Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose

A picture taken on the way from the airport to the hospital gave me a bit of the nostalgia. The Equitable building has been there ever since I was a kid growing up in Atlanta. We hadn’t even gotten around 85 to the really good view of the skyline, but from a distance, it didn’t really look all that familiar. As we were driving closer to Grady, I saw familiar buildings, and some not-so-much.

Otherwise Atlanta really did feel a bit alien. Turns out I’m allergic to it, or maybe I’ve forgotten and I’m still allergic to it, getting a headache about 5 minutes after stepping out into the open air. It did smell familiar, at least. But I’ve been away for about 17 years. I guess I’m overdue for a real visit. I’ll probably be seeing more of it than expected in the coming year now anyway. Hopefully my next trip I’ll get a chance to visit with Felissa, Brian and Neal. We did drive by the Atlanta Eagle and I grinned a bit as I had never seen it before (really!). Grady is in a part of town that I never spent much time in. No one I knew ever had to go there when I lived in Atlanta.

I’m not in denial about my brother’s condition, but I find that I really don’t want to write about it. It makes me really upset to think about it, and unfortunately it’s hard to think about much else. I’ve probably been pretty short with people today at the office because I’m not in the mood for small talk, and really when one’s upset, it’s almost all small talk. People have asked about my weekend, but not about what you’d think. I was asked about my flight, whether I caught something in the news, if I saw a movie trailer online. And these are from people who knew where I was going this weekend. I can’t tell if their chosen topics are out of ignorance, or possibly deliberately avoiding the topic for my sake. I don’t know. I think I’m just easily set off right now.

I could really use a nap, I’d take a walk, but it’s sunny and hot out (a sharp contrast to the 55° weather this morning) and I don’t feel like being all funky in the office.