I cry at standing ovations, flash mobs, and moments of frustration that stem from a boiling of feelings buried within like an erupting volcano. I rarely cry otherwise.
In my youth, I cried a lot and I only cried when alone.
Crying was not necessarily about being a sign of weakness to me, but rather a reason for others to not like me, not keep me, not want me, not need me. Therefore, I would not show this side of me to others unless it was from physical pain, or when the feelings of frustration were too much to contain–as was often the case when getting picked on by my older brother.
Mostly, though, I learned to bury my emotions in front of others. This meant even the happy ones. Stoicism had a whole other layer of meaning for me. I built walls, and walls for those walls tenfold.
I remember my mom once telling me that she was so relieved when I had a negative emotional outburst as a teen because she was able to finally know what I was thinking and feeling. Later, I learned that she listened to my phone conversations, read my letters and diaries–all out of a desire to figure out just what exactly was going on inside my head because I never let anyone in. My poor mother just wanted to understand me, but the walls I had built were well-entrenched and difficult, even for me, to break down.
Still, I would cry every night in my bed–alone and scared with my thoughts. I feared for years that I would wake up the next day to learn that I was being given away again. My nights of insomnia, or escape into books until sleep overtook me, were my attempts at making each day last as long as it could since who knew what the next day would bring.
Add on to these overwhelming basic worries, teenage years of angst, a poetic’s soul of romanticism, and a dreamer’s wish for a utopian world. Tears were inevitable.
The tears flowed through university, into my twenties and first marriage. They streamed daily until I decided that I could take action to make them stop. I could change my life and take control of it. I did not have to be the victim of the whim of others or the object of disrespect. If I didn’t stop my tears, then no one else was going to. And so, I took one step at a time to turn off the tear ducts and switch on smiles instead.
Turns out it wasn’t hard to smile and it wasn’t a fake-it-’til-you-make-it kind of change.
These days, I save my tears for moments of unity, true expressions of love or attempts to reach beyond one’s natural inclination to show it, and appreciation of beautiful moments of humanity. Although it might seem as if I am unemotional or detached from my deeper feelings, I say that it’s that I’ve cried all the superficial tears. I’ve released all the ‘woe-is-me’ cries and consciously decided to have tears of joy and love. I am not without emotion or moments of weakness. I am, however, with control and discernment as to when a moment deserves the wetting of my eyes. 😛
Instead, my smiles are genuine and my youthfulness is in full force even as a 40-something-year-old!
~T 😀
