On Tears

“So hey, I just want you to know I tear up easily, so don’t feel like you need to hug me if I get blubbery.”

Why do I feel I need to add this caveat to every serious conversation? Why have I felt the need since middle school to let people know, hey, I may look pathetic on the outside but lets both try to ignore it together?

I’ve always been an emotional person. Both my parents cry easily, and then they combined to make a girl who tears up during moving infomercials. At sports games, in arguments, on particularly interesting college lectures, if I haven’t had enough sleep, the tears just start flowing. I felt soft and weak. I worried people didn’t take me seriously. I was disgusted at how easily I crumpled to feelings of fear or hurt.

I fetishized a steely demeanor. I dressed in grey and black, donning combat boots and military jackets. I found physics, in my opinion the coldest discipline available, and made it my undergraduate major. I judged others who allowed themselves to be publically vulnerable, scoffing at how defenseless they were. I built a surface personality, one that was confident but only worked on the surface.

And those times I did cry, yielding to the tickle behind my eyes and the catch in my throat, I always tried to explain it away. I’d tell my concerned friend that it was just a dumb thing my body did, that I felt fine inside. I’d laugh it off. And I’d clench my fists and will myself back to composure.

In college I joined an organization that encouraged its members to give themselves to the group by recounting their life story. I practiced night after night, determined not to lose control of my narrative, determined not to let the tears win. I needed to be taken seriously by my group. When my time came, I rushed through my story, my voice flat, cold, perfect. It only caught once when talking about a death in the family. I was stunned to make it through with not a single droplet leaving my eye. And yet, I felt empty too. I hadn’t really shared myself with this group who had trusted me to do so. I presented them with the same hard exterior I had worked so hard to build. I felt like I’d wasted an opportunity to safely show other people my real self.

The next week we sat down to hear another girl in the group. I had known this girl for a couple months, and while she seemed sweet, I didn’t find her to be a particularly deep person. But not five minutes in to her life story, she was sobbing, and continued to do so for the rest of the evening. And her story was beautiful. Her life experiences were rich with meaning. They consumed me and everyone else in the room. Her tears did not diminish or detract from her life. They embellished it. She was not weak, and I realized neither was I.

Our propensity for crying can be enormously frustrating at times, especially when it inhibits our ability to express ourselves. But if we learn to accept them as part of ourselves, they can melt the walls we spent so long putting up.