TRACKS OF MY TEARS

So I cried myself to sleep last night.

Try as I might, could not hold back the tears. Long time coming, I suppose. Long winter.

I'm like that guy on the old Ed Sullivan Show who kept all those plates spinning to that crazy, heart-pounding, anxiety-producing music.


Eventually, however, my plates always drop. Not just one at a time.

Crash! Bang! Boom!

Held my smile, though, until my husband fell asleep while we were watching (oddly enough) that old Sandra Bullock rom-com, "While You Were Sleeping", on Netflix.

There is this scene where Sandra, as Lucy Somebodyoranother, is trying to pull a Christmas tree up from the street, through her apartment window, via a rope.

Her apartment looked so cozy. So adorably decorated. Sandra looked so young, so cute, so spunky...

And that's when I burst into tears.

(I will leave you, my dear reader(s), to analyze the timing of the tears. Any armchair psychologists out there, please share your thoughts.)

I then dragged myself and a box of Kleenex into the bedroom, crawled under the covers -- clothes and all -- and bawled some more. But softly, so I wouldn't wake my husband.

During my bitchy PMS years, all I did was cry. And rant. And rave.

Don't cry nearly as often these days. Not since menopause. Rant almost never. Rave even less. On the outside anyway.

The lower the estrogen level, the higher the level of introspection. That's my theory. That, and -- speaking of no estrogen -- I am too damn old and tired most of the time to speak in sentences that make any sense.

So I keep it all in.

Which is why I tend to chomp on chocolate. If I am busy chewing, I can't scream.

As a writer, to keep my dark side at bay, I tend to write humorous stuff to keep myself and others laughing. An old trick that I gleaned from growing up with a depression-laden dad.

"Ex-Lax. Works while you sleep. Stay awake and fool it." -- My Dad

Groan.

Anyway, they say the art of survival never ends. When writing doesn't do the trick, I take pictures by the boatload. I lose myself in sunrises, sunsets, swans, eagles, robins, old barns...anything to distract me from the emotional tornado blowing about my gut.

Once that funnel cloud of pent up feelings touches down, well...

Those spinning plates I mentioned earlier? Shattered. Shrapnel.  Aimed straight for my tear ducts. Ka-Boom! Like the Fourth of July!

Oh, the salty, stinging tracks of my tears! They burn!

I finally fell asleep last night sobbing into my cat, my mournful moaning well-muffled.

Dreamed all night about trying unsuccessfully to pull a pair of knee socks up and over my ever-thickening calf muscles.

I have no idea what the sock dream meant, but I will bet you a dollar to a donut that young, cute, spunky Sandra Bullock will never have thick calf muscles.

Could I be bitter about aging?

Nah.

Chocolate, please.

Chomp, Chomp.