vitamin T

my friend im'ed me at work yesterday.

"i keep wanting to cry."

"have you?"

"no."

"maybe you should."

"oh no, but then i'd have to give up control."

it's really too bad that crying is seen as something that is considered so damn awful, so bad, so weak, so pathetic:

if i'm crying than my world might very well be falling apart.

or maybe what we're really scared of is:

if i cry OTHER PEOPLE might think that my world is falling apart.

here's the thing - i feel 4 million times better after i cry, so why shouldn't i just let the tears flow? folks indulge in all sorts of unhealthy behaviors in order to make themselves feel better immediately - they take pills, they drink too many martinis, they eat ice cream until they're sick, they engage in twisted relationships - all to distract them from the real issue at hand - they're sad, they're angry, they're frustrated, they're depressed.

true, crying is not elegant. it is not clean. in all likelihood, you will not look like Demi Moore in Ghost when you cry - tiny crystalline tears slowly trickling down your perfectly composed face. no. it's a messy thing. but i can certainly say that since i've begun to react to the tingle of tears like this:

"oh. there they are again. okay. hold on, let me get a tissue and duck into the bathroom for a spell."

i've been a lot less likely to engage in those less than ideal behaviors i was talking about above. i've lost a little weight recently, and i attribute much of it to the fact that i've been giving myself permission to feel all those "bad feelings" - sadness, anger, fear - instead of shoving them down by overeating malted milk balls (i still eat them, just not pounds of them). i've actually come to prefer tears to the other stuff. whodathunk?

crying is just a part of my week (if not part of my day). VITAMIN T, i call it. T for tears. cheaper than One-a-Day, and it doesn't make my pee bright yellow.

so, cry little ones, cry.

and if people ask you if your world is falling apart, just tell them,

"oh, no...i'm just watering the flowers."

see ya in the bathroom.