I Can’t Stop Crying
I remember looking forward to being a grown up. Grown ups didn’t cry. Not the ones I saw. Being a kid was frustrating. The world was a confusing place with strange and arbitrary rules like ‘no we can’t get a puppy’ and ‘yes you have to go to bed’. Sometimes there was nothing for my kid self to do but cry over the injustice of it all. And crying as a kid was embarrassing. It was loud and messy and people told you to stop before you’d even really gotten going.
Today, I know the truth. The grown up world is just as frustrating as a kid’s world. I still don’t have a puppy and I still have to go to bed tonight if I want to be functional at work tomorrow. The only difference between kid me and grown up me is that I have no one to blame these frustrations on but myself. Also, I wait until I’m alone to cry. And maybe I look forward to it, just a little.
It’s been a couple weeks now. Maybe a month. Okay, two months. It’s been two months and I can’t stop crying. I could blame onion cutting ninjas, but that wouldn’t be true.
It started like this. Two months ago, I wrote about how infertility is the worst practical joke ever. My cousin was pregnant and I wasn’t. It sucked. A lot. I didn’t know what to do with all those feelings, so I wrote them down. I cried the whole time I was writing.
The article got some air time, and I got brave enough to share it with my family. More than one person after reading it said they didn’t know I was that emotional.
Let me explain something.
Just because you don’t see it, doesn’t mean I don’t feel it. Just because I feel it, doesn’t mean I have to show it. What would you do if I burst into tears in front of you right now? Hug me? Pat my back and tell me it’s going to be okay? How do you know? Would you stand with your hands in your pockets and wait for me to get it out of my system? Why do you need to be a part of it then?
I don’t need you to see me cry. It’s not about you.
Sometimes I cry over big things. There were two days in the middle of November where we had a lead on a newborn to adopt through Children’s Aid. I cried a lot those two days. Big, fat, desperate tears. The kind that come from aches in your soul you didn’t even know you had. When we realized we were chasing ghosts, and there was nothing else to do but wait for the phone to ring, I had already cried myself out. It was a relief to get through to the other side. We’re still waiting for the phone to ring.
Sometimes I cry over little things. I addicted myself to Yuri on Ice in December. I blame this article. Yuri is anime. About figure skating. I shouldn’t cry so much over made up cartoon athletes, but I do. Maybe it’s because I already cry at proud mom commercials during the Olympics. This is like that, except now it’s been engineered to make me care about these people, so I got suckered in before I knew what was happening. Maybe it’s because it’s glorious storytelling and these are tears of envy at the people who put it together. Whatever. Episodes, memes, fanvids. I’ve cried at them all.
Sometimes I cry over beautiful things. This song makes my heart vibrate in delicious little ways. I close my eyes when the first chords play and the tears usually start somewhere around minute two. The song is calling for something, and that thing is different for you than it is for me, but the call pulls tears out of me every time.
Crying is messy. Big sloppy sniffles that I have to mop up before I can appear in public again.
Crying is little and controlled. A tiny tightening at the corners of my eyes and the back of my throat that I have to muscle through because rule number one at the office is “there’s no crying at the office.”
Crying is unabashed happy tears done with others so we can all smile and say we’re ridiculous and know that there’s no judgement.
I’ve cried for two months and it’s been good for me. It lets out my hurts, my wants, my frustrations, my joys. When it’s over, I feel better, or a little silly, or more focused, but the feeling is always about me. It crystallizes that little moment where things inside got too big and had nowhere to go but out.
My child self would be disappointed that I’m still crying, but she didn’t know how nice it can be. If you see me looking a little misty eyed, or maybe with that crooked happy-sad smile on my face, hand me a handkerchief. I’ll be alright. I have a date with an onion cutting ninja. I’ll be back in a minute.
