Two entries in a day, I'm crazy. Tough day, tough night. I feel like a pot that's boiled over. Times are stressful at work. By the end of the day, I was sneezing, my face was hot, and I was having horrible stomach cramps. I had a flashback, to when I was 19 years old. That's the last time I had such an attack as this, the last time I felt stressed to the point of being ill. Overwhelmed. Under accomplished. I was 19 the last time my entire body tensed in anxiety. I'm 24 now. It's been five years since I've felt this level of angst. Maybe I'm exaggerating. I must have had moments like this in the last 5 years, and I'm just magically concealing them somewhere beneath layers of happy memories. In the last 5 years, these bad moments were fleeting, tiny, dirty windows in the walls of tranquility.

I was 19 when I broke free from the dark cloud of depression I had been snuggling in for many years. I remember it like it was yesterday, that moment. Years of pretending to be happy, but going home at the end of the day, every day, and crying to myself, hating my life, feeling lost, writing about death. Writing about what a waste of space I was in this cruel world (yes, I was that dramatic). Then, there was that day. I woke up before my alarm went off. I sat upright in bed, quickly, like a spring popping open after being kept in a tight box for too long. I looked at the window across the room, and said out loud to myself, "I can choose to be happy." Just like that. I had never read any self-help books, didn't go to church, it was a true, uninfluenced epiphany.

Since that day, I've made an effort to live up to my self-declaration. I try to be conscious. I try to be logical, without losing touch of my emotions. But we can't be all that all the time. Today was a "nice" reminder of that little fact. Today, I lost it. I got home from work. Felt fine, just a little annoyed at everything around me. The shoes on my feet, my sister on the couch, a friend who had stopped by... everything. But not just "annoyed". I felt ANGRY. I wanted to lash out. Like a two-year-old, I actually stomped my feet. My sister looked both amused and surprised. It was like my body had to do something physically to expel this emotional demon or I would just explode. I realized quickly how stupid I must have looked, so I immediately composed myself. Sat down, held normal conversation and everything.

We went to grab some dinner. We walked back. Chinese food. Opened the boxes, set the food on the table, I sat down. And I couldn't move. Suddenly, I was extrememly uncomfortable. I had the craziest urge to have a seizure, just break into convulsions, try to shake off the discomfort all around me. But that would be psycho. So in lieu of totally freaking out my sister, I decided to walk into my room and change into PJ's. I left my food on the table, untouched, walked into my room, sat on my bed, and completely broke down. I closed my door so that my sister wouldn't hear me, and I let myself shake and sob for a good 10 minutes. I didn't even bother wiping the tears from my cheeks, they would just keep coming anyway, streaming out so fast, and here I thought I wasn't drinking enough water. There seemed to be plenty of it, endless supply.

I didn't go to meditation tonight. I think I felt this coming on, this sort of "cleansing" that I needed so badly, and I couldn't be around people, not like this. I didn't need compassion, didn't need understanding and sincere looks. Didn't need to disrupt anyone else's meditation with my gasps for breath between loud sobs. This was not one of those dainty, lady-like cries. This was the contorted face, moaning in pain, waterfall-tear cry. Not too pretty. And that's just something better done alone. I must admit, I felt much better afterwards. I couldn't remember the last time I had a reason to cry, the last time I cried hard enough to get it all out. This felt like that. I felt like I got it all out.

Thank-fucking-God, because that's not something I like to go through more often than needed. But as with any cycle or part of life, I do believe that it IS needed. That cry told me a lot. I couldn't translate it into English, but you know when you just get sensations? Little electric messages to your brain that give you strong indications toward certain things? It was sort of like that. I knew without knowing. Sometimes, you have to squint your eyes to see a different picture in the same old frame. It always comes back to that perspective thing. Perspectives are everything, and it's nice to have clear, fresh ones as often as possible.

But as I told a friend just now on the phone, sometimes, even though I know I have the choice of another perspective, I'm just not ready to look at things that way yet. Sometimes, you need to really experience the unpleasantness of something in order to learn how to recognize it quickly in the future, so as not to get stuck staring at it again. We all hate to look at the same goddamn thing for more than necessary.

Moral of the story, I'm fine. A bit annoyed with the world, a little fed up with myself, but overall, fine. Fine, fine, fine! I could jog all the way to Texas and back! But my daughter can't! She never could! Heh heh. Little inside joke. If you've seen the movie, you know what I'm talking about.

Laughter through tears is my favorite emotion.

-Barbarella

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