When the phrase "It gets better" extends its hand to me

I woke up today feeling like I was mauled by a dog. Then hit by a train. Then lit on fire, extinguished, then lit of fire again. I felt like death. Even after a long shower, some grooming and some breakfast, I could not shake the shitty feeling. So, of course, I went into the office to blog about it. Because everything feels better when you rant to strangers.

So I took a seat and begin to write when suddenly there was a knock at the front door. My Mom runs a daycare out of the house, so I assumed that it was another kid being dropped off. Instead it was a lone parent, one of the older kids' Moms. I ducked down in my chair for fear that my Mom would make me get up and introduce myself, because I didn't recognize the voice and my Mother never thinks about whether or not I feel descent enough to be shown off.  But it didn't matter how low in my chair I was, both women came dancing in, only one had a purpose, and it wasn't my Mother.

"So this is the one dating the Coastie?" she said.

"Sure is," my Mom said beaming.

"Honey," the lady said. "I am married to one o' them. So is my sister. Those boys are wild at first, which is entertaining and all, but that doesn't last forever. They are the sweetest breed of man."

I suddenly thought of my Dad, who was also in the Coastguard and bragged that he and the other sailors were rude, crude and socially unacceptable. But I understood her message when thinking of Mike and my Father, I just didn't know why she was reassuring me.

"So how was Alaska?"

Mom told everyone, didn't she? "It was fun. Beautiful. I loved it."

"Where will he be stationed next?"

"He's going to school in Cali."

"Petaluma?"

"Petaluma."

"OH FUN! Oh honey. I have a story for you. When me and my husband were getting married, I didn't see him the day before the wedding. The next day there was this strange burn around his neck. Come to find that all the men on the boat though it'd be funny to attach a rope to the back of the boat and have my fiance ski behind it. Only the rope wrapped around his neck. Man was lucky to be alive. Stupid, stupid, stupid. But that goes away."

Thank God Mike would never do that.

Ahem.

She talked on and on about her husband, some high on the chain of command sailors she had met, and a few other things that I can't recall, because I was too involved in the surprise of unexpected comfort from an unexpected source. That's when I realized how much I had been yearning for support after the incident in New York. I had been searching for it since I got home, but instead, it found me in the form of a funny story and reassurance from a stranger.