I mostly cry in the shower. Or more specifically, in the bath, because I can't currently stand to shower.
I could be all poetic and say it's because I can hide my tears, even from myself, in the shower. The tears mingle freely with the spray from the shower rose as I douse my head; rinse shampoo and conditioner from my locks.
But it's not that. It's just that they seem to come most freely in there. Where the white noise from the water and the exhaust fan drown out everything but my own voluble and constant thoughts. Thoughts I can no longer shut out.
Crying in the shower feels cleansing; even just for a day. Until my next shower; the next time I'm completely alone with my thoughts again, and they well up, unbidden, once more.
The shower might be where I find myself in tears the most often, but lately I find myself crying almost anywhere. Everywhere. I struggle to think of a day in the past couple of months where tears didn't catch in my throat, even if I somehow managed to stifle them from pouring forth.
The first time they came, despite my best efforts, when saying goodbye at the end of a heartrending afternoon to a woman who looked like my mother, but only briefly appeared to be her, in glimpses.
She knew me when I arrived. She greeted me with open arms and a hug, despite her confused state about almost everything else. That gave me hope for just a little while, but as she repeated the same questions over and over to the hospital staff and my father, that hope died a little each time. My heart broke when she wanted to leave with us, saying 'I just want to spend time with both of you', but we knew we couldn't take her with us for at least another day.
I tried to hide the tears from my heartbroken father over the coming days, but they choked me when I tried to speak more often than I could control.
When my mother told me in one of her lucid moments, 'Don't ever let this happen to you', I hid my tears over her shoulder as I hugged her close, and left the room as soon as she became distracted with one of her newfound obsessive rituals. Barely able to breath, the tears finally streaming down my face in the next room.
Since then, I've cried in shock, in pain, in frustration and anger. In fear and panic. For what I've lost; what I'm losing.
Through my life, I've mostly managed to go without crying much in public. Not unrestrained ugly crying, at least.
But I was crying in the airport as I turned away to go through Security after she asked me when I'd be back and told me to come back soon. I told her I would, knowing full well that by the time I return she'll be gone; one way or another. As I promised, I saw that she could see the look in my eyes, and she looked like she knew she should look the same but she seemed confused about what to feel; why I might have that look in my eyes.
And I ugly-cried in a light plane over Bass Strait. I didn't care that the stewardess could see me as she went through her safety demonstration. I didn't care that the other passengers could hear my sniffles and sobs. I couldn't have stopped it, even if I'd cared.
For about a week my morning ritual consisted of tears. Tears of frustration at myself and others for the things I couldn't do unaided. For shower roses out of reach. Over the inability to lower myself to the floor of the shower or raise myself to standing to get dry. Over being left alone to do things I would usually do alone, but I couldn't.
When my mind manages to drift away from family for a while, I've cried for things I wish to be so, and things I believe will never be. I've cried in his arms. I've cried because I can't be in his arms.
Every day I've felt sure I have no more tears left, but then I tell someone about my mum. I talk with my dad and watch the heartbreak wash over his face again. We cry together over Skype, and I cry later about being so far away when all this is happening. For not being able to take away the hurt, the frustration; for not being able to change any of this.
I cry because she's already gone. Even if she's not yet gone.
And then I cry some more.