Big Cry
We don't do Halloween here, but I had a pretty emotional end-of-a-weekend. So...
Big Cry
When I was nearly done crying, the kiddo snuggled up to me and said, “Should I be sad or scared? I’ve seen you cry before, but never so loud and big.”
He has a point, because this kind of crying, like what happened today, isn’t the silent kind or the kind where just the lips curl inward and you make a of “wheeeaa” sound. This is a real snot-and-tears funfest. Although I don’t normally like Americanisms, this is the kind that is best described by the word “bawling” - simply because of the realistic “aaawww” sound that I make when I bawl. Repeatedly.
Yeah, it’s embarrassing. More so because, when you look at it, it’s not like there’s a lot to cry about: as I keep reminding myself and the kiddo, we’re all healthy, we’re together, and even if money matters get worse we’ll always have enough to eat, a roof over our heads and the chance to go to school and work.
So the reason I suddenly started bawling...
In the traditional family system, the woman used to do the things around the house and the man went to work - to earn money. That was probably not a very fair or pleasant division of labour, but at least it was a division.
The part about earning money is tough and tiring, but it comes with clear responsibilities and limitations. You go to work in the morning; you come back in the evening. Your job is clearly delineated. The work at home, however, is made up of countless little things that seem trivial individually but team up to become petrifying.
What we - more specifically, I - have right now is both the work that makes me hate my life when I have to get up for it in the mornings, and the little things waiting to be done, and when I was driving home today with the kiddo, they were adding up in my mind:
I still haven’t found the time to fix the curtain rod.
The kiddo needs a haircut. Urgently.
I need to order water. Explanation: Such and infamous municipality that tap water is unfit for drinking. Arsenic and whatnot.
That fucked-up mayor is also making it impossible to get home right now, since as part of the plan to punish all city districts who did not vote for him, the main streets in all these districts are under repair. Driving to aunt to get kiddo home: about 1 mile in 45 minutes.
Hit the car on the kerb.
The car already looks “like something somebody threw away.” Sorry, girl, we both know it’s true although it’s mostly my fault. Worse, she’s getting moodier by the day.
The publishing house coughed up only a third of the money they owe me, claiming this was all they had to pay. Half a year after I submitted the work. Will be hell to get that money.
I need to find extra work.
I don’t know how to keep my sanity when I have to do extra work.
I must get the kiddo’s father to pay.
I must go back to work tomorrow, after half a week spent with the flu, and the idea of the two double-hour sessions and the thirty-odd essays waiting for me makes me physically sick.
The kiddo sniffs and I panic because he is damn sure to get the flu now, just when I’m almost through with it.
I tell him to grab tissue from my purse and he wipes his nose with the tissue and his fist, making me frantic.
I feel godawfully lonely, after having spent the last twenty hours not-lonely. It feels like he goes home to his wife after having spent a day with his mistress. Bleah.
I feel so angry about this that I find myself toying with the idea of striking both the uni and this place from the impossibly short list of date locations. Just out of a hurt sense of justice: why should someone share the benefits without sharing the responsibility?
Then I hate myself for being so angry just because I’m alone now.
Then because of that I get even angrier.
Then the kiddo reveals that he opened the defective zip on my purse, the one that is loose and tears the purse in two, and I can barely step inside the flat holding the purse and the sausages and my tears, and although I don’t even care about the fucking purse it’s just the last damn little thing that proves my life it dissolving into bits, and I just sit on a kitchen chair and bawl.
It’s dark outside, I can see my reflection in the windows, and I hate my face so much that the sight makes me cry and howl even more.
Finally, after endless minutes of sobbing, I sit down in the living room, I’ve even fixed the purse, more importantly, we hug and I tell him that even the big cries end eventually, and one even feels a little better after they do. I force myself so hard not to remember yesterday morning that I, sorta, kinda, really don't think about how the kiddo told me he'd be cool if I'd marry the boyfriend, and when I joked, "tell him, not me", actually phoned him to tell him the same. And the boyfriend probably had a coronary.
Then we laugh together, and do some working out, and then we have hot dogs. This big cry is over.
I’m glad it’s over little things. The little things that scare the hell out of me when they team up. And the thought that they will scare away the person I want to be with is even more terrifying.
