I saw a quote the other day that said, ‘I smile to stop myself from crying’ and I felt that. Following that I saw one that said, ‘You have to learn to smile through your pain. Sometimes it’s all we got’ and that hit me too. Lately I’ve been trying to show my face more, whether in person or Zoom. I smile constantly because at any moment, I can break but if I’m smiling, it helps stop the tears and then others don’t know what I’m going through. I’m starting to realize it’s a bit like a double edge sword though. With smiles come the, ‘I’m glad to see you so happy’ or ‘It’s so nice to see you smile again’ and even ‘I’m glad to see you’re doing so well’. Every time I hear this, I grit my teeth and keep smiling. Sometimes it’s followed by a ‘thanks’ but often times I keep walking and smiling. I mean, what do you say to that? Oh I’m not really doing that well but I’m great at pretending?! LOL Could you imagine their faces if I replied with that? I mean, who knows, it may happen one day but so far, I’ve been able to contain my pain as needed.
I’ve mentioned it several times before, we only allow others to see what we want them to. The picture below on the left is what I want people to see when I’m working, in public, at social events, etc. Even though many days I’m feeling like the photo on the right. If I were to show up as myself on the right when I went out, it wouldn’t be great. Sure, it’s OK sometimes to be raw with your emotions and how you’re feeling but I’m also finding, it makes people really uncomfortable. And making people uncomfortable is already something I do with my dark humor so I try to minimize that when possible LOL. As a widow, we also don’t want to bring others down. We don’t want people to cater to us or make a fuss about us being down and out. We certainly don’t want anyone to say, ‘what’s the matter?’ either. So, we put on the face and we smile. Like the quote says, ‘You have to learn to smile through your pain. Sometimes it’s all we got’ and that is so true. Sometimes smiling is all we have, all we can do and all we can manage. The pain doesn’t go away, it never will but I do believe one day it will get lighter. In the meantime, I’ll smile to avoid crying and continue to smile through the pain because the world didn’t stop when I lost my husband. Life kept going and I need to as well.
This was a bit of a ramble! But those quotes just got me when I read them and I wanted to share. Today I’ll smile because I can, I’ll embrace the good moments when they arise and I’ll continue to be kind to myself, for myself.
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