Skip to main content

Real Tears

I cried for the next two days.

The night The Bartender left I cried myself to sleep. When I woke up the next morning I cried because I could still smell him on the pillow next to me. I couldn’t seem to get dressed so I thought a bubble bath would make me feel better. I surprised myself by the sound of my own sobs as they echoed against the bathroom tile – the same bathroom where he had lovingly washed my hair as we showered together. My cries came from a place so deep inside that I cannot even describe it. My sorrow is physical and I am consumed by it.

I finally got myself out the door and into my office. The phone rang and it was The Bartender. He called to see how I was doing. I had asked him not to call. He said he wouldn’t call, but there he was on the phone saying he missed me and talking about how his day was going. I barely got through the rest of the day. My tears would spring forth for no reason at all and I didn’t know what to do with them.

I reached out to girlfriends and I think they felt almost as helpless as I did. Was it possible that it had taken me this long to actually fall in love? I have never told my friends I loved him. I never told him I loved him. I never even told myself I was in love with him. Was I really in love? I hadn’t been compelled to say it. Neither had he. But, it had been years since I cried over a man. In fact, it had been so long that none of my girlfriends had ever witnessed it. In all the years I have been around to live and love, to the best of my recollection I have only cried such bitter tears twice before.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Menopause

I am in menopause. I am at my beginning. Again, I have come of age. We all do it. We all do it differently – hormone replacement therapy; hot flashes; loss of sex drive; increased sex drive; the tragedy of new facial hair; fear of bone loss; antidepressants – and none of us know what will come next. Very few of us share our secrets. I have spent the last few years discussing these issues with girlfriends. We have shocked and surprised each other as well as found comfort in some of our common stories. After years of being single and keeping my eyes on nothing but my career, it was clearly time to take control of myself and my body. I had just gone through a record emotional dry spell. I felt very alone, but imagined that I was not in a place so different than other women. Women in the workplace spend years losing themselves in order to gain advancement that, even if it does come, won’t be as satisfying as they thought. It is that time in your late thirties, often through your forties, t

There Is No Superman

Handguns. Semi-automatic weapons. Automatic weapons. Street sweepers. A mentally ill young man was able to buy a terrible weapon of mass destruction and used it to destroy several lives this weekend. I struggle to make sense of the recent tragic shooting in Arizona as I hear the words of self-important politicians, political pundits and shock jocks ricocheting through the airwaves like so many bullets, each one believing they can repel those missile-like words like Superman. There is no sense to be made of it. There is no Superman. It is true that there will never be a gun in my house. I made that decision 37 years ago and stand by it. You can have a gun in your house, but you are not welcome to bring it to mine. I believe with all my heart that guns have no place at a grocery store parking lot, and challenge anyone to explain why I might be wrong. I have no answers, and only one question: What is the argument for owning a weapon designed to kill man?

Menopause and HRT

For the past few years I have been reading articles and interviewing woman about menopause symptoms and remedies. We've talk about trying everything from tincture of sage to hormone replacement therapy. Today the NY Times published " Menopause, as Brought to You by Big Pharma ," by Natasha Singer and Duff Wilson. It's certainly an eye-opener. Lawsuits and internal documents show how Pfizer and its predecessors promoted the idea of taking hormone drugs. If you or someone you love is careening into menopause, have them talk to family, friends and doctors. Be informed. For me, the cure for my hot flashes was sex. I highly recommend it ;-)