And that’s just what I’ll have to live with.
Big Cry
When I was nearly done crying, the kiddo snuggled up to me and said, “Should I be sad or scared? I’ve seen you cry before, but never so loud and big.”
He has a point, because this kind of crying, like what happened today, isn’t the silent kind or the kind where just the lips curl inward and you make a of “wheeeaa” sound. This is a real snot-and-tears funfest. Although I don’t normally like Americanisms, this is the kind that is best described by the word “bawling” - simply because of the realistic “aaawww” sound that I make when I bawl. Repeatedly.
Yeah, it’s embarrassing. More so because, when you look at it, it’s not like there’s a lot to cry about: as I keep reminding myself and the kiddo, we’re all healthy, we’re together, and even if money matters get worse we’ll always have enough to eat, a roof over our heads and the chance to go to school and work.
So the reason I suddenly started bawling...
In the traditional family system, the woman used to do the things around the house and the man went to work - to earn money. That was probably not a very fair or pleasant division of labour, but at least it was a division.
The part about earning money is tough and tiring, but it comes with clear responsibilities and limitations. You go to work in the morning; you come back in the evening. Your job is clearly delineated. The work at home, however, is made up of countless little things that seem trivial individually but team up to become petrifying.
What we - more specifically, I - have right now is both the work that makes me hate my life when I have to get up for it in the mornings, and the little things waiting to be done, and when I was driving home today with the kiddo, they were adding up in my mind:
I still haven’t found the time to fix the curtain rod.
The kiddo needs a haircut. Urgently.
I need to order water. Explanation: Such and infamous municipality that tap water is unfit for drinking. Arsenic and whatnot.
That fucked-up mayor is also making it impossible to get home right now, since as part of the plan to punish all city districts who did not vote for him, the main streets in all these districts are under repair. Driving to aunt to get kiddo home: about 1 mile in 45 minutes.
Hit the car on the kerb.
The car already looks “like something somebody threw away.” Sorry, girl, we both know it’s true although it’s mostly my fault. Worse, she’s getting moodier by the day.
The publishing house coughed up only a third of the money they owe me, claiming this was all they had to pay. Half a year after I submitted the work. Will be hell to get that money.
I need to find extra work.
I don’t know how to keep my sanity when I have to do extra work.
I must get the kiddo’s father to pay.
I must go back to work tomorrow, after half a week spent with the flu, and the idea of the two double-hour sessions and the thirty-odd essays waiting for me makes me physically sick.
The kiddo sniffs and I panic because he is damn sure to get the flu now, just when I’m almost through with it.
I tell him to grab tissue from my purse and he wipes his nose with the tissue and his fist, making me frantic.
I feel godawfully lonely, after having spent the last twenty hours not-lonely. It feels like he goes home to his wife after having spent a day with his mistress. Bleah.
I feel so angry about this that I find myself toying with the idea of striking both the uni and this place from the impossibly short list of date locations. Just out of a hurt sense of justice: why should someone share the benefits without sharing the responsibility?
Then I hate myself for being so angry just because I’m alone now.
Then because of that I get even angrier.
Then the kiddo reveals that he opened the defective zip on my purse, the one that is loose and tears the purse in two, and I can barely step inside the flat holding the purse and the sausages and my tears, and although I don’t even care about the fucking purse it’s just the last damn little thing that proves my life it dissolving into bits, and I just sit on a kitchen chair and bawl.
It’s dark outside, I can see my reflection in the windows, and I hate my face so much that the sight makes me cry and howl even more.
Finally, after endless minutes of sobbing, I sit down in the living room, I’ve even fixed the purse, more importantly, we hug and I tell him that even the big cries end eventually, and one even feels a little better after they do. I force myself so hard not to remember yesterday morning that I, sorta, kinda, really don't think about how the kiddo told me he'd be cool if I'd marry the boyfriend, and when I joked, "tell him, not me", actually phoned him to tell him the same. And the boyfriend probably had a coronary.
Then we laugh together, and do some working out, and then we have hot dogs. This big cry is over.
I’m glad it’s over little things. The little things that scare the hell out of me when they team up. And the thought that they will scare away the person I want to be with is even more terrifying.
And that’s just what I’ll have to live with.