The Girl Cell

Last week a friend suggested I watch this short video of Eve Ensler and her theory about the 'girl cell'. Those were 20 minutes well spent. Since then, I have seen the video about 5 times - and I have stopped apologizing.

I have always been a firm believer in letting people know how you feel, letting it all out. Being angry, crying, yelling, stomping on the bubble wrap, all of that. But at the same time, I have often found myself apologizing for getting emotional, for being less than sturdy, for feeling and letting it be known that I feel. It sucks that it took another woman telling me that it's okay, for me to realize that it really is 'okay'. Why on earth should I apologize for something so guttural and natural and important? I am who I am, and I would be so much less if I didn't feel and hurt and get emotional - in layman's terms: PMS-ey.

It's sad that so many people use that term, PMS-ey. Not only do men use it, but women have adopted it. Fine, there are hormonal changes that affect your mood, but damn! Just because we menstruate, does not mean every word, action or feeling that you don't approve of (or agree with) is attributable to Mother Nature. Please don't give her all the credit, some of it is original thought, genuine, raw, personal compilation of mental umms and ahhs, electric shocks, chemical transactions, reuptake, tingles, ruptures…

And that was another episode of "Naila's Wandering Mind"

Here's the link if anyone is interested: http://www.ted.com/talks/eve_ensler_embrace_your_inner_girl.html

Then Why Don't You Marry It?

“We are all a little weird and life’s a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love.”

---Dr. Seuss

I remember that in grade school the line was --- if you love it so much, why don’t marry it? Whether you be referring to raisins, coke or little Bobby, the rule applied. I’m curious why it’s so easy to use the word love? To say I love you…? I know that in my own life I use the word often, in the more casual “I love chocolate” way and the more serious “I love you” way.
I’ve felt it, said it and I’ve meant it.
I also know the difference when I say I love you vs. feeling “in love” with someone--- at least in my own life. Whether I understand love on a grander scale --- that’s up for debate. Articulating what I do understand --- impossible. Demonstrating it with flowers and candy --- for that, there’s Mastercard.

But so here’s the reason for this ramble. I’m confuzzled. When a colleague says I love you as she walks off – does she really? She can’t, we don’t even know each other that well. Someone you’ve been friends with for years says it, and it resonates, you feel it. Though I like to think the people involved know what I mean when I utter those 3 words, I know what I mean, but what if we are all making these grandiose assumptions? Making the same assumptions? What if it wasn’t meant in the way I think it was? The word can be used too loosely sometimes.

But why do I trust it when it comes from an old friend more than a friend I met a week ago? You can fall in love in a moment, yet I still have this nagging thought that time is indeed a factor and I’m not entirely sure why.

Maybe the whole thinking with your brain vs your heart notion is playing a factor. Maybe I can’t let my brain take a backseat (entirely) in these matters. Maybe what I’m doing is catching myself in a web of faulty assumption. I know feelings can develop quickly, yet I cannot mentally accept it when it translates into what I might misconstrue as a hasty “I love you”. Cognitive dissonance anyone? Sometimes being introspective or self-aware or whatever this personal psychotherapy session I’ve got going on can be a pain in the ass.

The finer moments ...

“I want you to want me
I need you to need me
I’d love you to love me
I’m beggin’ you to beg me”
-I Want You To Want Me by Letters To Cleo

You know that feeling, when you get a twinge inside because you’re thinking about someone you really miss. That gentle tug at your heart strings. Then depending on who that person is, the feeling can take a turn for the worst…or maybe not. If it’s that “I-miss-you-like-crazy-I-want-you-here” kind of miss it can be painful, bittersweet (sometimes). But if it’s a simple “do-you-remember-when-we …?-that-was-fun” kind of miss its sweet and happy and you smile as you recount an old memory. The latter I love, the former I loathe. Haha. But they are all part of the ebbs and flows of life right? People move in and out of your life, some waddle back in, some rest at the shore waiting, some get lost at sea…

So today I was at my computer working away when I get an unsuspected message from a friend who moved away … “Hi Naila. I miss you. That’s it.”

Girly awwwwww *in unison*

And I had just been talking about him the night before, talking about him to a new friend. And get this, as I wrote this in the library after a much needed coffee break, I get to sneak in on a conversation he’s having with another friend outside and I get to hear his voice and actually say “hello”. Ahhh the finer moments of life.
 

When I was a kid my grandmother would tell me all these superstitious, tell-tale signs of when people were thinking negative thoughts about you (you’d choke) or if they were cursing you out loud (you’d bite your tongue). But never did she say what bodily mishap meant someone was thinking nice thoughts about me.

Happy Tuesday - the sun is smiling today, maybe you should too! :)

P.S. I wrote this a few weeks ago... then decided to dig it up and brush it off a little for today :)