I’ve started watching Mad Men and last night at the first season finale Betty Draper touched a nerve. Betty Draper is a bored, beautiful house wife and lives the life of every woman in the sixties. She takes care of her kids, makes dinner, is aware that her husband cheats on her, the usual. She visits a shrink to talk her life out. She lies down on a gorgeous leather couch, a cigarette between her delicate fingers, she is a thing of beauty. The shrink scribbles things in his note pad as she talks, never interrupting. But last night she did something that I’m sure everyone must have felt like at some point.

She suspects her husband of having an affair, in fact she knows but never confronts him and her shrink doesn’t offer her too much of a consolation. The bottom line is she is disturbed. Not depressed, disturbed. She holds the hand of a young boy and cries. She asks him, “Please tell me I’m going to be okay”. At that moment I wept inside for myself and for the hundreds of people who have felt helpless at some point. There are so many instances in life when it feels like we are standing in quick sand and nothing can go right. We don’t need comfort or a shoulder to cry on. All we want is for somebody to tell us were going to be okay. Just a tiny bit of reassurance that can go a long way and I know cause I have felt that too many times in my life.

The young boy in the episode doesn’t know why she is crying and says a simple I don’t know. She quickly gathers herself and leaves. I’ve never liked TV characters as much as I’ve liked book characters but Betty Draper, I love her character. And January Jones whom I’ve  often thought of as an ice queen is perfect in this.

I know how many times I’ve wanted someone to give me the tiniest bit I reassurance. If that’s what you’re looking for right now then trust me, you’re going to be okay, everything is going to be okay.