I just remembered what’s worse than feeling like I’m not strong enough to make it on my own.
Crying all the time.
If I’m taking Zoloft only I know that I can’t cope. When everything makes me cry, everyone knows.
When I was in college, and had never received anything other than a glowing review at anything (other than that one time in private school when I got a spanking – a spanking! – for not taking the time to grade my math papers and just giving myself 100%), during my annual review, my manager said I needed to cry less. Sure, he said it in the sexist, this is a hardware store where men work and you are a small, small girl with crazy hormones and emotions and of course you’re going to cry all the time, but seriously, act a little more like a guy if you’re going to work here, ok? But the point still holds.
Crying at work or during a regular adult conversation doesn’t help anyone. If you’re stressed or angry or upset or sad or lonely or overwhelmed or lost, you cry it out in private like a normal person. Or possibly in the presence of a girlfriend and wine, as long as you haven’t already cried in front of said girlfriend within the previous three months. Or you get a therapist.
After the “there’s no crying in building materials” incident, I made it my LIFE’S WORK to be tear-free. And if I had to cry at work, I did so in the bathroom like a normal person.Years went by and I managed to keep the tears to a minimum. They’ve started up in full force over the last few years though, like I’ve gone back to adolescence, like those years of anti-tear training didn’t exist.
I’m back to crying when I’m angry, or sad, or stressed, or overwhelmed, or when the phone rings or when the sky’s blue. Although milk spilling doesn’t phase me.
I don’t like wearing my emotions so visibly, to be so vulnerable as to let everyone know exactly how I’m feeling. I want to be able to reveal my innermost feelings only to those I choose. Not to the cashier at the drugstore. And I want my rational brain, that knows some things aren’t worth spending time thinking about, much less crying over, to knock some sense into my runaway tear ducts that apparently are taking a vacation from rational thought.
So, drugs it is then. Because I’d like to wear mascara again some day.