That's the way....

SO.

I think I mentioned earlier today that I'm a weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee bit stressed out. Well, it's getting worse. I know I'll get the things done that I need to do, but I've been left feeling absolutely wrung out. I've been on the edge of tears all morning, and a couple of times have even tipped over that edge.

No weeping or anything. Just a quivery voice, a need to look down, lump in my throat, and then a few tears have escaped onto my salmon-colored shirt. I put out a few feelers to friends just to vent a bit, and set my chat status to "woe-is-me."

---><--- This close to tears That's what my chat status says. A friend of mine that I don't talk to often, a friend who lives just far away enough to make visiting enough of a pain that it doesn't happen, a friend of mine whom I've not seen in person in over a year----this friend saw the passive "be nice to me" cry for help. Sweetheart, he is. Gave me a bit of "Tut Tut, turn that frown upside down!" attention, and then we commiserated a bit. All of a sudden all my stress and all my "Waaaaaaaaaaaah!" emotions turned around and focused on this friend. Y'all, you could hear my internal soundtrack change from The Smiths to KC and the Sunshine Band.

Poor lad didn't know what had hit him, but he rolled with it. "Stew, it really HAS been a long time since we've seen each other. I miss you! And we're both SO STRESSED!! We should really do something STRESS REDUCING!" (There's history there. It's not an out-of-the-blue offer/suggestion.)

Gotta love subtlety. And hormones/weakness.

The one seriously interesting bit here is that this is the first time in AGES that I've interacted with a man and considered him as a *man* rather than just another person. I wonder if the stress put a chink is some armor I wasn't even aware I had.