I send Sam audio messages under many different emotional conditions, but definitely more when I’m feeling sad. I used to cry freely at the end of the blue statements I’d send her way. But lately, I notice the urge isn’t there. The emotion’s still present (and I know she can hear it in the shaky way I reflect because she SAYS SO) but the desire to cry? It doesn’t come.
I think it’s because I know how deeply she’s listening. Even when life is pulling her in a hundred different directions, she hears every word. Not only is she empathizing, she’s already thinking of the sentence that will soothe me. It might be hilarious, or it might be the most grounding thing I need. It’s beautiful, how clearly I can count on that.
I lie on Angela’s table while she presses microneedles sharply into the surface of my skin. “How does that feel around here?” she asks, as her gloved fingers smooth over my jaw. “Fine! It’s not bad at all.” But my thumbs are touching (a tell), and I haven’t relaxed my shoulders since I got here. And why is the table heated when the “feels like” temperature is 100 degrees? Thirty minutes later, I realize I quite like it.
I’m laughing harder than I have in a while after we spill our guts on a range of topics. Angela says, “Honey. I’m fifty-seven years old, and I can tell you, you’ve got things figured out that I couldn’t have dreamed of knowing at your age.”
When I sit up, my skin feels red and heavy. She gives me the exact aftercare routine to follow, pointing gently at each sample-product. But all I can see are her deep hazel eyes, her porcelain skin, her perfect hair. “Angela,” I say, “you are beautiful.”
“Oh my gosh, stop,” she replies. “I haven’t felt that way in a long time.”
“You are,” I say again.
When I get to the car, I look at my phone and find messages from three women who mean the world to me.
I feel so filled up with feminine love and joy that I want to hug them all through my phone.
(Daily Writing 057)
Thoughts?