Oh those fictional musical villains...

Having grown up with my mom consistently listening to "The Phantom of the Opera" music, I found myself knowing almost every lyric of every song off by heart all my life but having NO idea what the play was about and how could this phantom of the opera be the angel of music as well. So when Hollywood got around to making a movie years ago, I was excited to finally figure out how the songs I remember as a kid tied into a complete story.


  My sister and I went to a Saturday matinee and I loved it. I loved the story, the actors and most importantly, the music. It all made sense. It was as if a fuzzy dream had finally became clear. I was ecstatic... And then it was almost the end; the defeated phantom found himself, alone with the music box. My heart broke and I felt silent tears streaming down my face. My sister and I could not believe that I would cry in a movie, especially this part! When we were walking out of the theatre, she couldn't help but to poke fun of my tears, and I laughed, agreeing that it was silly, and I tried to remember why I cried. All of a sudden, I felt overwhelmed by the initial feeling that made me cry in the first place and I found myself, in the middle of the busy mall on a saturday afternoon,BAWLING over a fictional musical villain and a symbol crashing monkey, ten minutes after the fact. Since then, I have watched the movie countless more times and never came close to feeling a tear well up in my eye. I feel slightly ridiculous about getting so emotion over something so trivial.

The reason this story is so vivid in my very, poor memory is that this burst of tears was so rare for me. Until I went on birth control. Ah, yes, it is hard to believe the glorified sticker on my butt actually is helping to prevent a stork dropping off a package anytime soon AND is the cause for me dissolving into a emotional wreck over tiny things. Like icing on cookies. And then again, and then again, and then I realized... I needed to get a grip.



It is actually quite amusing, looking back and realizing I was so naive when I first went on the patch, thinking I would be immune to the rush of hormones that so many other girls report. Perhaps I would have been if starting the patch didn't coincide with getting married and being more emotionally invested than ever before. But it did. So I found myself crying over a simple comment my husband made. He meant it one way, I took it another way. And POOF, I dissolved into a puddle. But no more. For one reason, I recognize the extra hormones now. Sometimes it really is just black and white when Shawn says something, no need to twist it a thousand ways seeing if he meant something more. And two, we are now on a "brownie point" system... So if he DID mean something else and it upsets me, instead of getting emotional, I will just dock some points... And I make good brownies.