Lists, Lows, and Gender Sterotypes

Hi –

So that moment that I’ve been secretly afraid of for all of my professional years happened today. I cried in a meeting. A meeting with all men. All bigger than me men. In a meeting I called. My embarrassment level is officially off the charts. I handled it in the best way possible, meeting was called to an end and I left as quickly as possible, tripping along the way and spilling coffee on myself. Today will go down as not a winner.

Honestly, it’s just topping to what has not been my favorite week. I’ve just felt off, hence why I’m writing. It’s been a very very very long time.

I commented on a blog I read the other day. It was about what losing your mom really felt like. There was a great line in it…”Losing a mother is like being on a ship that has lost it's ballast and is now at the mercy of the deepest ocean and all it holds within. I bob around without a foundation to bring me back to the same balanced spot each time, a spot I just can't get right.” It’s so very true.

My comment was how I want to tell her it will get better; she lost her mom in the last 6 months. But I think that’s a lie we tell ourselves so that we get up the next day. It doesn’t ever get better. That’s the hard realization that I’ve slowly been coming too. I talked about it a lot in the beginning, that I didn’t see it ever getting better. That I saw myself now with a hole in my heart. Or this truth about myself that I had to carry around. It’s so much more and different then all of those things.

I make lists now. I have a running list of things in my head of what you’ve missed. Or won’t get to see. Milestones like how in December I bought my first car. Lowest of low moments like today where I cried at work. Amazing ones like seeing Garth Brooks in concert. Seriously amazing. Then the in-between ones like attending my first PGA show, or the latest movie I saw that was really good. Tons and tons of lists.

Today was a rough day all on it’s own. You not being able to help me through it makes it doubly rough. Apologizing for crying is not a fun thing to do ever. Especially at work. Especially to men.  I’ve never been the type of person to pay attention to gender stereotypes at work. Mainly because I refuse to believe that this is still something that goes on. It’s completely unacceptable and unfathomable. And yet today I played right into it. Like a fucking fiddle. My name is Rachel Rosenthal and today I cried at work.

Fuck me!

Love you forever, Miss you Always,

Rachel

“Some people say, “Never let them see you cry.” I say, if you’re so mad you could just cry, then cry. It terrifies everyone.” Tina Fey, Bossypants