what it feels like

for girls (apologies to Christina Aguilera or whoever sings that song). Besides maybe it feels like this for boys too. And of course, really I can only approximate what it felt like as a girl, so really it's as a woman that I can write about best. But I digress.

What does it feel like?

No, like I've said before, not a green-eyed monster. (See "Valentines' Day" ). It's more like the Charlie Brown raincloud hovering overhead, moving when you move, pausing when you pause, that won't be fooled no matter how you try to sidestep. But it's darker, greyer, more omnipresent. And closer overhead. And thick, oppressive - it seeps into the ground, enveloping you inside. Will not shake you free. It's panic. Fear. And complete empty but chaotic opaque space. It sucks time so that it feels like "while most people have a day, you have two or three hours" (Virgina Heffernan, "A Delicious Placebo" in Unholy Ghost, 2002, Nell Casey, ed.) Tornado-like it swirls sucking energy from you and those around you, especially the ones you love. It pushes you down. It shades everything blue-grey-black so that all the colors are distorted, and even the bright times and places look like hurtful ones. It makes smooth edges jagged and dangerous. It makes jagged edges life-threatening. It's more than hopeless. You forget hope exists. It's worse than bleak- the emptiness isn't passive - it jabs and twists.

And when it lifts, which you know it does and will though you can't ever seem to remember while enveloped, it's just as sudden, just as clear. You're stronger, more hopeful, more lifted than the best of them. And can't see the swirling twirling mess of dirt and tears and broken glass below, until you fall again. But the others can.