... though I spent most of the day in a quandary, debating within myself on Friday. Trying to know whether I would spend the night in Decatur and have to get up in the wee hours to drive for two hours to be at work at 6:00 a.m. Trying to gauge where to sleep: whether I would be so tired I could not safely drive back to sleep in my own bed on Friday night, or whether it would be foolish to take a chance on being so weary I might doze off while driving 72 m.p.h. south on I-185.
In the end, at ten o'clock on Friday night, the decision was to 'take a chance'. I was listening to a talking book that has been really interesting, enough to keep my awake for the two hours from Atlanta to get home and fall into bed at nearly midnight. And get four or five hours of sleep, then drag my weary bones to work before daylight.
I woke in the middle of the night to a bright light alarmingly flashing in the house. The florescent bulb that is always on in the kitchen was attempting to burn out. After I got over with heart-racing panic, I went and turned it off. Then back to bed to sleep another hour or so before slouching off to meet the time clock.
The 'tipping point' in the decision making process: when I was driving through downtown Atlanta, I noticed a man on the sidewalk. Literally. In front of one of those pull down grates that keep people from entering the exit in a parking deck. A little alcove off the sidewalk, but right out there on the public thoroughfare. He was making his little pallet to lay down, going to bed on the sidewalk. As soon as I got to the next corner, where I had to stop for a traffic light to change, I got out my little book of thankfulness.
And wrote: "Home - a place to be warm and dry, sleep safely."
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