The Daily Chai Frankly Has a Bad Day

Today's chai was good blah blah blah.

Well, I'm telling myself they can't all be good days, but this is getting ridiculous. I'm not sure if it was all the self-reflection I did over the weekend, or if it's just because I have PMS, but I had a shitty day today. Too many thoughts in my head and none of them good or positive or uplifting in anyway. Ploughed through my workday like a girl on a mission, so I guess that is one positive aspect to being in a terrible mood.

I've never really been that attuned to my body, but it occurred to me several months ago that about one day a month, I just can't get it under control. The slightest thing makes me cry, whether it's my toast burning in the morning, my latte not being available or an irritating email that I just don't feel like dealing with because it's just too damn hard to think of a solution. After that, everything is downhill. I think about all the things wrong in my life, where I went wrong, what I could have done better, how I've been a terrible a person and why I've failed miserably at life. If I'm really lucky, those crushing thoughts are accompanied by tears at my desk and I rush to the bathroom, hoping no one will see me in that humiliating "crying at work" state. The rush to the bathroom (and therefore chance of being caught) is partially due to the fact that I ran out of Kleenex over three months ago and have never bothered to replace the box. If I need to blow my nose, I steal a tissue from one person at a time to be fair and even. That solution does not work if one is trying to avoid looking people in the eye. Further to all this humiliation and self-loathing, I have uncomfortable conversations with people I love that make me think our friendship is over forever (in some cases, those conversations are the beginning of the end) and then I go home and I sulk by smoking way too many cigarettes, having a few too many drinks and not doing much else, although there is currently so much unpacking to get done. When this monthly day arrives, I don't give a shit about anything but wallowing and I wallow like a champ. It's my one triumph in the day.

It took me a long time to figure out what my problem is. Yes, I'm dealing with a life changing event, yes, my world has changed forever and yes, I have a right to lose my shit every once in a while. The problem is, most of the time, I'm pretty happy. I have challenges, but we all do. Most of my problems are quite petty compared to real life and I'm well aware of that and thank the powers that be fairly often that I have it relatively easily. So these days, the ones where I hate myself and everyone around me and I hate the current circumstances in which I find myself and I hate, hate, hate so vehemently that people look at me strangely and crack jokes that they better not get in a my way, because I'm obviously on a rampage, I hate these days. They kick me in the face with the force of a black Shire and I'm left reeling, a woman on the edge, you might say.

So where do they come from? These terrible, no good, very bad days? I blame hormones. I hate to type it, I really do, because I've always maintained that blaming hormones is a cop out, a way to blame chemistry for acting like an irrational bitch once a month. But those chemicals are pretty strong little forces of nature and they won't be ignored. As I've learned more over the years about mental illness and how our internal chemicals affect our emotions and our thought processes, I've come to respect hormones and how they can make a perfectly normal, rational person into a raging lunatic overnight. Slight chemical imbalance oozing out over here, nothing to worry about. Sometimes I feel like I should have one of those floor signs near me when this hits, "Bio-hazard waste, caution".

That's not to say the things I'm upset about aren't real, that they aren't important or valid. It's just that I'm incapable on certain days of dealing with them in a rational, healthy way. Most of the time I can keep it in check and get on with my day. I keep my sadness, my worries, my anger at bay, they are just emotional reactions to situations I will mull over and deal with, but not the end of the world. Today, however, I let those emotions consume me like fire.

Tonight I will take comfort in the wise words of Scarlett O'Hara, "Tomorrow is another day."

-Megs