5 Quick Ways to Stop Crying (or Pretend You're Not)

My sister Joni and niece Anya just drove to the airport and I spent the entire day holding back tears. I wished that my tear ducts were paralyzed and stuffing my eyelids with tissue didn't drain my tears either. This post may be helpful someday, so read some of the ways to halt those tear ducts.

1. Visualize - visualize that what's happening isn't really happening. Example, I convinced myself that they are not going to Australia but the mall.

2. Wash the dishes - and be very O.C. about food stains, scrub them hard, think how you can make the plates whiter. I washed the dishes 15 minutes before they left, then washed them really slow. This gets your head out of the situation and gives you an excuse why you are silent. It's hard to talk when holding back tears, there's like a clog on your throat.

3. Lock yourself inside the bathroom - breathe in and breathe out, here's your chance to do number 1 again (visualize). This is also the step where you can stuff your eyelids with tissue paper. Make sure every drop of tear is absorbed.

4. Pretend you're doing something in the bathroom - after bathroom 1, go to bathroom 2. This is the last resort when you really can't hold them back anymore. As they were leaving, I pretended that I was busy on the toilet. Flush the toilet and pour some water to make it sound realistic.

Then when the car drove away, I stuffed my eyes again with tissue.

5. To further distract yourself, watch a movie on cable TV.

It didn't helped though that when I finally rolled down my tears in my bedroom, my mean boyfriend appeared from behind the curtains, shooting the camera at me. He was laughing and announced that I was crying. I didn't find it funny for the record.

Here's hoping I'll be seeing them this May in Melbourne.