Honestly, all the coping skills in the world didn’t stop me from crying over a sandwich.
My partner and I are tight with money, kind of like everyone else. But we celebrated something today and had put a little money aside for this.
We went to get our food. I was so excited. It was an hour drive home and I waited so patiently and was so excited about my sandwich.
We get home and I have to eat my side dish first and save my favourite for last which was the sandwich. I like the side but I have to eat in order of least favourite to favourite.
By the time I get to my sandwich and open it, it’s wrong. See, my partner eats his sandwich first. I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this…
He realizes when I do that he’s just eaten the last bite of my sandwich and I have his which I actually can’t eat because of the ingredients.
I felt so sad. And I wanted to cry. But I found myself trying to not cry. To try and rationalize and figure out why I was truly upset.
But here’s the thing. I was upset over the sandwich. There was no other reason. It was my reward that I’d waited for all week and was so excited for and it was gone. And even if we could rationalize getting me another, it was an hour drive away. It took me a bit to realize that I was trying to use the wrong skills to handle the situation. What I needed was to just feel it and cry about it.
I don’t know. I guess my point is that sometimes our feelings don’t make sense to us. And that’s okay. They’re still valid. I ended up crying over the sandwich. Was it something others would see as ridiculous? Probably. But it doesn’t change the fact that my feelings were real. And pretending they weren’t was just prolonging things for me. Maybe people tell us we shouldn’t cry over a sandwich, but that’s silly. Your feelings are valid even if they don’t make sense to you or others. If you need to cry over the sandwich, then cry over the sandwich. I promise you’re valid.
