Crying women

In college, Chris, Ajay, and Phil had a club called FLEE. It may have stood for something, but I don't remember if it did. This club bonded them together at its inception as sophomore males who took the opportunity to flee situations where women were overly emotional, especially when they were crying. By the middle of our junior year, Chris and Ajay had learned a thing or two by living with me and my depression. They learned to stay instead of flee. One day I started talking to them and crying, a normal occurrence, and they both just listened and nodded their heads. Then Ajay bravely slung his arm over my shoulder. At that moment Chris and I caught each others' eyes and started giggling. It was a preposterous moment. How could the founder of FLEE have become such a good listener? It was beautiful and hilarious.

It took Phil several years of marriage to really get good and responding to the cry. He gave up fleeing long ago. Here are the rules: 1. Be like Amy Hudkins. That means: Just listen quietly. 2. Don't try to problem solve unless advice is solicited. 3. Tell me everything is going to be okay. 4. At the beginning of the crying, don't try to make me laugh. Phil handles general crying like a pro. General crying is when you are crying over something other than your partner. He can see that I am being irrational and that I will move past it soon enough. I admit that I am being a little nutso.

But what are a girl and boy to do when there is more to it? Today I blew up at Phil over a juice box. A Welch's Fruit Punch juice box. I was wrong. I yelled and then cried. I felt like a crazy person and I was acting like a crazy person. I screwed up.

Yet, I think there was a tiny grain of rational thought in what I was saying (yelling) and some reasonable emotion in what I was feeling (blubbering). How is a woman to get her feelings and rational points across when she is a screaming banshee? When I lose it with Phil, he shuts down. He is probably right to do so. Then all is lost. I am a maniac, he is spinning and needs some ice cream from the carton to calm himself, and we get nowhere.

I need to calm down. I need to speak up more often. I need to avoid the volcano and the downpour and keep the emotion. I need to share it in an honest way. Please, Lord, help me to do this.