The Year after The Ugly Cry

One year ago tomorrow, my world felt like it was collapsing upon itself.  I was fired.  I was fired on the morning that my mother-in-law was having surgery.  To remove a cancerous tumor on her kidney, a continuation of her fight against lung cancer.  My husband was with her in Omaha so I had to come home to my house and reflect upon my failings, alone. 

That, my friends, was a terrible day.

It's funny for me to think about now how I cried over losing my job.  Today, I am glad I was alone in those moments because I know it wasn't pretty.  It was what I often refer to as "the ugly cry."  Even as I bawled, I tried to hold it in so much that the next day, the muscles in my throat hurt from clenching my jaw, trying to stop the hyperventilating.  Today, I realize that in those tortured moments I was releasing myself of everything that I had kept inside for too many months prior.

I had been struggling so long to keep everything together.  I wanted to be strong for Kendall and his family while we were going through this terrifying battle.  I wanted to do the best that I possibly could at a job that I hated.  I wanted to be the friend that I always had been, to be available to talk and laugh with at any moments notice.  I wanted to be a daughter and sister that made the 16 hours that separated us seem closer.

I was none of those things.  I knew it too.  I'd hidden my acknowledgement of my failings deep down, hidden away in the deepest crevice of my thoughts, ignoring the rumblings of discontent.  It was a fault line filled with, well, my faults and fears that I had attempted to control, because that's what I was doing at that point in time. I was controlling- not living- my life.

I would never wish to be back in that moment, one year ago, but it was a glorious, terrifying cry.  I would consider it humiliating, and definitely one of the lowest moments in my life thus far.

I am sure that there will be others that will top that moment.  However this first humiliation and utter failure has taught me so much about myself in the past year that it is hard not to look back and reflect on the ground that I gained as a person when confronted with the anniversary. 

Oh, there were tough lessons to swallow.  Let me see if I can regurgitate the best of them:

I could fail.  I could not be good at something, even if I tried my hardest.  Work had only been serving as a distraction from the hurt and confusion our family was going through while dealing with cancer.  My job and the way that I handled my job had hindered my ability to be the best wife, daughter, sister, friend that I had longed to be and my friends and family deserved to have.  I could be angry.  I could hate a person.  I feel better when certain people are out of my life.  There were things I couldn't control.  I had to learn to relax.  Who did I used to be, who had I become, and who did I want to be moving forward.  Even with being fired, I had career accomplishments to be proud of.  I had personal achievements to be proud of.  To get a new job, you need to be able to brag about yourself.  I had friends and family I could rely on, who loved me even when I fell apart.  Who I am was not dependent upon what I did career wise.  What made me happy and how the hell can I keep that in my every day life?  Why did it matter to me what other people thought.  Why did this experience all of a sudden make me feel like I wasn’t good enough.

The world does not fall apart when you feel like you are.  In fact, it keeps spinning.

Thank goodness for that. 

My world kept spinning.  At times, it made me dizzy to sort through all these self confrontations.  I kept asking questions of myself, but didn’t always find new answers.  I was the kid looking down at a reflection in the puddle, both delighted and dismayed when the same image reappeared after a carelessly dropped rock had disrupted the calm surface.

A year has gone by.  I realize that the questions that don’t have new answers are the same because I am who I am.  I think I’ve cleared a pathway, or at least made headway, in using this experience to help solidify the woman I am.  Some days it’s hard to accept personal limitations and flaws, it’s hard to acknowledge my failures. It’s something that everyone struggles with, but few are willing to admit.  Here I am, at 28, with the capability to realize that I am only human.  For that, I am grateful.

I am also grateful for the return of good things to my life.  The best of all being that my mother-in-law was given a clean bill of health.  She has remained cancer free since that surgery, one year ago tomorrow. 

Tomorrow will be an anniversary to be celebrated, with nothing to cry about.