Ah ... hormones. Yes.

This morning, an e-mail from a friend who frequently joins me on Fridays, her day off, at the farmers market:

From: A
To: Karin
Subject: reminder

Go to Copley Market. Buy yourself some flowers so you can enjoy them this week at your desk. Be good to yourself.

A had thought to recall our conversation the Friday before. While lingering at one farmstand, I had complained about never remembering to buy flowers at the market on Tuesdays, to have them in my office for the remainder of the week. (With 2 cats who eat leafy plants on sight, they would never survive in my apartment over a weekend.)

So to honor A's request, this afternoon I went out into the heat and came back with some organic dahlias.

While out buying said flowers from said stand, I couldn't help remembering that I was doing this thanks to the concerns of a friend, worried about my lack of cheerfulness, generally, as of late.

Then I noticed was how cheerful everyone else I encountered was. How the cabby on St. James stopped, backing up traffic, to let me cross the street. How the Starbucks girl made a :-) on the Frappuccino cup next to my name. How the boy at the flower stand teased me into smiling and his co-worker, a girl, told me as I paid, "What a beautiful dress! And so comfortable-looking!"

Which is why, naturally, walking back along St. James with my flowers, I started crying. Audibly enough so that I held my breath while passing the crowd in the bus shelter. But just beyond, the street felt private behind my Jackie O sunglasses, and the tears followed me through the Hancock lobby and up in the elevator, to the office kitchen as I searched for a vase, only abating at the point where I thought the Small Cap Relative Value team was going to stop their conference and ask after me.

And I don't really know why.

It was not the first time I've had this reaction -- severe self-pity in the face of severe kindness.

I just wish I understood it.