Crocodile Tears

Today is my last day of work, weird.

I saw my girls yesterday and they presented me with a poster of pictures from this year by the dumpster where I was throwing something away.  How sentimental.  :)  They gave it to me and asked me if I was going to cry when I left. I went, "Uhh, probably not? I don't know. Why? That's weird, why do you want me to cry?" Their response, " I dunno...we cried making this."

They want me to cry so they can see how much I care about them.   I don't know if I'll cry. I'm not a crier, at least not in that sense.  There will probably be a salty oil spill on the plane on the way to Seattle that will terrify those around me.  I'll think of them and their poster and my dog and my friends and Middleswarth Barbecue chips and I'll be sure I'm making a big mistake.  While dating what's his face we would go to these pre-marriage therapy sessions (seriously, thank God for those) and he would talk about want to see me more vulnerable.  How he, in so many words, wanted me to cry more.  I remember being totally baffled like, wait, you actually want to see me cry.  Both he and the therapist tried to explain that it wasn't about the tears, it was about me needing him.  He wanted to feel needed.  That never sat right with me.

My goal for today is to write something so the girls will know just how much I care about them.  I'll urge them to measure my love, not by the tears on the last day, but through every interaction we've had over the past year.  I will miss them. In fact, I already do. I just wish they could understand that this is for me. Me leaving my alma mater to move across the country to a city I've never been is a decision I'm making for myself.  I want them to make similar decisions throughout their lives.  They should be loving, kind, benevolent, and philanthropic, but at the end of the day they need to make decisions that will benefit them so they can benefit others.

Hopefully, someday, they'll forget about measuring love by crocodile tears. They will, instead, recognize it in the words and actions of those around them.