crying in public

It's really hard at the moment not to cry. It's awful, and I struggle and struggle to stay on top of it.

I don't cry all the time, mind you, and I certainly don't cry in public. Not like one of those hopeless wimpy film-star cases. Most of the day I get on with work, and I count myself fourtunate to have a sufficiently absorbing job that it makes me think about other stuff than my domestic crash and burn. After all, if you are deep in explaining tropes and rhythms, or the way characters work as metaphor, or some such thing to a couple of dozen dozy nineteen year olds, you have to work double hard - not only to check you are making sense in the first place, but also to check that they are awake and taking at least some of it in.

So most of the time I don't cry, I do fine, and I even laugh and have fun quite a lot of days too. And if someone is rude, mean or offhand, that's no problem. My marriage was a first class training in surviving rude, mean and offhand.

No, the tricky bit is when someone is nice to me. I saw Finance Man's wife today - she came in to meet him, they were going off for a spot of lunchtime Christmas Shopping (how sweet is that?) and obviously he has told her the sad news of the demise of my marriage, because she walked past and instead of her usual bright banter, she just patted my shoulder and looked me right in the eyes. "You OK, love?" she said, "Are you managing all right?" "Sure, I'm fine" I said brightly. "Well, we're not that far away, you know," she said, "So you just ring up if you need anything."

That was all she said. But it was like a pool of lovely, unasked for kindness, and I absolutely dissolved inside. I couldn't speak, my throat was all tight, and it was all I could do to stop the tears just running down my face right there in the office.

So like I said, I don't really cry in public. Just don't be nice to me, OK?