The girl who cried. Full Stop.

If you've ever sat on your unmade bed slumped into a shape like a letter 'C', if you've ever hit your foot on the bottom of a chair and messed up your toenail polish, if you've ever spoken sharply to your kids and then found out that they were innocent, if you've ever run out of money, run out of time, run out of patience...

If you've ever been too hot, forgotten to drink enough water, stopped exercising for a year...  If you've ever put your head down on a concrete floor and given up, only to peel yourself up and continue washing dishes a few minutes later, if you've ever been late for dinner or paying a bill, if you've ever sighed overly loudly and then been caught peeking to see if anyone noticed...

If you've ever been so bored your teeth hurt, if you've ever looked at the days before you with dismay, if you've ever looked at your face in the mirror with dismay, if you've ever made a bad hair decision, if you've ever bumped your head really hard and then cussed and then felt bad because you just happened to be on camera, if you've ever blamed people just to make yourself feel better, if you've ever been a blamosaurus rex...

If you've ever had a cough for days and days and days, if you've ever broken a tooth on popcorn, if anyone has ever found glass in your food, if you've ever looked at crafting blogs and despaired, if you've ever woken up and realized that you are pretty sure that you are totally mediocre,

well, the following story is for you.

Once upon a time there was a girl who lived in India, and she was a girl, but she was also a mother, which means that if she was having a bad day she wasn't allowed to lock her bedroom door and refuse to come out.  (It's just kind of one of the rules, if you're a girl and a mom.  Also if you're just a mom.)

So this girl who was a mom was having water problems at her house again, and she had a couple of wise friends who had spent a lot of time in the mysterious land of India.  These friends told her, "If you want to get anything done, you have to get mad!"  The girl wasn't at all sure that she could be angry to someone, but she thought she'd give it a shot.  So she called her landlord, (again) and she said, "Listen, I just can't live this way anymore.  I'm spending all my money to send my laundry out, I can't cook, we can't bathe.  This is ridiculous!"

She didn't sound angry, but she did succeed in appearing rather pathetic.  And she learned from the landlord that all had been done that could be done, and nothing more could be solved with the water crisis until the monsoon.  They would just have a little bit of water, each and every day.

And this is what happened to the girl: she pulled one sleeve until it turned inside out, and the other sleeve until it just tore right off her shirt, and then she hopped on one foot in a circle, and then she turned red and then she just began to weep.  The water thing was taking too many thoughts, and the thoughts became bumpy, and the thoughts were not smooth, the way she liked her thoughts to be.  And the children had grown fangs.

So she cried.  She sat down on the floor and cried and cried, and soon all the things that were sad but that she hadn't cried about (because she was a girl AND a mom) were filling up her head and demanding that tears be dedicated to them too.  And then the neighbors began to line up and write small things on pieces of paper, things that needed to be cried about, and then the internets joined in, and the girl who was a mom wept until her tears formed their own clouds and a great storm came.  The great storm turned into a great monsoon and after a few days, the water came rushing into all the tanks in the village.

All the villagers were very happy, plus they'd had their sad things cried over, and so they bought the girl who was a mom a bathtub of her very own, so she could soak her old feet in it and then rub some nice smelling lotion into them.

And it was all because the girl who was a mom had let herself cry. (There's no rule against it!)

The End