Are You Crying?

Why Not?

There’s always something to cry about…

I despised hearing my mom’s sobs echoing off the bathroom walls when she attempted to drown her sadness in a tepid soup of sorrow each night during her bath. She thought she was keeping her grief contained in the bathroom, but it floated through the house like the steam rising from the tub.

Divorce had undone her. The source of my angst in the house had shifted from the tension and tumult of my parents’ marriage to the force of my mom falling apart. I couldn’t handle her pain then. I viewed it as weakness, something to avoid at all costs. Empathy never crossed the threshold of my emotions back then. I think it would have broken me at the time.

The fortress I built around myself kept me safe. I ran from vulnerability like it was a weapon-wielding intruder. Didn’t have the strength to carry any bit of my mom’s pain along with mine.

I did actually cry quite often as a child but only when alone. Allowing anyone else to witness my tears would have been like a terrified puppy rolling onto its back to bare its belly in submission. I refused to be like a puppy. I wanted to be a sharp-toothed wolf. So only by myself, I cried. In front of anyone else, never.

I kept this body armor on for years—decades actually. I confused hardness with strength, vulnerability with weakness. Seeing my mom come apart like someone disintegrating before my eyes, I swore I’d never be like her. And I wasn’t for a long time.

Then I became a mother. It was like I inadvertently unzipped my body and all my feelings started falling out. The dam broke, the fortress crumbled, and the flood of emotions and sensitivity I’d been holding at bay all those years began to spew out like a shaken soda can.

I became a crier. In fact, I became a giant mush ball. It was as if all the feeling I’d been holding back, pushing down, and burying had only been lying dormant to silently grow its strength like a tornado building its fury to a crescendo. I felt everything and too much.

New motherhood is its own kind of swirling storm, but I navigated it with an extra layer of emotional force. It was not a traumatic time. Quite the opposite, it was one of the happiest and most rewarding times of my life, but I lived it with an extra edge of rawness, my emotions—and tears—always at the ready.

I became a veritable fountain, and not just when it came to feelings like frustration, sadness, or fear. I cried at all the good stuff too: anything touching or sweet, songs that struck a chord, commercials, happy memories, joy, laughter, just looking at my kids.

Somewhere along the way, I feel like I found my equilibrium when it comes to crying. I am still a sensitive, emotional empath—I’m a Pisces, after all—but I am no longer at risk of freaking someone out at the depth of my breakdown over seeing a cute kitten or watching a sunset.

My crying is now appropriately situational, but if I feel in need of a good cry, I give myself that grace readily and easily. There are times when I retreat to my closet for a good sob or an actual breakdown moment. Privacy is sometimes preferable.

Other times I walk to my quiet place down by the creek on the trails and give myself a teary moment there. And occasionally I let the tears flow freely in front of others, no longer confusing my emotional release with any type of weakness.

I’ve been surprised I haven’t cried more since the death of my best friend a few weeks ago. I’ve welcomed the tears when they’ve come, but they haven’t come as often as I’d expected.

Ironically, one of the things I’m proudest of about our relationship is that I taught Teresa how to cry. She was more blocked off and closed up than me when we met. After my floodgates opened, I could see my former self in her and knew how much emotion she was holding back and stuffing down. Over time, I pushed her to let herself feel the big things and to allow herself to let go and cry. It wasn’t quick or easy for her, but she got there. She dropped her armor and stopped hiding her tender puppy belly too.

While I never relished hearing her cry or getting a sobbing phone call from her, I also always felt a certain sense of gratitude that she’d readily go there with me. I often went there with her too. She was a safe space.

Even as an unabashed crier, I still sometimes need soft places for my feelings to land. We all do. Since Teresa died, I’ve cried on the couch, in the car, and down by the creek. It’s not lost on me that I now have one more big thing to cry about and one less safe space to do it.

I’ll continue to welcome my tears when they come, though. I know that crying is just letting the caring out and letting the feelings flow free and wild. That vulnerability makes us human. That even though it took years for me to become comfortable with crying, my tears have helped tame me. I’m no longer a wolf. I’m happy to be a puppy, and I might just get a little teary about it.