I cried at work today.

It happened quietly. I was washing dishes, with my back to the rest of the room so nobody could see.

I was operating on maybe four and a half hours of sleep. I had just worked as hard as I could for three consecutive days and I still had the fourth day, ahead of me. And I was just so tired.

The chaos and the noise happening around me suddenly collided with the anxiety and turmoil going on inside my head. I can usually cope with either one of those things separately, but it’s tricky to manage both at the same time.

And it was all too much, and the tears bubbled up and out and then I was swallowing sobs and standing up straight and tall and strong to keep my shoulders from shaking.

In the back of my mind, there is a calm place. It’s a bit like the eye of a storm. Inside of that space, I was able to think – okay, okay. So I’m crying at work. I’m surrounded by people I don’t know and I’m having an honest to goodness meltdown and I am crying at work.

And honestly, I don’t really care.

I felt surprise and also tangible relief when I realized that I was crying at work and it actually didn’t fucking matter.

I have been washing dishes for half an hour and I am already soaked to the bone with dirty water and I haven’t slept or eaten enough in days and the pile of dishes to wash is stacked high and is growing and nobody is saying thank you or even looking at me, so if there was ever going to be a time when it made sense to cry, it would sure as hell be right now.

And I needed to cry, and nobody was about to fucking take that away from me.

Once, I might have worried about people thinking less of me for crying and it would have sent me further into that state of distress. But in that moment, I just felt indignant and angry that anybody could think less of another human being for needing to cry. That indignation at the ridiculousness of the state of things kept me in a place where I was able to breathe.

I can work as fast as I physically can soaking wet for seven hours. I can fly across slick floors balancing heavy dishes on one hip, lifting them higher than I can reach over my head to the top shelf. I can plunge both hands into scalding water over and over again. I can send every dish from this entire restaurant through this battered old machine, on a busy Saturday afternoon, in an unfamiliar kitchen, with nobody else on the schedule to help me. And this is fine.

Just please don’t tell me I can’t cry.

My grumpy old kitchen lady friend looked at me and shook her head and told me that a grown man twice my size would have had a hard time with that shift.

By the end of the day, the line cooks had started shouting at me across the kitchen to take a break. “Go get a popsicle out of the freezer, and if you find them right away, pretend like you didn’t for a while.” Appearently, I looked like I was going to pass out, but I was still going because there was more to do…

I drove home feeling a strange sensation of lightness. Maybe it was joy. I can’t for the life of me understand why, and currently my money is on the endorphins flooding my body after walking five miles worth of steps in that crowded little space.

I don’t feel like many people work a dishwashing shift and then come home and write about their days like this.

I hope it’s a good night