I was crying. Scratch that. I was sobbing. Ugly, runny-nose, red-eye, hyperventilating squawks of despair even the waterproof mascara could not contain.
Kacey was quick to console…until she learned I was intentionally reading stories I knew would break my heart. “Mom. Stop.”
“But…but…but…” I protested, gasping, “she was laboring…and then the baby…and oh the sadness…” Incoherent blubbering, as the crocodile tears fell from under my reading glasses.
“Take a B vitamin and SUCK IT UP, woman.” She rolled her eyes at me.
Forget the dichotomy of the right-brained vs. the left-brained, the introvert vs. the extrovert, the optimist vs. the pessimist. The personality contrasts that most affect my life are the Thinkers vs. the Feelers.
And the differences have nothing to do with intelligence or brain dominance or gender or age.
Most of us (let me just make the transition here)… most of YOU are Thinkers. You watch movies and are simply entertained. You read books and maintain the ability to fall asleep when you go to bed. You meet a suffering friend and are able to be kind and supportive without letting it ruin your day. You endure personal loss, and upon reaching the “5th Stage of Grief: Acceptance”, you pick up the pieces, buy a yellow shirt, and move on along.
We Feelers don’t do that. We CAN’T do that. Believe me, we try. We often think there is something wrong with us because we dwell on everything. We FEEL everything. Deeply. Your telling me to “stop it” or “get over it” is like telling me to stop breathing. The way I feel things is not a defect in my personality, nor is it simply part of who I am. It IS who I am.
Now, some of you Thinkers THINK you are Feelers. You aren’t. Just because you can BE emotional doesn’t make you a Feeler. If you can reason your way out of an emotion – EVER – you are a Thinker. And some of you Feelers assume you must be Thinkers because all you do is think, think, overthink. Don’t be fooled, that’s part of what makes you a Feeler.
Feelers can’t shake the emotion, whichever emotion it happens to be. I am the one laughing the loudest. The one using sarcasm to deflect pain. I won’t settle for an answer of “I’m fine” when I know you don’t mean it. I will struggle to break down those walls you build around you. I am not the one gossiping because I refuse to assume the worst about you. But I will take all kinds of crap from you and for you because I don’t ever want you to have to feel the pain I have felt. Ever.
Feelers crave passion and connection. We automatically put ourselves in your shoes to better understand you. Sure, we are the cryers. But we are also the entertainers. And the huggers. And the empathizers.
This does NOT mean we are always depressed and gloomy. Far from it. But when we are, there is no shaking it, and definitely no faking it. We take no comfort in “Things Will Get Better” or “If It Is Meant to Be It Will Happen”. We only know it is NOT better and the thought of living without whatever it is, is more than we can bear. And we feel this, not only for ourselves, but for anyone whose story we become a part of.
Unfortunately for me, it only takes 17 seconds for me to invest my heart in someone else’s story.
And it doesn’t even have to be a REAL story.
By the time the little boy in the Packaging commercial throws paper airplane messages over the backyard fence, I’m sniffling. Before Tim McGraw mentions x-rays as a reason to “Live Like You Were Dyin’,” I’m overwhelmed. When Max grows tired of the Wild Things and wants to be where someone loves him best of all, my voice is quivering.. And I am unabashedly mourning when I realize that no matter how much Noah reads to Allie from “The Notebook”, there really is no such thing as a happy ending in a Nicholas Sparks story.
Tears of laughter. Tears of loss. Tears of frustration. Tears of hope. Tears of anger. Tears of joy.
So when you see me, I will probably be crying. Or I will have just been crying. Or I’m about to cry (just give me 17 seconds). If you’re a kindred spirit, you will give me a hug and shed a tear with me. If you’re a Thinker, you will offer me a Kleenex, tell me it will be okay, and wonder what the heck is wrong with me.
Nothing. I’m a Feeler.
disillusioned how difficult the process is. I can edit for days on end. I can mold somebody else’s content or idea into something very readable. I know my gift. “Coming up with original content” isn’t one of them, despite my attempts at originality in life. Maybe I’m deluding myself even there. Really, I just use logic to make life choices, rather than follow mainstream thought. This has branded me a hippie, a progressive, a weirdo, an anarchist (do not read “antiChrist:”) or in my own mind, a salmon swimming upstream. A salmon with great hair. But I digress.
he giveaway is a Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea game? Icky Yucky Ooky. She may only be five years old, but she’s smart enough to know that Jules Verne, and for that matter, all Science Fiction stuff is for boys. And she did NOT want boy stuff. No thank you very much. Besides, surely they wouldn’t call out a girl’s name for a boy’s toy. That would just be mortifying – like that awkward moment when the boy in front of you toots and then looks at you so everybody else will think it WAS you. She’s rather die. But she told herself there was nothing to worry about. Only a 1 in 30 chance even if they DID include the girls, “Which they wouldn’t,” she thought just as they announced … HER name. WHAT? NOOOOO!
And that, boys and girls, was the beginning of my lucky streak. I have gone on to win tickets and gift certificates to nice restaurants and books and videos and essay competitions and savings bonds and a video player and $200 in a photo contest and numerous cds, weekend getaways, a smart tv, and if you have EVER been to a “sales party” with me, be it Pampered Chef or Creative Memories or Tupperware or whatever, you know my name is ALWAYS the one that gets drawn for the door prize. Always.
compartments with magnetic snaps, a separate pouch for the progressive trifocals I never wear, and a small zippered pocket so I always know where to locate my elusive keys.
George
I imagine, like a Viking warrior cry, and threw a spool of thread against the wall. 
socks. Ankle socks. Knee socks. Crew socks. Toe socks. They are evil in its purest form. Be a-frayed. Be very a-frayed. Masquerading as “essentials”, “comfort items”, “fashion accessories”, they are nothing more than vile, wretched, sweat-inducing, pedicure-hiding, foot-enclosures. AND. I. HATE. THEM. Wearing them forces my feet to go spelunking against their will. I don’t mean to be a heel, but it’s cruel and unusual punishment. And to add insult to injury, I’m pretty sure some of my toes are claustrophobic.
middle-of-the-night emancipation dance.
is unobtrusive in the driveway
The conversation continues with my sweet 90-year-old grandmother: “I used to catch mice and put them in the garbage disposal.”
when she finished drinking a pureed hamburger, peanut butter and DIRT milkshake and was the only remaining female competitor.
“Speaking of balls, when is Nana going to pass on her Christmas ornaments to the girls?”
“Yes,” Kacey said, “But the Frosty Friends are all mine.”
Really, ya’ll, does anybody want rum cake?”
Adding to the traditionally untraditional feel for our holidays is Mom’s flair for decorating. The dining room is completely harvest-festive, from the dramatic stalks of wheat reigning over the tablescape, to the subtle touches like leaf-shaped pats of butter, to the whimsical turkey-embossed napkin rings. 
I am so not kidding. Sometimes there are as many as EIGHT lighted trees, all with different themes and/or color schemes. The house rivals a the Southern Living Christmas edition. 
she said 
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