swimming in my own tears

I'm too old for kiddy pools.

Today, I celebrated myself for not crying. Not one tear was shed.

For the majority of April, I have been ugly-crying. My forehead has become bruised from frowning while weeping every five minutes. Swollen knots began forming in my shoulders from tensing my body due to stress. Doing my makeup in the morning was a waste of time — by 9:40 AM my eyeliner would be smearing down my face — the tears came in waves until I went to bed. It was a constant cycle of misery. Stress truly does kill; I felt my body shutting down on me as days went by.

I’m sure you are wondering how I finally broke the cycle. The answer was quite simple; it took me a long time to find it.

I chose the path to focus on myself.

I have always found myself to be co-dependent. Due to not receiving love as ‘normal’ kids would from their families, my perception of love and affection turned out to be extremely warped. I fell in love with men who were kind to me in the most minimal way. Most men put me through the wringer. Even then, I would find ways to forgive — every. single. time. It happened with friends too; I let people use me as their punching bag because receiving attention was good enough for me to stick around. I despised being alone. I wanted to feel needed and important at all times. I have always been helpful, wanting to take care of others in need. I did not realize that this was a trauma response until recently. Sure, I view myself as a kind person overall. But I view myself as selfish too. Wanting to save others and be with them to make myself feel less alone and wanted, is just as awful as being treated like shit. That puts me at the same level as the people who hurt me. And why would I want to stoop down to their level?

I turned 26 years old in April. The tears that I have shed this past month could easily fill up a kiddy pool. I realized I’m getting too old for this. I am too exhausted to be putting others before me, especially when the love is not reciprocated. I realized that I no longer wanted to swim in my tears. The only way to put a stop to this is to put all focus on embracing the loneliness. So, I did just that. I bought myself a car. I booked a spontaneous massage appointment after work to fix the stress knots formed in my shoulders. I went grocery shopping alone. I even got gas after the sun went down. Tomorrow I am going to the movie theatre — alone — for the first time in my life. After continuing these mundane tasks for two days straight, the tears magically stopped.

You can view this in two different ways:

1. I have distractions that keep me occupied from crying.

2. I am finding ways to heal by doing little tasks alone.

I like to view it as number two. Whenever I look back at my past self, I know for a fact that she would not survive a night alone without falling into a deep dark hole. She would not have been able to make decisions on her own. She was full of fear, doubt, and insecurities. Not stating that has fully gone away, but I am more open to challenges. Being in your 20’s figuring out how to be an adult is already difficult as it is — why make it more difficult when you can embrace adulthood? Holding myself strong and dusting off my knees when I fall, is the only way to keep my tears from falling. As cliche as that sounds, it really is the truth. My tears stopped after I began to focus on my health and priorities. I don’t know how else to view it other than that my body was desperately crying for help. Look at me, Lilia! Focus on me for once in your life.

The tears may return tomorrow. Who knows? I may have another month of filling up the kiddy pool again. But knowing that I have begun the process of healing, alone, is a milestone I never thought I could reach. And that’s enough to keep me from swimming for another day. For once in my life, I am excited for this healing journey. I am excited to embrace the loneliness, to sit in silence with my loud thoughts instead of fighting for a distraction of human connection.

If I want to go for a dip, you can find me at the beach becoming one with Mother Nature. Not my kiddy pool.