Have you ever drifted through your day answering incessant phone calls, begrudgingly responding to emails and just barely keeping your eyes open during those 'oh so important' zoom meetings…when finally, lunch time arrives and you head straight for your car just to get in, close the door, and immediately burst into tears? You maneuver through traffic with hot tears pouring down your face like a nightmarish rainstorm, snot dripping from your nose, just doing everything you can to not make eye contact with the driver next to you while pleading for the light to turn green. Sound familiar? Yeah… tell me about it. Now I don’t know about you, but somehow there is something far more cathartic about the ugly car cry than there is with the dramatic shower cry or heaven forbid the ‘bathroom stall at work’ cry (yup, I’ve been there too). Perhaps it’s the rush of knowing you only have 30 minutes to release a month’s worth of pent up emotion before you have to trudge back into work and reapply mascara (that clearly wasn’t water proof) to your now puffy eyes.
This sudden rush of raw, unfiltered emotion is extremely overwhelming, and I dare say exasperating. The volcano erupting inside can grow so intense it becomes difficult to breathe. As I gasp for air with foggy eyes, I think to myself “why on earth am I crying right now”?? Well, I’ll let you in on a little secret…sometimes there is no reason. Typically, every last fear or pound of anxiety comes rushing to the stage to perform a tap dance in my mind, but every now and then, I truly can’t think of a reason why. We certainly love torturing ourselves with questions of “why” don’t we? We run infinitely in circles like a hamster in a cage trying to discover the ever-evasive answer to “why”, but no matter how many counseling sessions one might attend, sometimes it doesn’t come. Is it a hormone imbalance? Perhaps the stresses of life? Perhaps all of the above and then some. These thoughts become suffocating, swirling wildly through the mind until all you can do is combust, exploding into a heart wrenching frenzy of frustration and despair. Sometimes all there is to do is cry.
While I am no expert on the mind, I have certainly mastered the ugly car cry. It happens more often than I care to admit. Whether it's the depression or anxiety, reminders of the past, or stress of the future; it's all wrapped up into an overwhelming day with a looming bow on top. Despite arriving unannounced, sometimes a good old fashioned cry in the car is just what is needed.
Well, my readers, I say don’t hold back, let that ugly car cry flow! So here are a few tips for those inevitable moments: always carry tissues in your car, keep your ‘emotional breakdown’ playlist on standby, and have a pair of sunglasses readily available so you can play it cool at any moment.
To my ugly car criers…
Your’s truly - AA
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