Crying really is very cathartic. Is it so satisfying to have such an exaggerated physical expression of inward emotions that can be, at times, impossible to express. My only complaint is that I wish it didn't have so many uncomfortable side effects. My eyelids get swollen and puffy. My eyes stay bloodshot and could rival those of a junkie. My head throbs. And I am left physically and emotionally exausted. Plus, NO ONE looks attractive when they cry!
There is a little shop in the San Marcos downtown square called Country Collections. It is run by 2 sisters who are the kindest most genuine people I've ever met. When I want a gift for someone really special that is where I go and I usually spend at least an hour in there talking to the sisters. They ask me about my family, and Blitz and Arthur and how school is going and they really listen. They're very good listeners. I ask them about their children and their parents. They're good talkers too.
Today I went in to get a beautiful necklace for my mom that I've had my eye on for some time. The sisters were there, smiles and hellos like always. We chatted about our families and such for a little while but I was in a hurry to get home so I didn't stay long. On the way out I saw a small glass frame that had a poem titled "My Perfect Mom" etched in the sparking glass. I recognized it. Last year I introduced Arthur to the sisters and we bought that frame for his mom for Mother's Day.
I said one last goodbye to the sisters before I turned and rushed out the door. I barely made it to my truck before the tears started pouring down. I remember seeing that poem on the mantle by the front door at Arthur's house. I remember looking at it as I followed Arthur's dad, sister and brother out of the house and into the limo that would take us to his Mother's funeral. I remember thinking how profound that little poem was at that very moment.
But mostly I was crying because we will never be able to get her another silly little Mother's Day gift again. She is gone.
this has pretty much been one of the saddest weeks of my life. yes...i've been depressed before. yes...i've been sad before. but i've never felt despair and grief to the extent that i've felt it in the past week. i had planned to go out with my childhood friend, annemarie, tonight while arthur was with his family preparing for his mother's burial tommorow. i was really really looking foward to seeing her. she is always a breath of fresh air to me... she is so alive. we had a date planned- she was gonna pick up at 6:30, take me out to dinner and the rest was a suprise. then around noon she called me with some bad news...she was sick. sick sick sick. the kinda sick where she couldn't leave the bathroom and "i'll leave the rest of the details up for your imagination" kinda sick. man, i was pretty disapointed. i really miss that girl sometimes. it's been almost 7 mths since the last time i've seen her. we've been friends since 7th grade and we go through our ups and downs together but she really is that friend that i can call no matter what. she is the first person i called crying to talk about arthur's mom. she knows me better than almost everyone. she will probably be my future maid-of-honor. but i love her because of her loyalty and her heart.
so as i'm laying in bed, snuggled up with blitz and a jane austin book i get a text message to look on my front poarch. On the top step is a small package wrapped in yellow ribbon. Inside are 2 DVDs, Arthur's Family Fun & A Cinderella Story (Starring Hillary Duff). The names "Arthur" and "Hillary" on each package are underlined. Attached with curly ribbon is a card that says "Watch these silly movies together and remember how strong you two are together- Love Annemarie".
This is why I love this girl. Somehow, after all these years and all the distance between us she still knows just what to do to make me smile.
well...to my credit, i expected the best but prepared for the worst...and i did my best...and all those other stupid cliches. Unfortunately my best wasn't good enough and i am having to deal with what quite possibly might be one of the biggest setbacks of my entire academic career. its been a tough day. my eyes burn from all the hot frustrated tears i couldn't hold back. the first of which made their debut in my professor's office...man...what a shitty day...
