If there's one thing I've learned (and it probably is the only thing), it's that you should cry whenever the moment hits. Saving that shit up just makes you hemorrhage tears while snot dribbles down your nose because you just can't hold it in anymore after seeking the pink pig gummy candy on the floor of the grocery store. For reals.
I'd like to blame this week's episode of Crying In Random Places on hormones or a special anniversary. But the truth is, it's basically just my fault. I haven't had a good cry in almost three weeks (stop judging me... lots of people cry more than that... probably) and was getting a little too cocky about it.
And really, this week was the perfect shitstorm of tear inducers. My nephew finished school and brought home his in-class journal featuring a nonsensical child's viewpoint of his uncle Craig's death (I want to be someone's favourite because I play with them and because I'm their favourite just because). I wasn't sleeping very well and work was kind of stressing me out. Oh and did I mention I'm on a stupid diet that makes me hangry 24/7 to the point where I actually thought to myself like some kind of sicko the other day, hm, maybe this salad will taste good without any dressing on it. You see? I was out of my mind. Clearly.
Somewhere around Thursday my brain gave up and on the drive home, when some a-hole cut me off, I burst into tears. Not the pretty kind either. I am not a pretty crier. I am an ugly snot-dribbling, wailing, hiccupping, red-nosed bag of misery when I cry. One of the many reasons I like to cry by myself. Nobody there to look away awkwardly or try to put a paper bag over my head so they can stand to comfort me properly. I bawled the whole way home and still wasn't done.
My husband came home and made the mistake of trying to be nice to me. This turned into an argument which turned into even more tears and a chilly night of fighting over the blankets. The next morning I was busted in the office sniffling away. Thankfully I'm one of the only ones in that early and my dark sunglasses are huge enough to cover half my face. It did not occur to me until later that walking around in dark sunglasses in a well-lit office probably looks kind of strange too. Oh well.
A couple days of miserable wailing and finally, this morning, I started to feel better. Gorging on homemade pie probably helped. My god, I have been hungry.
I take these stretches of time as they come. I know this comes with the territory of being widowed. You cry, you blow your nose, you cry some more. Sometimes it lasts twenty minutes, sometimes several days. I go through periods of time where it hits me all over again - I have lost my husband. I. Have. Lost. My. Husband. He is gone. While never as overwhelming as hearing that news the first time, it nevertheless brings me to my knees, ransacking me all over again.
Only this time I know. I know that it will ease. That the crying will stop. That I will be happy again in a few hours, days, or weeks. There is happiness on the other side of this. Because this is what grief looks like, two years later. The heartache is still there, the loneliness, the feeling that something is always missing. But it is broken up with moments of happiness, of enjoyment, of things that don't revolve around death.
You just have to ride out the wave.
And repack the Kleenex supply in your car for the next round.
