Don't; Be Ashamed.

It’s okay if you need to cry.   

You know you can cry with me.

I never want to make you cry.

Don’t cry, Beautiful.

Please…don’t cry.

You’re not gonna cry are you?

You’re probably gonna fucking cry, huh?

You crying again? 

Don’t fucking cry. 

You better not be crying. 

That crying shit ain’t gonna work with me. 

Go home so you can fucking cry about it…

I wrote the email and hovered my mouse over send. With one tap of my finger, my resignation was sent; I was unemployed. I no longer had a viable income to survive on. During a fucking pandemic, when half the world was shut down and people were doing anything for work, I had just quit my fucking job. 

Biting my lip against the threat of tears, I laid on the bed in the spare room and contemplated what I had just done. It was the only bed in the house with sheets, because I had given up on laundry long ago. My eyes stung reliving my latest impulsive decision which was quite possibly a very big mistake. It could not be undone or taken back, and it would in fact, just further add to the chaos I was already sinking in. My only solace was knowing that it was my own decision and by my own hand. My eyes pinched tight against the sting. I searched the darkness of my head for comfort in a moment that begged for tears, finding Cj’s voice requesting to hear our favorite quote. It had been adopted as our mantra and pledge to live in the moment and to “never regret the things you do, only the things you don’t,” which I suddenly realized was much easier said than done. But still, I peeled myself from the bed and filled the hamper with dirty laundry. I needed to do something to keep busy as I pondered my next move and worked through how to interpret a mantra that was actually so subjective, it could be seen from any perspective in any scenario that was inserted… Boy, had I just fucked up my entire life at this point. 

Staggering around aimlessness with a hamper of dirty clothes didn’t bring the peace I sought. Each room I entered was like another symbolic aspect of my life. The bathroom, scattered with its little trinkets everywhere was my wide circle of friends all in disarray, begging to be left unbothered. 

The floor of my bedroom covered in a mix of both clean and dirty laundry with nothing separating them or helping to distinguish one from the other were my questionable decisions that I often rationed by all the other mayhem in my life. The spare room with it’s array of art supplies, half finished paintings and self portraits symbolized the way I felt on a daily basis; so much to do, so many things pulling me in every direction, begging for my attention, yet always remaining in need of just a little bit more to feel complete. The living room was much more presentable, but the carpet definitely needed vacuuming and old stains were beginning to reveal themselves little by little in the most conspicuous places… much like the grief I kept hidden just below my acceptable exterior. But it was the kitchen that gave me the most unsettling pause...

The fucking kitchen. With its week old dishes caked with hardened food breaching the surface of a dirty orange and oil spotted water which had refused to drain through chunks of soggy food conveniently collecting over the drain. 

The fucking kitchen. With its granite countertops acting as mosaics only allowing the piles of hardened crumbs and dried spills of liquid guck to show when one was close enough to see past the mirage of its speckled stone. 

The fucking kitchen. Prologued by a garbage that gave off a distinct smell of mold as you passed by and a fridge that hid within it the few rotten leftovers of unfinished meals. 

It was that fucking kitchen, representing my soul that gave me pause. That kitchen was my anxiety, my pain, my grief, my constant feeling of invisibility, my need to be seen and to be loved. It was my hidden truth disguised and boobytrapped with so many obstacles and distractions that by the time you decided where to even fucking start, you were already too fucking tired to even consider taking on the task that needed the most attention. 

It was the overwhelming feeling of looking at that fucking mess of a kitchen, that reminded me how many people had told me I was selfish. It was a reminder of all the times someone pretended to listen to me, yet heard nothing I said as they smiled and nodded at the appropriate times, waiting for the chance to change the subject back to them. It was each of those dirty fucking dishes, each one piled on top of the other in a way that made the entire stack look as if it could crash at any moment with the slightest of whisper, each of those dirty fucking dishes placed by someone other than myself because it was just a little too much to rinse off and place in the dishwasher just a few inches further; just so much easier to sneak it in the pile with the others before anyone saw, knowing I wouldn’t say anything and eventually take care of them all myself. 

The beer bottles, purchased with the dwindling money in my possession accompanied the dishes on the countertop next to the sink. Each one placed there this time from my own hands, brought up to the kitchen from the basement below where they had been left, scattered around the rooms like random ornaments on a Christmas tree, all collected from different trips throughout the years, making the tree’s decorative concept have no real definition. Each of those beer bottles had different amounts of liquid, a mixture of stale beer and backwash, that settled at the bottom, further adding to the stench lingering in the vicinity. 

That dirty fucking kitchen, with it’s dirty fucking dishes, and it’s dirty fucking countertops, adorned with erratically place, week old, stench reeking beer bottles... was me. And for the fucking life of me, all I could manage to do was the same things everyone else had done when they came over to enjoy the festivities of my hospitality… walk on by as if I hadn’t the slightest interest or concern of the chaos that was clearly a cry for fucking help. 

And as I stood staring at that kitchen, failing at the attempt of forcing myself to just clean it, I wondered, how long it would actually be before anyone else would acknowledge the ticking time bomb that was hiding in plain…fucking…sight. 

And that is when it finally fucking happened…I finally fucking cried.