I’m having one of those weeks. There is a lot of way-too-personal shit happening in my real life that I can’t share in this space.

It truly, truly pains me to not be able to write about this because I’m a writer. I write because I enjoy it, of course, but there’s a huge part about it that’s simply cathartic for me. My site is called Cheaper Than Therapy, after all, and there’s a reason for this name. I enjoy writing about my funny and silly and ridiculous little life here in the cold as balls Toronto nosebleeds, but sometimes I just need to write. The writing makes it possible for me to pour my baggage out there and then I am able to get in the proper headspace to move forward. Not to forget, but instead to forge ahead. To put the weighty stuff out there, outside of my person, it’s a good coping mechanism.

And I’m not going to lie—a simple, “Oh Ali. I have been there. It’s shitty. But I came out on the other end alive and possibly better for it,” is more than helpful, it quite literally saves me from a pit of despair.

Being vague is not my favorite. I don’t like it on Twitter (“I have super exciting amazing news…but I can’t share it with you, sorry.”) and I don’t like it on Facebook (“Sometimes I don’t even know why I bother with all this drama. The nerve of some people…but sorry, I can’t go into specifics.”) and I don’ like it here (“I have personal shit that is literally breaking me into a million pieces right now, but I can’t tell you any of the details at all.”)

See? I’m kind of a large a-hole today.

And I’m sorry for it.

But it’s part of my story this week, these past few weeks. Part of why I’m pinballing from one extreme to the other—from emotionally eating the entire bowl of cookie dough and not being able to get my ass off of the couch to not being able to stomach eating anything at all, and kicking ass at the gym. Part of why little things are nagging at me that I’d normally overlook. Part of why I have been crying in front of my children.

I don’t like to sad-cry excessively in front of them. Not because I believe that crying is weak—it’s not. It’s 100% not.

I don’t like to do it because they see it.

They see it, and they hate what it does to me.

And they just want to fix it. They want to make me smile, make me laugh, make me happy. They want to remind me that I’m awesome.

They want to cuddle me and make my hurt go away. It’s what they know, after all. They are taking a page straight out of MY own personal parenting playbook. When my children are sad, I do everything in power to make it better—to make them smile, laugh, happy. I do everything to try to remind them that they are these amazing and awesome little creatures and sometimes crap happens, but they need to focus on the fact that there’s just too much amazing in their lives—good people, good things—to let that be ruined by the crappy things.

Last night was particularly tough for me and a little dirtyblond-headed thing came over to me, tapped me on the shoulder and said,

“Do you want to know what will make you feel so much better Mama? If you come and read me a story in my bed. We can snuggle and cuddle all cozy under the covers.”

And it did.

It made me feel so much better.

It made us both feel better.