Why am I Crying in Public?

I have never been an emotional person. I especially have never been someone who would dare to cry in public. Truthfully, I judged people who couldn’t hold it together in public. A naturally self-conscious person, I couldn’t imagine anything more embarrassing than crying in public. Yet, here I am, only halfway through my second trimester, and I have already managed to uncontrollably shed tears in public twice. Both times I was not sad. No one had hurt my feelings. I was not thinking about love, or loss or life’s great mysteries. I was just really, really tired. No matter how hard I tried to remain cool, calm, and collected, the exhaustion of pregnancy had me beat.

The first time, I was in a crowded Mexican restaurant with my husband and my parents. We had just had a great, but long day exploring DC. The sun was shining extra strong, ushering in spring with an uncharacteristically warm 80-degree day in March. We embraced the change of pace from winter and walked all over the city. We started with a subway from Arlington into DC to see some monuments. We strolled through the Lincoln Memorial, World War II, and Vietnam War memorials before joining the masses by the Tidal Basin to see the Cherry Blossoms. That was only the first half of the day. We then made our way to the Navy Yard for MLB opening weekend to see the Phillies vs Nationals game. We had over an hour to kill before the first pitch was thrown, so we stopped at Kilwin’s for ice cream. I sat for the first time in hours (the metro does not count as the comfortable, put-your-feet up-and-take-a-load-off- experience my body desperately needed). I shamelessly took my shoes and socks off and aired out my ugly, swollen feet for all the world to see. I wanted to retain some fragment of class, so I put my shoes and socks back on before heading into the game. No matter what I did — hydrate, snack, close my eyes for a few seconds — I couldn’t shake the overwhelming sense of fatigue. But we had come all this way, so I toughed out the heat, lasting 8 out of 9 innings in a trance.

By the time the game ended and we got back to my apartments in Arlington, it was after 8PM. I wanted nothing more than to shower and climb into bed. I didn’t want dinner. I didn’t want to socialize. I didn’t want to spend more time out in the world. I just wanted to be horizontal, fully succumbing to the drift I had been feeling for hours. As I had been during our adventures all day, I pushed through. I didn’t want to cut the night short for my parents visiting and did not want to deprive anyone of a meal after a day of activity. I sucked it up and walked the additional half mile to dinner. Because nothing can go smoothly when you are trying to accomplish something quickly, we had to wait 20 minutes after our reservation to be seated. And for the icing on the cake, our server did not come by to take our order for the first 20 minutes we were seated. My dad finally waved the server down, a move I would usually be embarrassed by, but was too tired to care. The waitress was clearly new, fumbling to press the correct buttons on her tablet to input each item of our order. After our selections were finally submitted, we joked about how the poor waitress did not know being aggressively flagged down by an old, small white man was in her job description. I was laughing until a strange facial spasm interfered. My laughter was disrupted and replaced with full out sobbing. In the middle of a restaurant, sandwiched between one large party celebrating a birthday and another group of rowdy Gen Zers, I started hysterically crying. Full crocodile tears. Snot building by the minute. My breathing rapidly increasing until it was a full body experience. It was humiliating. But I couldn’t stop it.

The second time I had a public episode was at my friend’s wedding. I had a great day of socializing, eating, enjoying sunshine, celebrating my friend, and most importantly, destroying the dance floor. I was feeling good, I had actually even taken off my heels later than all of my friends. Mind you, they were probably 2 inches shorter than the shoes everyone else was wearing, but I secretly acknowledged the accomplishment. A shuttle was supposed to depart the venue destined for the hotel at 10:30 PM. This was past my bedtime on a normal night, but early to call it quits at a wedding. I was having a good time, but the yawns were starting to become more frequent, and the DJ had played enough B-list songs in a row that I felt I could gracefully pull myself from the party. I thought I was making a responsible decision. Shutting down my night before my body could shut down on me. My husband and I said our goodbyes and scurried to not miss the shuttle. When we got on, an empty bus stared back at us. We asked the driver what time he was leaving and he replied, “10.” My husband and I gave each other a knowing look and sat down. We didn’t have the energy to alert the driver that it was well after 10. At least it was quiet and there was AC. I closed my eyes and let myself rest. 10 minutes turned to 20, 20 to 30. Around 11, a few loud party-goers started to filter on the bus. I was annoyed by the disruption, but was not going to let myself get upset. This was a wedding. This was a normal behavior. I was the outlier. I was the one who could not hang. The clock approached 11:30 before the bus was full and the driver gave rumblings of any indication we would be departing. Still, we were waiting. It was then that I opened my eyes to cheering. My friend, the bride, had finally boarded the bus. As she made her way through the aisle, she locked eyes with me.

“I thought you left hours ago?!” she asked. I thought so too. I told her the shuttle didn’t leave. Before I knew it or could stop it from happening, my friend knowingly said, “you’re about to cry.”

And that was it. On a bus filled with friends and strangers, I started crying. The tears streamed down my face. My breaths became shorter and uglier. I buried my face in my husband’s shoulder. I did not want my friends to think I was being selfish. For the strangers who didn’t know I was pregnant, I did not want the judgment that I was a fun-sucker or that I was weird or emotionally unstable. The reality probably was the same as with many things in life we find ourselves embarrassed by — No one cares! My friends who knew I was pregnant understood I must be tired. Although they were yet to have first-hand experience, they knew I needed my rest.

What I learned from my two drama performances was a humbling lesson. No one expected me to keep up with them. It was only me that needed to learn it’s ok to slow down. It’s ok to need to rest. It’s ok to acknowledge that you’re pregnant and not operating at your normal energy and fun levels. Growing a life required a lot of energy. My energy had been drained from my activities, and I had nothing left in the tank. It’s part of the process. I was still learning what that process entailed and how to delicately manage it, but I knew I need to give myself more grace. It was not the end of the world if I cried in public. Maybe one day my friends will bring this up and tease me about it — I am sure my husband will — but again, who cares. I was experiencing something only some women are blessed to endure. Pregnancy is a wild ride, and you have to accept the ebbs and flows — flows of tears included.