Tears irrigate the heart...

Today began after a night of not enough sleep and a breakfast of coffee and apple crisp (it's homemade, organic and gluten free...healthy, right?).

I arrived at school to discover I'd completely forgotten about an exam in my environmental science class. Just absolutely, 100% spaced it.  I've no idea how I did but I'm pretty sure my grade will shame even my inner high school slacker. (I sat in the bathroom after and cried).

Feeling discouraged I boarded the intercampus shuttle bus and as I settled in for a nap I overheard the woman a few seats in front of me telling her friend about a recent loss of a friend to brain cancer.  She then said  her mother had just called and told her that her dog of 13 years had passed away that morning. She felt regret that when she'd visited this past weekend she not hugged the dog before heading back to school.  She was in a hurry because she had an exam to study for and she'd just felt she'd didn't have time to spare.  She cried. (and so did I).

I slept on the bus but awoke with a headache and stiff neck to find the bus driver standing over me asking if I was okay. I told him yes, I was just tired.  I left the bus and sat beneath a maple tree.  As my head began to pound, pound, pound I realized how hungry I was and then of course realized I had no cash.   Up from the depths came that feeling of...

...not-having-enough-time,-enough-money,-enough-sleep-and-oh,-gods-I'm-about-to-cry-here-beneath-this-tree-and-I-so-wish-I-was-not-by-myself-right-now-how-to-I-ask-for-help-when-everytime-I-ask-for-help-I-feel-like-I'm-whining-and-I-should-just-such-it-up-like-everyone-else-does? (I cried again...again...and created some snot for good measure).

I knew I couldn't handle work today between my pounding headache and the faucet of tears I'd become so I asked if I could just go home and possibly make up hours over the weekend.  Upon hearing my request and seeing my face I was told, "Yes, go home...get some rest."

I boarded public transit. Changed busses.  Passengers boarded a few stops after I did began discussing the fate of one woman's "crazy ex-boyfriend" who was now serving time in jail for the horrible, horrible things he did to a child.  I was the auditory witness to her sharing the details of the things he used to do to her and to others while he made her watch.  I left the bus feeling sick to my stomach, angry that I'd been an unwilling audience to the story and then overwhelmingly sad that someone had experienced what she did.

I went home. took an ibuprofen and crawled into bed.  There I hugged my pillow and I sobbed.  I sobbed for myself and the how lost I feel right now; for the young student and her loss of her friend and her dog; I sobbed for the woman on the bus and the horrors she went through; and all the other horrors of the world. I sobbed because I felt so small in the face of all of it. I sobbed into my pillow and all over my cat.  I cried and cried and cried until I fell asleep.

I awoke nearly four hours later, about a half hour ago, feeling as though a stopper had been pulled up from the depths of my insides.

I feel emptied out, unblocked.  I feel defiant; wanting to shake a fist of beauty in the face of the world's ugliness.