Unlit

My life is full of women who can emote on cue. My sister thinks of a sad thought and breaks out into tears. My sister-in-law cries at Hallmark commercials. I work with a woman whose sobbing interludes frequent staff meetings (uncomfortable, that).

But I'm not a emoter like that. I get quiet. I pout. I rage inwardly. Occasionally I will raise my voice, but crying is reserved for times of extreme duress. Extreme duress. (And watching Steel Magnolias, Beaches, and The Notebook. But those hardly count.) My husband has probably seen me cry as many times as he has fingers on one hand.

Yesterday was my first normal day back at work, back on my normal schedule, back to my life. I woke up, goofed around with the cat for a bit, went into work, did that, came home, went into my other job, came home, ate dinner, pretended to work out, watched two episodes of season two of Battlestar Galactica with my husband, curled up on the couch. We cleaned up the kitchen, goofed off with the cat (a large part of our daily routine, I guess), brushed our teeth, and then went to bed. Imagine my surprise when, as soon as I crawled into the sheets, the tears came heavy and hard.

The darkness is back. I look for joy in the little things, but it's a stretch. The mechanics of doing everyday activities are exhausting. Today I didn't even pretend to work out, I just sat down and stared at my computer for an hour instead. My cell phone rang several times and I just looked at it across the room, unwilling to deal with faux cheerfulness, a mask I would feel the need to don. Finishing this post seems like an obstacle I can hardly face. How to get through the rest of the night, get the dishes done, brush my teeth, and get to bed at a time that isn't ridiculously early is an unbearable thought.

It's a combination of everything. A stressful holiday. A super awful death in the family. Three days of no sunshine and grey skies. A constant niggling in the back of my head that I am forgetting something. It is not unbeatable. I will get up tomorrow, I will go to work, I will come home, I will work out (not just pretend), I will return those phone calls, and I will smile. The darkness will not envelop me.

But just for tonight, I'm going to let that darkness come. Because I'm too tired to fight it.