Dear Reader,

It was a sunny Sunday!   And today was "mostly" good,  I have to say.   A full morning of church, grocery shopping, a choral concert filled with lovely music and a run (!) on the Salt Trail.   Followed by laundry, laundry, cleaning the living room, laundry, and cleaning the bedroom.

Here are the specs:

Total calories consumed:  1776
Total calories burned:  408 (40 minutes of 2/3 jogging and 1/3 power walking)

Breakfast (blackberries on sale!):

Lunch (before and after - I am a paragon of virtue.  Let's all admit it.):

Dinner:

Snack at reception for concert - BROWNIE.   Eek.   But, OK, it was good....

OK, to be honest, though, dear reader, I did have a moment or two or 15 of emotional distress this evening.   I won't call it acute emotional distress, but it wasn't pleasant.   And, really, the catalyst for my emotional distress is really/actually pretty inconsequential (I'll only say that Facebook is so, so great for maintaining connections with good friends that you've befriended in real life, but it is so fraught with the potential for invidious "fake book" life comparisons.  Sigh.) in that it really has nothing to do with me personally.   But, my reaction to it was real.   And, so, I found myself in a situation where I could experiment with the advice that my friend gave me a week ago.   If I saw my daughter (let's say my daughter for convenience, although it could just as easily be my son) in a situation like mine, what advice would I give her?  Here's what I imagined I would say to her/me:

Dearest L.  - 

Please, please, please before you do anything else remember that you are loved by many, many people.  When these people, whom you love, tell you that they love you - look at their eyes.  You will see that they mean it.   It doesn't matter whether you think you deserve it.  You have it.   And, if you love them, you will want to believe them.   Start with that.

I know that you are feeling pain right now.   Allow yourself to feel it.  Don't try to ignore it or push it away.  It will only grow bigger if you do that.   And, if you try to protect yourself from feeling the pain by pushing it away, you will also push away your capacity for joy and connection.   

Go get your friend next door and ask him to look after your kids for an hour.   When he comes over and tells you, as he has many times, that you look just like Tina Fey except that you are prettier than her and maybe a little smarter,  don't laugh at him.   He is a lovely person.   And, he really believes it. And, you think that he is an excellent human being.  So do him the honor of believing him.  Tina Fey won't mind.  She's rich and has friends of her own who think she looks just like you or someone like you except that she's maybe prettier or smarter.   So, give him a hug and hand your kids over to him and....

Get outside.  Move your body.   Go running, but don't push yourself too hard because of your desire to exercise your feelings out.  You will regret that tomorrow.  Just keep moving and notice the trees and the flowers and the sky.

When you are on your way home from this invigorating run/walk, put the windows down and, if there are no cars around, stop your car and take a picture of these golden fields:

Think about how lovely it is that no matter what concerns or doubts or worries you might have, these fields just continue glowing yellow at this time of year.   There is an inevitability about this and you can be grateful for it.

When you get home, try to find something that will help you feel even more grateful for the lovely things in your life.   You might think of a poem entitled "Bounty" written by a colleague in Illinois that you remember being moved by - e-mail your friend for a copy.   You will look forward to this present later in the week.

Instead of watching Don Draper sink even further into self-destructive, existential behavior in Mad Men, my dear, you might think of watching a Jim Gaffigan comedy special instead.   You will be glad to laugh.   And, you will realize that you continue to have that capacity for laughter even in the darkest times.

If you feel like writing down your feelings and thoughts on your blog/journal, do it.  Or not.  Whatever helps.

Go upstairs and kiss your beautiful children before you go to sleep.   Look at those faces.   You are a lucky, lucky, lucky woman.    Now, get to sleep and start it all over tomorrow.

*****************

You know what, dear reader, this stuff really works.   After I said and did all of this, I felt better.  The emotional stress was not gone, but it was not overwhelming.   I do not feel angry or bitter.   I just felt what I felt and responded to it in healthy ways.   I did not eat a lot of doughnuts.   I might try this again sometime...    Meanwhile, life goes on.    Thanks for indulging me, dear reader.    It was an interesting exercise.

See you tomorrow with the usual fare.

Thanks for reading!