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Tears are much closer at hand these days than they’ve ever been.
I wouldn’t say I’m always on the cusp of breaking down, it’s more subtle, yet no less present. The river of emotion which has run at different levels throughout my life, now feels always full, just below the surface. It’s alarming, at least for me, as it is a departure from how I felt when I was younger.
To be clear, I have always cried.
I was never an emotional stoic, capable, or, necessarily desirous, of keeping my emotions in. I have always craved release.
When I was a boy I don’t know if I cried more than others, but there were certainly many different reasons why I would cry. Getting in trouble for splatter painting the basement ceiling when I was 7. Being made fun of for what I wore to school. The time I fractured my finger in the Poconos by running into my sister’s foot. Tears were associated with trouble, embarrassment, and physical pain.
But I also remember the day physical pain separated itself from crying.
It was summer and I was 11 years old. I was riding bikes with my friend Kevin the day before my family was to go Disney World. We were around the corner from my house when I hit a pothole in the road and fell off the seat but held onto the handlebars, scraping up my knees real bad.
I remember the shock of the fall and how much it hurt, the sting of my raw knees exposed to the air. But I also remember this strange isolation of feelings. Yes, I was in pain. Yes, my knee hurt badly, but I had no desire to cry. It wasn’t something I had consciously decided. I just didn’t feel the need to.
I remember how happy I was. It was an inflection point in my life. Tears were now associated exclusively with emotional pain.
Crying in high school wasn’t readily accepted. A bit ironic since the experience is so packed with change, confrontation and supercharged emotions. I spent more time holding back tears than I would have liked to.
Somehow I found myself in an organization that took me out of school frequently, on trips around the country, to meet with other teens I identified with. And in that group, a wide spectrum of emotions was accepted and encouraged. The tears I shed were very different than those as a child. They were a more complex expression of the nature of my relationships.
Crying in my teens very much felt like an awakening.
College brought tears of loneliness and eventually, at goodbyes.
Adulthood happened and it almost felt like there was less to cry about. Certainly in my early 20s. I was no longer subject to the physical tears of childhood, or the emotional awakening of my teens. However, I was subject to the frightening and alarming tears that came with the uncertainty of the future.
I cried the night my apartment was robbed.
I cried the morning my first truly adult relationship ended.
I remember thinking in both cases; “What does this mean? How do I go on?” Terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought I was deeply scared and without the optimism that I would one day feel better.
The levees within myself had never dealt storms of this magnitude. When you never let the water rise past a certain point you never have to test the construction. Those tears hollowed me out. Exhausted me. I felt very much empty. So drained as to feel just short of numb. Depleted.
I did not anticipate adulthood arriving with such intense emotional disarray. I had thought growing up meant agency, and if not control, at least autonomy. Realizing I was so impacted by an unforeseen world unmoored me.
Years passed with few tears shed.
Things are different now. I won’t say something clicked because nothing did. The change didn’t feel instant. It might be more apt to say something has been slowly releasing its grasp over the course of the past years.
Crying no longer feels like a huge buildup and release, or something that sneaks up from within, leveling me.
It simply feels like the river has risen to the point of notice. I am aware of that particular form of emotional expression. Like I am an emotional seismograph, constantly measuring the intensity of my tears. The needle is always active, bouncing up and down within me, with varying force, sometimes alerting me to an impending event, sometimes, falsely so.
But its always moving.
I still cry in times of great sadness. But these days I am most likely to cry when I am overwhelmed. Sometimes it is big things that overwhelm me, but often times it is the surprising little things that act as emotional concentrate. Gestures and memories strike not a single chord, but several, eliciting a physical resonance quickly vibrating the space around my eyes.
I cry at generosity, especially any generosity directed towards me.
I don’t, as I imagine many don’t feel like I have any control over the emotion. There are times when I would love to have a good cry and yet, I am unable. A stalled engine. A sponge left in the sun.
My tears will not be a tool manipulated to make me feel better, only they know when they will flow and with what force.
Embarrassment still occasionally accompanies my tears. The catharsis in crying comes with a resignation of control. I do not necessarily enjoy feeling at the mercy of my own emotions. And it is for this reason I am sure most men do not cry enough; certainly not the way we need to, the way we want to, the way we are afraid to.
I still avoid tears when they make me uncomfortable or when the situation feels inappropriate. I wish I didn’t feel that way, and hopefully one day I won’t. But I do know now avoiding tears doesn’t give me power over them and how futile it is to try and control them.
For me, tears have been a sign of pain, of awakening and a symptom of fear. But no matter when they have arrived they have always been an indicator of something important. Of something real.
Of something not to be avoided.
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Photo: Getty Images
Powerful stuff! Thanks for this, Richard.
What a great article. Loved the title. Cry on, my friend.