Transparent Tuesdays

Issue 158

You guys,

Eleven days after the car accident, I allowed myself a good cry. 

It’s not that I didn’t cry until then. I sobbed periodically throughout the day of the crash. I cried even more the next day as I lay with an ice pack on my chest. I burst into tears when my neighbor knocked on our door with flowers. 

It doesn’t take much for me to cry. I might even cry if you compliment me. But it’s never for long. I let it come out and as soon as it’s happening, I reel it back in. I talk myself down. You’re okay, you’ve cried, now get it together. 

But 11 days after the accident, when then the heaping sobs erupted from deep inside, I let them.

It was midday and I was in pain. The extra strength ibuprofen that helped me tremendously in the few days following the accident was no longer doing the trick. My body hurt, my head hurt, and I decided to lay down for a few minutes. 

When I closed my eyes I saw a new car accident. This one with me, Sam, and the kids. And instead of ending with some head and body aches, it ended in death. 

I started crying. 

I cried because the image scared me. I cried because I didn’t realize how much I was afraid of being on the road. I cried because my body ached in ways it never had. I cried because I was freaked out that I was still in pain, when the doctor told me I should start to feel better after five days. I cried because I wasn’t functioning the way I normally function, and I was over it. I cried because I felt sorry for myself.

I haven’t cried like this since I was 22 years old and had just found out the first boy I ever loved had sex with someone else. I curled up in a ball on my parent’s wicker furniture on their screened-in back porch and felt my first heartbreak. I didn’t think about how I would look if someone saw me. I didn’t care. 

When Sam emerged from a work call to check on me, I erupted again because now I had to verbalize my thoughts. It was round 2, this time in his arms rather than under my bed sheets. 

I gave myself permission to cry. It felt necessary and good, like maybe it would help in ways ibuprofen and rest wouldn’t. 

I wish I did it more often.

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Until next week,

Charlie