When I was a child, I tried very hard not to cry in public. It embarrassed me too much - specially after I was done and everyone seemed to look at me differently. Despite the occasional aberration my life before marriage did not give me much reason for tears, but I knew I had the capacity and tenderness - it did not take a lot to bring them on. Life with R was often about lying curled up on the living room carpet crying through the night hoping the pain would be washed away by when the tears were done.
He neither noticed nor cared. Later I would be told that I had no real problems like most people did and could afford to luxuriate in imaginary sorrow and shed tears. I must have cried more in the two years we were married than I had in my entire life preceding - it was like the floodgates had been opened and could not be shut again. I was ashamed of my weakness, irked at my inability to control those tears. It seemed that true empowerment and emancipation would come only when I could stop them and I craved for that to happen.
I believe there is only a finite pool of tears that a person has. Mine has long since been depleted. Today when something hurts, the only thing I feel is a dry, rasping kind of anger followed by a blunt pain. Try as I might, the tears refuse to come on. Every pore of me aches to sob the pain away but I just cannot do it any more. My heart's once deepest desire to stop crying has come now true. It is one of those ill conceived desires which once fulfilled cannot be undone. How I long to replenish my pool of tears, so I would be whole again.
I never fail to remind J that there is a time and place for everything. It is possibly the line she will remember me by when I am dead and gone given how frequently she hears it. Instead of having her breakfast she will break into a song and dance number from High School Musical well past eight on Monday morning. She will insist that I watch and applaud the performance instead of screaming at her to finish her milk and cereal. Her sense of occasion is seriously lacking but then so is mine. Consider for example, a person walks into the grocery store with the express purpose of buying detergent because they are fresh out of it and laundry is only half way done. However instead of heading straight for detergent, they wander over to the natural foods aisle and go berserk upon finding goat milk on sale for a dollar a gallon. They at once proceed to stock pile so they can turn it to huge quantities home-made feta cheese. That person would be me. It would not concern me in the least that I ha...
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