How many times is too many?

"I understand," I said, because I, too, have a child and know how unforgiving the world could be. So I listened, nodded, agreed, and sympathised while Laura poured out eighteen months of woe all around my living room floor. When she had finished, her arm still resting over her eyes, I said: "Laura, this has been a hideous ordeal for you. Now, before we hash it out- as one says- I have a song and we shall dance."

She shifted her arm slightly, frowning, but I pretended not to notice. Of course, after unloading an entire ocean-full of emotion in three hours, the last thing anyone would feel like doing is physical exercise. But that is precisely why it should be done.

I press play. "IT'S BOLD JAMIE," I yell over the music. "BY CARA DILLON, YOU'VE SEEN THAT SHOW RIGHT?"

And then we danced.

I write her a letter, just a few short lines, and suffer death ten thousand times

Would you like cream and sugar?

Laura came to me and said, 

"I feel like every day another layer is falling off. I'm lonely. I had a baby. I didn't realise how angry I was until I couldn't escape. I'm smothered. I haven't been at work in a week and it's not a holiday. I have plastic bandaids instead of the ones that actually stick. I can't type properly on my laptop keyboard. People listen but no one offers to help in the way I need. Every day I step in a wet patch. I'm never hydrated. I thought I'd be happier. Cooking takes too long and all the really good foods are either wet or hard to assemble."

She said,

"I lie in bed and think about death because it's coming and everything is pointless. The soil is too dry. I have too much time but not in a practical way. I fantasised about shopping at the high end grocery store, but when I got there I was just disappointed about the expensive in-your-face marketing. I wanted to talk about how I'm feeling and find ways to work with my emotions and my thinking so that I can be a better person to my baby and my partner and my family and the public in general and be kinder to myself because I didn't get some of the support services I needed and for a while I was a literal monster who no one wanted to help, not even my closest friend, but now that I'm here can I just cry myself to sleep?"

...you say the ocean's rising like I give a shit

                          you say the whole world's ending, honey, it already did...