I Don’t Normally Cry in Public Unless...

I started crying in the bookstore.

I don’t normally cry in public unless it’s out of pride for others (I used to sneaky cry a lot watching dancers) or watching the beautiful fiction of another (movies are my therapy). But this was fact.

My feeding tube had just “exploded” in a way that felt unusually bad (more disgusting than the normal disgusting) and it had occurred all over my beloved and time worn Wear Moi sweater skirt-leggings. I have loved my black and grey pair for so long that they are like old friends (if I could, I’d get comforting Wear Moi and wear it everyday), but I also was wearing them because they were the ONLY “bottom” I could wear for the entirety of the time my back was healing from multiple very large incisions. Every single pant or short or pajama comfort felt like nails with a hammer… except for my stretchy sweater Wear Moi.

But moi was unraveling, in public, because the feeding tube incident was so bad I had to freeze in place in the doorway (knowing more movement would make it worse) while one of my girls ran to get napkins and one of my remaining dignities at that time - a time of wearing the same grey bottoms constantly and my largest excursion being the most sacred place (a bookstore), but wherein I hurt so bad I could barely stand in certainty, nor browse with enjoyment.

I was looking for books for need-to-recover people pleasers (a “people are going to hate you” kind of series) NOT written by narcissists, and hadn’t found anything that felt it could help me through the vast amount of “self growth” I feel I need to explore in this time away from (as much) dance and directing… so I can be better in as many ways as possible upon relaunch.

My husband held up a “What Would Frida Do?” which I’d passed on in my attempts to flee in pain, and I thought to myself, “Do not sob in a doorway over sweater leggings”… but there I was.

There’s something about sharing about your in-the-moment feelings and evolutions like monarch-butterfly diary entries attempting to migrate and set free that makes a person tempted to edit their emotions after the fact. To filter what I felt then, so I can post something more meticulous now.

But we can be bosses who others can care for and still want to cry in a doorway.

We can be teachers and parents and business owners and still evolve through multiple chrysalis cycles per season, week, day and not be ashamed that weakness is weakness.

We can be recovering people pleasers or in need of self-help and still feel the worst part of a story is a stain on a “record” we can’t clean off.

Life is embarrassing.

Everything about being here and not being perfect and fully formed already is mortifying.

But sharing about pain isn’t a stain… it’s just a doorway to someone else.

THANK YOU my Word Nerd friends and to all those helping this independent memoirist continue to work by upgrading to paid (which also helps my goal of gifting my every-weekday-writing for anyone who asks for a reading scholarship, no questions asked)….

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