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I've always hated crying for as long as I've known.

It must have been instinct-- as a baby I kept my mouth shut on long flights and between naps, at Chinese New Year visits and in the arms of adult strangers who were friends of my parents.

I absolutely knew that I hated crying as a toddler, as it never made my problems go away. It just made my face hot and sweaty, my hair sticking to it in the most unbearable of ways. But above all, I hated crying because it made my throat hurt, in ways that even the worst fevers could never do. It would ache and sting like a horrible infection, strangling my voice and cutting off my breaths.

Crying felt like self-imposed torture, and I avoided it like the plague.

I succeeded for nearly two decades now, entirely forgetting how it felt to have my throat close up on itself, like two sheets of inflamed sandpaper rubbing against each other.

Now, I am just as I was when I was five, barely able to speak between rough, noisy breaths, struggling in ways that would appear almost embarrassing as an adult. The tears are as unruly as ever, hot streaks that ruin my makeup and leave salty deposits in random crevices of my skin. Once again, my throat throbs horribly, as if purposefully trying to choke itself.

I found a few squashed popcorn kernels at the bottom of my bag. Leftovers from Sunday, a handful of hours ago, when things were ever-so-slightly different.

Seeing with my Today eyes, everything seems just a little out of place. Like everything has been shifted exactly one inch to the left, leaving behind whispers of dust, sun-bleached ink, oil stains from stubborn pieces of blu-tack.

Instinct and routine become foreign, leaving absolutely nothing for me to fall back upon. Instead of a warm bed, I instead find the hard crackle of laminated wood tile. I do not get up-- like everything else, I can't find it in me to do so.

Instead, I fish a piece of abandoned popcorn out, curiously placing it in my mouth. It still tastes very faintly of salt, which tingles at the tip of my tongue. But more than anything, I feel the rubbery, hard texture of stale popcorn that presses against my teeth and threatens to make a gap between them its new home.