i am woman hear me cry.

i spent quite a bit of time crying the other night.

please don't worry, i'm fine. really. no one i know is dead or dying. sometimes you just have to go there. i've been dealt a couple of swift blows to the gut these past few weeks, but that is lovely, luscious Life, right? sometimes you just have to weep on the subway, in the shower, on the treadmill and on your couch on the phone with your friend who says the well-intentioned though poorly-timed statement in between your racking sobs:

why don't you think about some things that you like about yourself?

WHAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTT?????!!!!! i think to myself. i felt like someone had just dragged their nails across the chalkboard of my soul. i was so annoyed.

um. no. i don't want to right now. i want, i need to cry.

okaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyy.

but that is this particular friend; she likes to fix things. we love her and hate her for it. i didn't need fixing that night though. i needed to be...in...my...scheisse. besides, i don't think i could have thought of a single solitary thing at that very moment that i liked about myself:

um, the hair on my thighs is a pale blond so i don't really have to shave there?

not gonna work.

everything inside me felt absolutely, irrevocably broken and alone. of course that wasn't/isnt' the reality, but i had to move through that morass b/c morasses have a way of resurfacing if you don't move through them the first 400 times you pass by. they will suck you in. guaranteed.

another friend paid me an amazing compliment the following day while we sat at the bar that shed a whole new light on my evening of tears:

you're the one of us that is most willing to say how out of control you feel - or how sad, angry, happy, depressed, but i think this is also what makes you the strongest.

i would have taken that as an insult a couple of years ago, the emphasis in my mind would have fallen on the first part of the sentence:

the one of us that is most willing to say how out of control you feel - or how sad, angry, happy, depressed...

i.e. you are an emotional mess.

but now, i hear this:

you the strongest.

so there you are, something i like about myself:

i am the Strongest Emotional Mess.

hurry, somebody make me a sash.