You Are Cordially Invited to the Pity Party.

After a week of riding the struggle bus, I finally cracked.

I was driving to get my stitches taken out (the story on that is coming in my next, hopefully better thought out entry) when I called the urgent care center where I had planned to get them removed. I was informed by the apparent pre-pubescent girl on the phone that they closed a half hour earlier than I expected. To add to the stress of trying to make it there in time, I forgot my insurance card at my apartment so I had to run in and grab it before I attempted to make it to the clinic before they closed their doors.

As fate would have it, my normally accurate & easy iPhone directions were wrong, and the place was nowhere to be found. I parked outside a medical center with a similar address, walked inside, and was discouraged to find out that whereas the building housed a dentist and about a hundred other peoples' offices with "M.D." in their name title, the urgent care place was in fact not there. I pulled out my phone, noted the time was 6:29, and determined with a frustrated "HRUMPH" that I was not going to make it tonight. I got back into my car, peeled off in a huff and subsequently ran over a median. Awesome. And this is where the tears come...

And they weren't just from the frustration of having to house my stitches in my left ring finger for another day. So much had lead up to those frustrated tears. Somehow, when I get frustrated, things seem to always come to the surface. I called my mom to ask if I could take my stitches out myself (a decision I soon determined would likely result in a worse injury given my track record) and the conversation turned to so many other things:

How incredibly messy my apartment is. How I haven't seen any of my friends in Seattle since January. How challenging my soy allergy was not going well. How I had to spend all day the next day at an all-day training session. How a co-worker had had to clear with the hotel the training is at that I could bring in outside food that was safe for me to eat. How I have two weeks to plan a party I am hosting in a state that I don't live in. How, God forbid, I may have to live the entire rest of my life without being able to eat cheese.

It became a word vomit of everything and anything that has bothered me in the last few weeks. If I have one glaring fault (of which I'm sure I have, like everyone else, several), it is that I have a tendency to hold in all of my frustrations and then one, small thing sets me off and I just explode. Half the time when this happens, I don't even know why I am crying. All I know is that I am mad. Not just mad - in these moments, I feel personally offended. Like life has intentionally hurt my very fragile feelings.

I threw myself a gloriously decorated pity party. But you know what? I needed it. I let myself realize that some things suck, and that some things are really frustrating - I let it out and I feel so refreshed. Talking about it, complaining & realizing how ridiculous I sounded getting mad about things that other people would feel lucky to call their problems, everything seems a little better. All the bitterness and frustrations exited my body though those few hot, angry tears. I hung up the phone feeling cleansed, changed into a maxi dress & cardigan, sprayed myself with a new perfume and ate peanut butter flavored kid cereal for dinner.

We all lose a lot of energy trying to be strong, and trying not to talk about what is bothering us when it is perfectly ok to throw yourself a pity party. Just don't make it a week-long rager...set up for it, have a few hors d'oeuvres, throw a tantrum and then take down the streamers, vacuum up the glitter and move on with a better attitude.

♥mb.