:')... smiling with tears

This :') is my own personal smiley. There's only ever been one person that's picked up on the fact that the tear... is indeed a tear, but they still didn't get how deep it is. I really don't cry in front of people... like ever. I'm incredible at fighting/hiding my tears and pain. My best friend for five years has now only seen me cry on two occasions; Once when I got in a bad rappelling accident and burned the $h!# out of my hands, and again when my brother left for the Marines before I got to say goodbye. That's it... I just don't cry in public. The inside of my mouth is chewed to shreds on account of stress, fighting back tears, anger and the like. But my world really is painful, there're so many people who I give love to, and receive indifference in return, people who just plain hate me, people who ignore me or talk down to my face or behind my back, people who disapprove of me, and people who tear me up all they can (many without even realizing it). There's no one to believe that I'm beautiful... or make me believe it. No one who sees my strong/good traits and appreciates them. I know God fills all of these voids/wounds... but I yearn for more. I keep myself from crying because I don't want peoples pity, their judgment (and also because they'd hate me because of the number of tears I'd have) . I'm strong, I can usually hide it all... this week was too much though, my brother left for the Marines on Monday. He wasn't supposed to leave 'til November, but they bumped it up to this month... I was dealing with that. But he was set to leave on Tuesday, so I cleared my schedule for Monday afternoon and all of Tuesday. ... They took him away Monday morning, said they made a mistake. I had to work... I think about 8 tears ran down my face when I found out. It took everything I had to stop... but I was with someone else. It wasn't "ok" in my book. I forced myself through the morning and early afternoon... but when I stepped into my house and got in the shower, I just sat down and cried. No one could see me, no one could hear me... I stayed there for a long time... but not nearly long enough, nothing would have been long enough. When I got out I was still crying, so much that after I dried off, I literally got soaked again with my tears. I forced myself to stop, washed my face, applied makeup, and went to be "normal". But some dimwit had the great idea of giving me a huge hug and asking me if I was doing ok... I said no, at least I was honest... I lost it for about 30 seconds, no sobs, just tears. It was the first time I've ever cried in front of people, other than from extreme pain... I hated all of the looks of pity and people telling me "It's ok to cry," then telling every one else in the room "no one make fun of her!". That night I stayed up 'til 5 crying silently, no one knew. I don't cry in front of people, not ever even my parents. The couple times my real friends have seen me cry, they've started crying for me. They knew that for me to cry it was really really bad. My brother saw me cry a little bit once... he got pissed at the people who caused it, I told him not to do anything. He's been the only one to understand at all through everything... Now he's pretty much gone.


So when you see my smiley, it means more than you think. 


Alanna D