, like putting up boxes and unpacking. Nice night, we had a good day.
Cut to Monday. In the morning, I'm driving to work and some guy in this big truck is tailgating me. We are in two-lane traffic in a little town with turn offs on each side for each lane. I'm in the left lane. I'm going five over the speed limit, as fast as the car in front and the car beside me. This guy starts flashing his lights at me. I don't think anything of it, but he does it again. I can't switch lanes, there are cars beside me and I can't speed up, there are cars in front of me. I have no idea what this guy wants me to do. He cuts into the other lane and proceeds to do the same to the car beside me. I can't see in the truck because it's jacked up and I'm in a little car. He's swerving in traffic, I guess trying to get around people. This goes on for about a mile, then he makes a right turn and that's it. Why tailgate in the left lane if you're making a right turn? Whatever.
Next I'm at PT (Physical Training, or Mandatory workout for the military) we are running a 5k. I chose to do my 5k on the track. This track is 3/4 of a mile. 2 laps is 1.5 mi, which is the run we do for our yearly test. So I run my first two laps as fast as I can to see my run time. A little over 14min, I'm getting better, still need more training. The next two laps I do poorly because I gased myself, but I finish them. After I am talking to my friend Pete, who's house I was supposed to go to yesterday. He asks me about my wife's birthday and what kind of drinks we had, just being a friendly guy. For some reasons my lie is horrible, I'm stumbling over my words, can't get my story straight, just bad lying. I'm normally a great liar when it comes to harmless lies to spare people's feelings or curving my own anxiety. That lie, total crap. Then we all talk about the air quality on base and how we need to not run when it's at a certain level. PT over.
I go to work and eat breakfast, watch some TikTok videos the go to take a shower. I work at a firestation so I'm in their women's bathroom. The intercoms goes off, the one they use to announce emergencies, only this time it's a jumbled gargled mess. Weird. I don't think anything of it. The it dings again and I think their going to announce trouble with the intercoms. Nope. It's a jumbled gargled mess again. Weird. I finish showering and I go to the mechanics bay and start my day. My Airmen is practically coughing up a lung so I send him to medical. (he's fine btw, it was the 5k in bad air, not COVID) Hes gone for the day. I spend my morning figuring out a problem with a truck, normal. However I call about a test I need to take at another building, the lady that gives the test, Ms. V isn't their, the guy Mr. L tells me come in at 1010, she will be back around then.
Context. When you in-process a base you see the security person, Ms. V is the security person. When I got here, six months ago, it was Ms. S, who was talking about training Ms C to be the new security person. Ms S has long black hair. Two weeks ago I go up to the office for a different reason, I'm talking to a different person and I swear I see Ms. S at her desk. Doesn't matter, I wasn't there to see her, but I think about how I thought she was moving. Passing thought that doesn't really register.
This Monday I go up to the office Mr L tells me to take a seat Ms. V will be here soon. I sit, I take out my phone, I start scrolling. 15min later a women with died blonde hair comes hobbling in, I say hobbling because she has one of those boots you wear when you break your foot but you can still walk on it. She comes in, she looks at me and I look at her. Never seen this lady. She says, "you looking for me" in my head I'm like no, but Mr. L looks at me like that's the one, so I say "yes". I follow her into the office. This is a completely new person then who I in-processed with and a completely new person from two weeks ago. But the office is covered in personal items so she has to have been there for a while. I ignore it. My brain probably filled in Ms S in her seat two weeks ago because that's what I remember seeing. I take the test and move on.
Lunch is normal, Tiktok and chicken sandwiches. After I start working on the truck problem. The intercoms goes off and it reminds me of this morning so I ask my coworker if he heard that weird sound this morning. He says he didn't hear it. I insist that it happen twice and he says he didn't hear it. He's the only on there so he's the only one to ask and he didn't hear it.
Then I need to take the trash out so I load it all in the truck. We don't have the proper recycling bins at our shop so we bring it to the main shop to dispose of properly. Also, I need to pick up a part. I go into material control and I start talking with TSgt T about performance reports. They are due in 45 days and neither of us has really started. So we talk about SSgt A who has all EPRs and can help us out on how to write ours. (each base has a different writing style. It's real dumb) so I say I'll ask SSgt A for help.
Back at the shop. I strat an email, but I use an old email and hit reply deleting all the old stuff and what I think is all other recipients. I type out. "hey can you send me some old FARM EPRs so I can figure out how they want it written here) then I but send. Then the email comes to my inbox. Strange. My coworker says, Why'd you send this to me. What? Turns out I buy reply to everyone I work with. Shitty. I recall the email. It's really no big deal and I know it. But what a huge embarrassment. And I feel the anxiety creep up. We joke about it. No one even calls or ask about it, so its a stupid private mistakes that anyone who saw the email will know it was a mistake. It was a legitimate email with a real work question so it's no big deal. No one even cares but me. I spend the rest of my day as an anxious mess because it who I am.
I get home. Have a good laugh and talk it through with my wife and it's over. We order Tai and watch a show. We go to bed.
But I'm still awake. So I start talking to her about my strange day. And I tell her that I haven't felt myself all day, like I was off and maybe wasn't me somehow. This is called disassociation and I know this. Then she tells me a freaky story of some girl with a weird experience and how people think she may have went to another dimension. And that's why I feel like now I may have been in another dimension yesterday and that's why weird shit was happening and I didn't return until i got home. Or maybe I never returned.
