rollercoaster

Monday night I found myself irrationally angry. I'm not really an angry person, as I was raised in a family of angry people so I sort of side-stepped that whole thing by becoming an Uber-Communicator. You know who we are, we're the ones whose buttons are impossible to find and we talk about our feelings and we drop our egos and focus on solving the problem? Or when we're really upset we go for a walk and come back and everything's okay? Yeah, we're an endangered species. Sorry, I'm working on a breeding program as I type this.

And Tuesday night I was really super sensitive and kind of...sad. Benni and I are brushing our teeth and I sort of turn to him and say, "I'm irrational," almost in a curious observer kind of way, because the thing is, most of the time I am not irrational. At all. I am the cool, collected pragmatist who likes to combine organized with spaz and see how many people I can weird out. Like, yes, sometimes I end up wearing two different colored socks the entire day without noticing (I only did that once), but I have never missed paying a bill on time in my life and my entire book collection is organized according to genre and then the author's last name. This really freaks people out.

So I know what's going on and what's coming up, so to speak, and I don't have to get all TMI on any of you. I guess I'm writing this because it can be treated as a kind of field/survival guide for girls and guys. So listen up as I give myself advice that you too can benefit from.

Girls: just because you feel an emotion doesn't mean you have to ACT on it. The anger might be there, the moodiness, the sadness, the urge for a bacon cheeseburger, whatever. I don't know where society got this "It's okay to express whatever you're feeling, whenever you're feeling it" mantra but NO. You don't get to throw a temper tantrum like a small helpless hungry 2 year old when you're 25, you don't get to act fully INSANE and expect your loved ones to have any sort of coping mechanism set in place whatsoever. You also don't get to say a bunch of really mean crap that you don't mean and expect it to blow over the next day once you feel fine. That's not cool, ladies.

You're an adult. Take responsibility for your actions. If you are in a bad mood, tell people you are in a bad mood and apologize in advance if you feel you are going to take it out on them. Or better yet - don't take it out on them! Create some sort of happy space for yourself, go out for frozen yogurt, go work out, snuggle with your puppy, kill lots of people in Halo 3 or go watch Quantum Leap re-runs. It doesn't matter. Just don't justify why you are entitled to go from mostly sane human being to raging bitch, because guys have bad days too and we chicks don't put up with their crap for very long.

Guys: Calm down. Nothing sets off an already-emotional woman like fear, or panic. This whole "Oh my god, is this what the rest of my life is going to be like" thought process does NOT help. Oh, and I know you want to fix it. Of course you can fix it! You fixed the dryer, didn't you?

No. You can't fix it.

You have to just shut up and listen as we sob uncontrollably about the latest love triangle on Grey's Anatomy or rage against the injustice of push-up bras or whatever other stupid thing has set us off, and you cannot fix it, you can only support us as we sit in the weird, irrational emotions and let them pass like a storm in the night. You don't have to be the hero, you don't have to rationalize our irrationalities and above all do not tell us we are overreacting. BE YE NOT SO STUPID as to tell us we are overreacting. Breathe. It will pass, we will feel better, and everything will go back to normal.

Unless you're dating a bi-polar chick, in which case all I can do is say I am very sorry and they have support groups like that for a reason.