I'm not sure if this is just me, or if it is a worldwide Girl Thing - does anyone else only burst into tears whenever it's inappropriate or completely weird timing? Searching for a random, fictional example... so you've broken up with a long-time partner, a close relative has died, and you've been diagnosed with gonorrhea or something icky like that - you stay strong, keeping that tough upper lip for weeks, until suddenly, you lose your favourite pencil, and you have a major breakdown. Why is that?!
Yesterday I was lining up with hundreds of other students, putting the final touches on my enrolment for the first semester at uni. It's very hot weather and it was the first day I hadn't hidden at home with (prescription) drugs and hot lemon drinks after spending the week before in bed. I've also been studying basically constantly since February last year, and am not going to get a break of more than two weeks up until June - let's just say it's becoming a little overwhelming. When I finally got to the cashiers, they told me that some of my course fees have gone on my student loan by mistake, and I'll have to pay the money to the student loan people instead - minor, minor problem. But what do I do? Burst into tears!! Very, very embarrassing. They all started trying to comfort me and assure me it wasn't actually that big a deal, while I stood in front of about a hundred curious and impatient students, and I was like, "I know! I know! I'm sorry!" Why?!?!?! I feel like I'm pregnant or something... or is that a post-pregnancy thing?
This isn't one isolated incident, either. I can remember dozens of times this has happened to me. It immediately generates all this sympathy, but it's very unwelcome when you just look like a mad woman who cries for no reason. Example: on my sister Felicity's wedding day, we had been debating whether we should wash our hair in the morning or if it was better not to, so as to avoid frizz. I came downstairs, and asked Felicity, "should I wash my hair?" Another of my sisters said, "For goodness' sake, Allie, of course you should wash your hair!" I burst into floods of tears and stormed off. :) Funny to remember, now. Weird at the time. I suppose given it was the sort of day that is fraught with emotional tension and high expectations, it's not totally peculiar to flake out. But shouldn't that be the bride's job? Not mine?? And all because I was being told to wash my hair???
It's always this way - but whenever anything happens to me that would merit floods of tears, I don't say a word about it, and get annoyed because people expect me to be sobbing with anguish. Does this happen to anyone else?
5 comments:
It's not just you. It's not just you and Jessica either. I do this too.
The absolute most embarassing time was my last year of college. I was in my senior seminar professor's office. Everyone has a professor they think is brilliant, that they really want to impress. Mine was Dr. Deardorff and I cried in front of him. He wasn't saying anything mean about my draft of my final draft. It was all normal critique, but I started crying. It wasn't the paper; it was the stress of my last few weeks of college, of not sleeping a full night in weeks, of doing both my English senior project and my history senior project at the same time, and too heavy of a courseload.
I was glad to graduate after that.
Um, I have a question for you. On the staff page of HDtS, I was thinking of adding a link to my blog under my bio, but I wanted to see if it was okay with you since my blog links to your blog. It occurred to me that it might seem like a violation of privacy to you.
It's not just you. I blogged a few weeks ago about my own embarrassing crying incident. And I've had similar incidents in the past. Once had a fight with my mother before school, so when I got to school and was informed that you could see my slip through my skirt (by another student being nice, not by a faculty member or anything) I just started sobbing. Had the whole locker room end up hugging me and telling me that no one would even notice my slip. Sort of funny in retrospect, like the hairwashing incident.
Those are some fabulously random moments, and make me feel lots better.
Stacy, I think Deardorff is about the coolest surname in the world, and I'm thinking about using it for my pen-name. Re the other thing, that's totally, totally fine. I was actually thinking about putting a link in for my blog, too, but worried about the same thing! Great minds...
I didn't know that people still used pen names. Although I guess I don't know why they wouldn't, it'd be awfully fun to pick a random name. Also, I've tagged you if you want to play.
i think its normal. pressure builds up after awhile. and in big things (like someone dying, finding you've got ghonorrea or whatever) you're concentrating on keeping a stiff upper lip. so when something little happens, you're not concentrating on not crying so the bubble suddenly bursts. anyway thats my psychoanalysis, there's hundreds of examples from my own life but i dont have the time to write about them right now...
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