The No Good, Very Bad Day

News flash: not every day is fantastic.

I know I make an awfully annoying fuss about how happy I am, and how much better my life is now, etc, etc, etc.

And I am.  And it is.

But some days?  Some days suck.  Some days, everything goes wrong from the moment you get out of bed.

Last Thursday was one of those days.  To be honest, the whole week was off.  Mark and I fluctuated from amazingly perfect days to days where everything felt off.  But Thursday?  Thursday took the cake.

My kitchen sink was clogged from the moment I poured yesterday's coffee down the drain and it didn't go down the drain all, my roof was being replaced, and the roofers dumped old shingles all over my front steps to create an exciting and impromptu obstacle course.  We drove back and forth across St. Louis with faulty directions to get to a play.  Finally, when we got to dinner, at least an hour later than originally intended, I bumped my knees on the table and that flare of pain and frustration was the final straw that pushed me over the edge into a minor hungry/stressed meltdown that I'd been fighting off for the past half hour (or possibly since the moment I woke up).

The really annoying thing about the fact that I now feel the normal human range of emotions is that I also now cry a lot more.  I used to never cry, except in very dire circumstances.  Like when a dog dies in a book or a movie.  Or during approximately half of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.  (Seriously.  The whole Snape chapter was me sobbing uncontrollably.)

Honestly, there were times I felt a little heartless that I wasn't crying.  I didn't cry in marital counseling, or in most fights with my ex, even when he did.  The description "heartless" originated with him, not coincidentally.

Now?  I cry.  I cry when I'm overly stressed or tired, or when I'm worried about something, or when my plans get changed.  Or when I'm hungry.  Sometimes I cry because I was crying.  And I hate it.  I hate crying.  I hate feeling emotionally out-of-control.

But, apparently, crying is what I do now.  At least sometimes.  I'm not saying that I walk around clutching Kleenex in case someone looks at me cross-eyed.  Not by a long shot.  It's certainly not a daily event, and even far from a weekly one.  But it's a far more frequent occurrence in the past year and a half than in the seven years before that.  I'm still not quite used to it, and it can feel like a lot to me, the formerly dry-eyed ice queen of South City.

Which brings me back to Thursday, when I bumped my knees and cried a little.  Mark put his hand on my leg, told me quietly that everything would be fine, and read his book while I sniffled a little bit, read my own book, and recovered.  Then we got food, saw a great play, and, somehow, called it all a good night.  In spite of the sink.  And the roof.  And the misdirection.  And the crying.

Apparently even no good, very bad days can be good days when you spend them with the love of your life.  I'm not sure if it's the fact that he makes me feel calmer, or the fact that everything just seems better with him, or the fact that we're just better at dealing with ridiculous situations when we're together because we've already been through so many other ridiculous situations.

But what's really amazing is having someone who understands that sometimes I melt down.  And who tells me that that's ok.  And who's usually more understanding of my crying than I am.  And who I can be emotionally, rawly open with.

Crying in front of my ex was something I rarely did, as I mentioned before.  When it happened, I felt exposed, like I'd been caught shamefully naked and someone was pointing a flashlight at me.  With my boyfriend now, while I still really freaking hate crying, it's not for lack of trust or sense of safety.  I trust him not to use my weaknesses against me.  And I feel safe crying into his shoulder and all over his shirt.  (Which I'm sure is an entirely pleasant experience for all involved.)

I suppose it's a good thing.  The fact that I cry more is negated by the fact that I'm happy and content even more than that.  I'm happy even when everything goes wrong and the roof is quite literally falling down around me.

So, I'll take a few more tears if it means that I get to experience more fully the other wonderful emotions that are out there.

And I'll keep some Kleenex in my purse, just in case.