Kindness and Tears

I wrote this post on the tube last week after a particularly lovely meeting with a particularly lovely old friend.  In that meeting I felt the tap turn a little as my eyes welled up a few times during our conversation.  I felt moved to write about how I might go about taking on board his parting comment, and being kind to myself.

Walk at the pace you feel like walking as often as you can.
Let the tears trickle when someone moves you.
Accept the compliments you're lucky enough to receive.
If you must analyse what you did to deserve that compliment, do so by defining your part in this thing that someone admired.
Heed advice from people you instinctively trust.
If you don't have room in your baggage for this advice, store it somewhere you'll easily find it again.
And try to take your own advice if you're sure you believe that you give it in truth.
Clap and cheer to your heart's content regardless of whether the people around you are doing the same.
Take a long, deep, slow breath whenever you feel the need.
Identify the people you meet who can see into your soul and try to keep them in your life.
Believe in your own potential as much as you hope that others will.
Sing
Dance
Laugh
Enjoy the birds and trees and flowers
Hug your loved ones
Smile at strangers
Cook nice food and concentrate when tasting it
Write when the mood takes you, with a pen, a phone or a keyboard.
Try to embrace the constant movement of life and stop working so hard on that dam you've been building
Keep your softest part only for those who will value it.
Trust your voice and your heart

When I got home, all floaty and happy, I was brought back down to earth with a bump through tales of more behavioural mayhem with my little man.  A deep fury and impotent rage started to build at how the incident had been handled.  Mummy guilt flooded in, confusion as to what exactly had happened, fear at what this continuing pattern is suggesting and all kind of everything.
I guess with my soft bit having come up to say hello just a few hours earlier, I called my mum saying "please can you calm me down" which seemed to be code for "help me to open up" because I knew that simply having to talk to her on the phone would stop me squashing the threatened tears.

So I started to cry, and cry some more, to my mum, to my friend whose little boy had been at the sharp end of L's foot, quietly while Daddy did storytime with the boys, and later with my most welcome diarised therapy session. 

For nearly a week I've sat on the initial post, not quite sure whether or how to publish it.  But today it seems to work as part of a clear picture of my constantly changing emotions and I am glad not to feel ashamed of it at all.