Cry to me.

(Just imagine Solomon Burke's "Cry to Me" in the background fading out).

DEBRA , 45 to her younger co-worker, who is in a bathroom stall.  

I don’t mean to do the whole I’m older than you thing, but I am. So I will. I don’t know what this is about, or why you left the room, and I know you’re embarrassed that it happened like that, during the presentation. Okay, that was unfortunate. You can get some extra tears out on that one. But you can stay in the restroom as long as you want. If you want I can tell the guys that you’re on your period and your grandma just died. No, don’t tell me what or who it is, I don’t want to know. Just stop saying, “I’m sorry” Okay? Just stop. Stop. Please stop. Don’t be sorry just get it out.

(She sobs even more.)

It’s fine. Really. And you’re not crazy. Stop saying you're crazy. Stop. Sometimes it just happens. You know me. I don’t feel emotion. I mean I pretend to socially. I fake care so people like me, but it’s not my thing. I get sent cute pictures of puppies and I just sort of feel sorry for them, and the people that wasted 2.5 seconds of their life looking at them. But years ago, this was before I got married. Joe and I had only been dating for a couple of weeks and he ended it, did the whole slow fade thing. I didn’t care, he was just some guy. 

And I’m uptown at Fairway or Zabar’s getting something to go visit my great aunt.-  I think it was a knish- and I just start to cry. And I’m crossing 72^nd street, standing in the middle of the street, and I’m just sobbing. Sobbing gripping onto this knish for dear life.  I almost fall into the ground I’m crying so hard, and I’ve never… This went on for what felt like three minutes, just squatting and crying like I was going to throw up.  Heaving. I was crying so hard that I just started laughing, laughing like an insane person in front of Urban Outfitters, just laughing through sobs.  Teenage girls were just staring, and I’m in a standing fetal position on the cement with a knish.

The thing is I wasn’t crying about Joe, he wasn’t important enough for that. I was crying about me.  I was crying out me. I was crying out everything that I hadn’t. Everything that I was afraid of that I knew and that I didn’t know about. I was crying for everything that I hadn’t felt, and then I was happy that I had the chance to feel all of it.  I was ringing out my system.  So I finished. I've completely lost control, which I don't do. I have mascara just pouring down my face, my eyes look like raisins, and my hair is a mess. I look like a mental patient. And I rounded the corner, and the fucker is standing right there. Joe -who lives downtown mind you- is standing right there, and I thought. “Okay now I am ready, now I can do this, now I have space for this”.

It’s like getting the flu. If you get it once a year it’s healthy because it purges your system. Not to be gross, but you get things out. And I think that’s what you’re doing now. You’re cleansing the system. You're making space. And that’s okay; it’s just easier to put it on a person.  But that person's just a person. I'll watch the door if you want to keep going. 

 Listen to this.