Crying
I don’t know what to say.
I just can’t seem to get a handle on what to write about crying.
It’s not some repressed male thing that’s tripping me up. I cry all the time…well, not *all* the time, but you know what I mean. I cry when it’s appropriate.
Like, if I drop something heavy on my foot.
or if I spill my milk.
or at the end of “Old Yeller”
See? No repressed emotions for this new age man! I’m Sensitive!
You know what tears I like?
I love it when someone I love makes me laugh so hard that I can barely breath. When they say something that is so brilliant and beautiful and so damn funny you can’t even think straight, and you laugh and laugh and laugh so much that the tears just role down your cheeks. When you can share that with someone, it’s a powerful thing.
That, I like.
The other kind…
I feel weak. Like my body is betraying me. At my lowest moments, when everything else has been taken from me, and it’s just me and grief and darkness, at that point, as if all that weren’t enough, my body has to shake and the tears come, uncontrollably. When I need to stand, I fall, and the tears come, and they don’t stop…and when I need to be strong, for others, and the tears come.
Weakness, shame. Indulgence.
Crying is ok for other people. It’s healthy, It’s cathartic. It’s a natural release valve that keeps people sane, prevents negative emotions from being bottled up inside and turning against you. I know this, intellectually. Emotionally, however…
…Ok, so maybe there is a large, unhealthy streak of repressed male in me. I hope that I’ve raised my kids to know better, to *be* better than I am. Never be afraid of your own emotions…cry when you need to cry, laugh when you need to laugh, full speed ahead, and damn the torpedoes.
And maybe one day i’ll even be smart enough to take my own advice.
