just call me Amanda Woods.

I'm not good at expressing emotions.
Or, to put a positive spin on it, I'm wonderful at putting up a completely blank face.
I can show happiness and excitement very easily, but when it comes to being sad or angry or frustrated or annoyed, I hold everything inside. I use words all the time to express my frustration, but what I say often completely lacks true emotions. I let the sadness and frustration build up inside of me for months.
Until I let myself become sleep-deprived. Working a show is good for that.

Allow me to back up and explain a little bit.
Through elementary and middle school, I was the one who cried about everything. I was the sensitive, emotional, wimpy, etc. girl.
When I got to high school, I didn't want that reputation anymore. I started hiding everything. I still felt the emotions, but I rarely cried.

Through my sin struggle between sophomore and senior years, I withdrew even more. No one really knew much of anything about me. At CDYC last summer, I was able to talk to my small group leader about the struggle I had been hiding, and have been able to talk about it more since then. I'm overall more open about things now.

But I hate being comforted, so I am careful about the amount of upset feelings I show. It has become a struggle to truly show my emotions. I can describe my feelings quite well, but when it comes to having outward emotional reactions, I feel almost like a failure.

In the past couple of weeks, a lot of things have gone wrong. Nothing too major, but it's been building. I haven't been able to really process it and let it all go, not that I do that very well anyway. I have been feeling a little off and frustrated and emotional lately. A couple days ago, I realized that I hadn't cried, really cried, since Christmas Break. I know that there are other causes behind my weird feelings of late, but I'm pretty sure most of it has been coming from my inability to release my feelings in a healthy way. I've noticed myself becoming more irritable and withdrawn in the past week, and that bothered me. I hate lashing out at people.

Last night, I wanted desperately to cry. I tried everything from listening to The Fray to reenacting the scene from "The Holiday" in which Cameron Diaz's character is trying to make herself cry. I needed something to remind me that I am a human and am capable of experiencing and displaying emotion. I was so close. I could feel it in my face. But the tears never came.

I was frustrated about it today.

I have a psychology test on Tuesday and my study group was planning to meet tonight. I decided that I wanted to feel good about myself when we sat down to work. I was looking nice and was getting ready to go.

Then, my daddy texted me. He asked if I was doing ok.
I said that I was great, other than waiting for something to push me over the edge so I could cry.
About a minute later, he called me.
That was enough to make the tears come. What a relief!!
(Thanks, Daddy.)

After we hung up, I though about having to walk over to the library. I hate wearing coats, but the outfit I was wearing would have required one. So I decided to change, choosing comfort over looking good. I walked out of my room to head to the library, I felt wonderful. I could breathe easily again. I wasn't feeling like I needed to hide anything. I was able to enjoy spending time with my study group, even though we spent most of the time talking about not-psychology. We had a great time talking about everything from world football (because "'soccer' is such an American word") to "stop-smoking rubber bands" vs. stop smoking rubber bands to what kind of parents we will be. And I only got genuinely frustrated once. And I didn't hide it.

I think we all just need to cry sometimes.