TGICryday 04/05 - Tummy Troubles, Women's Basketball, and a Loss
Well hello!!
It’s been a while!
The Guinness Book of World Records is still discussing my entry for “fastest bailing on a New Years Resolution Ever in the History of Ever” so keep your fingers crossed that my immediate negligence at least yields a plaque.
In my defense, I’ve spent much of the past four months boy yoy yoing - ing around the country/Americas with various family obligations. Did I have access to the internet there? Yes. Did I cry enough to write about? Yes. Did I have time to write? Yes. But… did I have an excuse that gave procrastination a moral spin? Also yes.
I am here now! And I’m excited to meet some of you new readers who hopped on this wild ride courtesy of my friend and New York Times Bestselling Author Lyz Lenz who lets me tag along and guest write her Dingus of the Week column.
Without further ado, here are the things that made my cry this week:
Tummy Hurts
I’ve been having some (not scary, just annoying) medical stuff going on that makes my tummy hurt all the time and sometimes it makes me so frustrated I have to cry a little.
Feeling unwell makes me a frightened kind of angry-tired that reduces me to 5-year-old-esque foot stomp pouting. I feel like the blue shirted tween in this picture here, terrified of cake. Is there a more regrettable state to be in than wary of things you love?
I know I’m going to get better (tune in next week when I cry because I’m pissed off about knowing what FODMAPs are) but being in an off and on state of chronic illness already makes any deviation from physical normalcy feel like a devastating regression rather than the temporary blip it is. Although when I feel like a helpless child as an adult, I am totally allowed to have cookies for breakfast :)
Women’s Basketball
Basketball was the great love and break up of my life. I was fortunate enough to never have to end a relationship with a person I was still in love with, but basketball and I parted ways without animosity, because we both wanted more and different than the other could give. There were things I loved more, trusted more, and was better suited for. I couldn’t commit. My choice was correct but I, of course, will never quite get over her.
Watching Women’s Basketball’s exponential growth over the past few years has shaken loose parts of me that I thought had disappeared. Women are being excellent and angry, dominant and moody, poised and relentless, focused and furious, in front of everyone. Women are, publicly, unabashedly, and definitively wanting to fucking win.
I’ve cried in advance of watching Iowa play UCONN tonight, I’ll probably cry a few times during the actual game while explaining some game nuances to my husband. They’ll be tears for the girl basketball made me. They’ll be tears for the basketball girl I declined to be. They’ll be tears of joy for this moment and anger for how long it took. Tears for what it still takes to elevate superior women and for the persistent and unfair consequences of that visibility. And inevitably they will be tears of the perpetual discomfort of adjustment. That I have structured a life that positions me on the outside of something that is so permanently inside me. That to me, basketball is cellular. And to basketball, I am just another fan.
A Loss
My first comedy family, the staff of The Late Show, lost a wonderful soul this past week. I’ll let their words be the ones to define her impact and memory, but I do want to share this link to a fund that supports one of her favorite organizations that works to make hospital stays a little less terrible for kiddos having health problems.
Wanting to make things good is a noble and generous pursuit. Wanting to make things less bad is, sometimes, a more humble, honest, and necessary one. Watching that donation number go up certainly does not make things okay. But it does make them not as awful. For now, that’ll have to be enough.
I love you all! I hope if you have cried this week, your tears have done what you needed them to do.
I’ll see you next Cryday <3
TKP