Auto response from HNPPage:
- VERY ackward run in with a guy I used to date...CHECK
- Spill hot coffe all over my jeans....CHECK
- Almost start crying in a professor's office...CHECK
- Truck breaking down AGAIN...CHECK
- Trying to cram a gajillion hours of studying into 12...CHECK
- Running on empty...CHECK
i #$%&!*@ hate today
I hate feeling so hopeless. I hate seeing him hurting. I hate the feeling of his mother's impending death. I hate that he had to hold her head up at the hospital today for 2 hours. I hate that she is in so much pain. I hate that in a few weeks she will be totally paralyzed by the cancer that is wrapping itself around her vertebrae. I hate the the only option is to sit and wait for the cancer to kill her, or to spend thousands of dollars to simply slow it down. I hate that either way her time is very limited. I hate that I am so afraid.
what a horrible day today has was. just one of those hopeless kind of days where you want to just put your head in your hands and cry and not give a damn who sees you lose it. i was on the verge of a breakdown so i decided to go to walmart to distract myself. as i was wandering around, putting goodies in my cart only to realize 6 rows later that i could not afford said goodies, i was only getting more and more depressed about my place in life. i felt transparent to everyone. i smiled at a little girl in her mother's shopping cart hoping that her innocence would cheer me up...she only glared at me. i was bumped into 3 times. not once was i apologized to or even acknowledged in anyway. and then...
this woman comes up to me. out of nowhere and hands me a rose and says "here. just because." thank goodness for the kindness of strangers.
ME: are you ok?
LORI: i don't know for sure...i'm not in the mood to talk about it right now because i just stopped crying
LORI:in short...my boyfriend of 5 yrs doesn't know if he's in love with me anymore
that statement made my heart stop. lori is one of the few girls in this world that i love and trust compleatly. her and her boyfriend are the most amazing couple i have ever met and i look up to them and hope that my relationship with arthur is half as strong as theirs is...or was. i am almost crying right now too because it kills me for someone i care about to hurt so much.
I don't want to grow up. I want to go back to a time when everyone was happy and healthy and married and faithful and good, or at least it seemed that way to me. I just can't keep up with everything that is going wrong with my family.
My dad will most likely be paralyzed from the neck down in the next 10 years because he has some kind of of degenerative disease that is disintegrating the cartilage in his spine. My little brother was found cutting himself two years ago and is most likely on his way to experimenting with drugs and alcohol at the ripe age of 16. My cousin committed suicide on Christmas Eve three years ago and another cousin is threatening suicide everytime something goes wrong in her life. My mom's brother, who has no short term memory as a result of Lyme's Disease, is getting divorced because his wife of 15yrs is "tired of the burden". When he found out he tried to take an overdose and almost didn't fail. Knowing this, she brought over some boxes of his stuff with three sharp knives hidden down at the bottom. I worry every day about my grandparents as they grow older and more frail. Its only a matter of time. And Arthur's family is dealing with equally difficult things.
The only way I know to handle all these changes is to find a solid rock to cling to and create my own stability with my own family some day.
Please keep my family & Arthur's in your prayers.
I have a little red journal I carry around with me wherever I go. Inside it are words that describe in detail things that I have never been able to speak about, painful memories that taint me, no matter how much I pretend they are not there. And it seems no matter what I do I can't get rid of them. I can't pray them away, I can't talk them away, and I can't ignore them. They sneak up when I least expect them and pull me back down until I feel I am drowning in them all over again. So now, when I feel them breathing down my neck- I write. I write until my fingers hurt and my arm cramps up. I write down every last detail that I can remember and as I do I feel hot tears running down my cheeks and landing on my words. And when I am done...somehow, I feel liberated. I am almost afraid for those memories to find me without my journal now, because I feel as if that is my only protection against them.
There are 180 college ruled pages that, in time, will be full, front and back, of all the painful things that I have been carrying around with me. When the pages have all been filled, with every last detail that I can squeeze from every grey fiber of my brain, there will be a ceremonial burning. Page by page. I think Ben Folds, as usual, says it best:
Leaf by leaf and page by page, throw this book away
All the sadness all the rage, throw this book away
Rip out the binding and tear the glue
all of the grief we never even knew
we had it all along
Now it's Smoke
We will not write a new one
there will not be a new one
another one another one
here's and evening dark with shame
throw it on the fire
here's the time I took the blame
throw it on the fire
Here's the time we didn't speak
it seemed for years and years and
here's a secret no one will ever know the
reasons for the tears
they are smoke
