Cry me a River, Phoenix

For some weird effing reason, my high school driving instructor took me aside after my last lesson (and my friends promptly ditched me, so I guess I'm just grateful he didn't try to molest me) and said he wanted to tell me how much he "admired" me. I have no idea what moral or heroic act I pulled in that LeSabre, but he seemed to think he had overheard overwhelming evidence of some kind of moral fiber I didn't realize would be evident from taking turns driving a car with two other teenagers. He told me I was like "a Phoenix rising out of the ashes" and asked me for a hug.

It was weird as hell and I have no idea where it came from. Maybe he just hugged me to feel my bra strap and I was too confused to be feeling for that kind of thing. Normally I try to be more aware when males are touching me.

No matter what might have actually been going on, the guy kind of had a point with the Phoenix thing, but maybe not in so dramatic a sense. Just a melodramatic one.

When something upsets me, I have a very predictable sequence of responses. First, there is an intense emotional knee-jerk reaction where I basically explode into a ball of fire. I go from my normal state of assuming the best of everyone to assuming the worst, most diabolical interpretation of what happened. Then in the middle is a longer fizzling stage where I can still flare up, but mostly fluctuate between acceptance and hurt, over analyzing and dissecting every facet of my feelings from every angle as I quietly smolder. Last, and just as suddenly as I burst into flames, I pop back out of it, usually much my usual self and looking at the horrified bystanders like, "What are you looking at? I got over that ages ago. Buy me candy."

It's probably a very bad system and probably something I should be working on, but I wouldn't even know how to begin to change that about myself. When I flare up, I can sometimes see it from a sort of out-of-body perspective and think, "Self, you really need to calm down. You're just going to get new information eventually and feel like an idiot for this." But then it's not like that stops me from having my emotional fit. Maybe it's my version of dancing it out Footloose style that happens largely in my head and lying in bed crying.

Maybe the way I can start to change it is by actually channeling it into a Footloose style dance number. I'm sure the Amazon distribution center won't mind if I barge in to do some cathartic punch-dancing now and then.