Swallowing Back Tears

You know, as a writer I've often written that phrase in conjunction with a character. "Not wanting him to see the affect his words had on her, she swallowed back her tears." In my life there haven't been very many instances when I've had to do this. I usually let them flow and whoever sees them be hanged. If you've hurt my feelings you deserve to see the waterworks.

But this morning...ahh, this morning.

Nobody hurt my feelings but for whatever reason I found myself swallowing back those pesky tears just the same. You see, today's Valentine's Day. When I was a kid I looked forward to it because it meant those little heart shaped boxes of cream filled chocolates. You know. Those cheap little boxes with the cartoon characters on the lid? My dad as well as my grandparents always got us girls a box. When I was a teenager it started bothering me a little bit when in high school all the other girls (well, the popular girls. very few of MY friends.) got balloons and flowers delivered to school. In college I was too busy working and going to class to let it bother me too much. But by the time I became an adult I'd decided to hate that cursed day with all it's high calorie, Hallmark, vomit inducing, syrupy forced love. This year I was aiming for indifference.

It didn't work. This year, by dang, the day came at the worst possible time of the month. That time when I'm already battling mild depression. I was still going for the indifferent mode, though. Bound and determined to let the day pass without a notice. I'm okay not having a Valentine. And I was doing really well. Really. I wasn't expecting anything from anyone. Unlike last year, I didn't have the whole pity thing going on. (Because you know, last year I was laid up with a busted knee? My mom gave me a DVD and my dad gave me some turtles.) And I was okay with not getting anything. I'm an adult. I don't need stuff.

And then I got in the car with my mom this morning and she hands me this white envelope. Inside is a ten dollar bill she says my dad sent. Money for me to go eat at my favorite Chinese place. It's a totally sweet gesture and entirely unexpected. Especially coming from my dad because frankly, he's never really given me anything just out of the blue like that. Usually it's at my mom's prodding. And yeah, this could have been at her prodding, too for all I know. But it was sweet and I'm grateful.

But then it hit me. I'll be eating there alone. By myself. He wasn't offering to take me out. He was sending me off on my own. And yeah, I've been working on conditioning myself to be okay eating in restaurants alone. I've gotten sort of good at it, actually. But this day. This cursed day....

All of a sudden I've got tears stinging my eyes and I'm wanting to hide away and lick my wounds in private but my mother's sitting there in the car beside me going on about whatever it is she talks about when I'm not paying attention and the one thing I don't want is for her to know that I'm getting depressed. Because hello? I don't want the people I'm closest too to feel sorry for me. Pity=not fun. I hate the thought that they might pity me my depressed single existence. For all they know, I'm single by choice. I've lead them to believe I loathe the very thought of marriage. (and somedays I do.) So I swallowed them back. It almost physically hurt to do so but I did it. And for once, I knew what I was forcing my characters to do. It isn't a fun sensation so I'm thinking I need to apologize to all my characters for forcing them to do that all the time.

At anyrate, I'm okay. I'm really NOT depressed about this cursed day. It is, after all, merely a commercial holiday. And I know there are people in the world who love me. I don't need to be half of a couple to be content or whole. It's just...eating alone that bothers me. That there's not one person I could call and say, "Hey. I've got ten bucks. Let's go eat."

Fortunately, I won't be eating alone tonight, though. I'll be staying with my grandparent's tonight. Pa-Paw is having surgery on his back tomorrow and he's asked me to stay for the next few days to dogsit Penny again. He wants me there tonight so that I'll be there tomorrow morning before he leaves. So for tonight, at least, I won't be alone. The Lord--He does work in wonderful mysterious ways.