this WC is good for all your dumping needs.

Today I'm recycling a 6-week old myspace blog...tomorrow, something new. Promise.
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As I was driving to work today (er, 15 February), thinking about my clogged toilet at home and a very untimely plunger deficit, my mind got carried away with the topic. Systems of waste management are integral to so many aspects of life – but we tend not to notice them until something goes awry and demands our attention. Think about it – waste management in cities, in houses (thank you indoor plumbing), in cars (exhaust systems), in our bodies (our kidneys and intestines, our skin and its sweat, our lungs and good ol' CO2). Things just would not work without effective disposal mechanisms.

This made me wonder, though, how should things be working emotionally? I definitely have my share – as I expect we all do – of useless thoughts and bad feelings, stuff that's undeniably toxic if held in too long. Finding a way to get rid of the emotional poop is imperative, basically.

Some people are private, confining their mental refuse to journal pages and the like. Others are far less discriminating and excrete their emotional trash on unsuspecting strangers, taking their issues out on food service workers or telemarketers. Not very classy. Many folks, however, have a friend or two or seven with whom they feel comfortable and safe making the dump. I expect that part of the comfort comes in knowing that the friends will be able to discern the crap from the (hopefully) more frequent other-stuff that gets shared.

I wonder, though, maybe friendships are a lot more about handling our friends' poop than I'd realized...and particularly, being available to them when something does go awry (the occasional emotional diarrhea or hemorrhaging, perhaps; acting as the laxative to their mental constipation, and, as much as possible, trying not to be the clogged toilet or impeded plumbing in their time of need).

This also made me see my schizophrenic need to talk/ reluctance to talk/ apologies for talking in a different light. While I feel well-suited and able to handle others' messy business, I sometimes get embarrassed that I need friends to help me with my own.

So, uh, thanks, guys, for being such wonderful emotional toilets for me.

I, a certifiable WC, am here for you too.