big-girl panties

I cried in school for the first and last time in the first or second grade.  I was in gym class and I was the last person to be chosen for a relay-race team.  So, I cried.  I mean, I was already the worst relay team pick, being a crybaby about it wasn't going to score me the points that having me on the team would lose.  I don't think I cried much, but I was embarrassed enough to determine never to do it again in public. 

And I didn't.

Even the day at recess in the third grade when, while practicing my less than mediocre baton-twirling skills for the upcoming talent show (hey, I had dreams y'all, a bit far-fetched, but dreams!), I managed to catch the baton with my eye socket.  The only black eye I've ever had.

And.  I didn't cry the day I nose dived through the asphalt recess area that year and got the huge scab that ran from the tip of my nose to the top of my lip, either.

And.  I also didn't cry when the bully-est girl in the first row of my first class on my first day of teaching told me that her sole intention, until I was otherwise notified, was to make me cry in front of the class.  For the record, I was never notified otherwise.

Nope, that gym class made me a tough cookie.

Ok, so I may have taken it a bit to the extreme and attempted to swear off crying as a whole.  At some point I convinced myself that much like the fact that there is no crying in baseball, there should be no crying in life either; that crying was useless; and that, probably because it's what my dad always used to tell me, it was just gonna make me sick.

My mantra: Pull up your big-girl panties, Laura, and suck it up.

Until yesterday.  When my mantra couldn't quell the emotional overload.  When I cried a little in the after-school privacy of my classroom, and then more on my way home, and then a whole lot more when I talked to my mama early in the evening.

Until yesterday, when I truly realized that I have been successful in beginning to build real relationships with my ABs where I am ok letting them see me in a truly vulnerable position, as opposed to the ones I craft in order to have something to kick up a fuss about.

I've learned that sometimes, most of the time, a person simply cannot do it all all on her own and keep a straight face.

Sometimes it's the only real initial response to a whole truck load of emotionally overwhelming nonsense being dropped off at your front door for you to deal with immediately at your own expense is a big, fat, ugly, mascara-running-down-your-face cry.  possibly while attempting some sort of consolation in a bubble bath.  Eh.  It happens.

Sometimes, it is times like these when a person, especially one who takes pride in taking care of the people she loves, such as myself, gives her loved ones the gift of letting them be there for her.

This morning, I'm focusing on pulling up my big-girl panties and getting through the whole. entire.  truckload. one issue at a time.  But I know now, more than ever, that it's okay to cry a little sometimes and that I have amazing people cheering me on.

Bring on that truck,