I didn’t know why I was going to cry, but I knew that if anybody spoke to me or looked at me too closely the tears would fly out of my eyes and the sobs would fly out of the throat and I’d cry for a week.
–Sylvia Plath/The Bell Jar
It is not a secret that the last few weeks have been challenging.
Big stuff. Death. Divorce. Diarrhea. Vomiting. The Full Meal Deal of bad times. No big tears, though. No outbursts. I was coping remarkably well, all things considered.
What killed me, finally?
A clogged kitchen sink spewing swamp water all over me when I ran the garbage disposal.
Funny how we can cope and cope and cope until one little thing has us sitting on the kitchen floor clutching a plunger and bawling like a baby.
All I needed was one day without a problem or event. One. In that cute way Life has of throwing curve balls, I got sprayed with dirty water instead. I was probably back talking some minor deity or something earlier that day. I probably deserved it.
Sometimes, Life is a dick.
I must have had a great cry though, right? It must have been great to get it all out. You’d think so, but no. I couldn’t even have my emotional collapse properly.
My emotional response to the very minor issue of the clogged sink was so over the top that I ended up laughing at myself and ruining everything. I didn’t even get to have the Seriously Big Cry I was hoping for.
Laughter. Bah.
Nothing ruins a Seriously Big Cry more quickly than self mocking laughter.
Next time, I am going to cry anyway. I don’t care how much I laugh at myself.