I wonder when we learn to apologize for crying. Was it watching each other apologies or was it being told, more directly, that we should stop the tears . . . I don’t know, but I say “don’t apologize” to two different crying women today and the “sorry’s” flood out of them, a cycle of shame.
I recognize myself in that too. I used to have some firm hang-ups about crying in front of others, leftover from my depressive teenage days where I literally made a rule for myself, written down and everything, that I should not let other people see me cry. Which is some cliche emo shit right there but real and painful all the same. I wonder where that came from.
These days I cry often and I believe openly . . . any old Ted Talk or Spider-Man moment can get me choked up . . . but when it’s about something real I’m surprised and shocked when tears fall in front of someone else. I still, subconsciously, try not to do that, even with people I love.
Even when I got divorced, I didn’t let myself sob and breakdown in someone else’s arms. Tears were hasty things to be wiped away, saved for the inevitable collapse when I was alone. Or maybe I did breakdown in someone’s arms, I was drinking enough that the memory of how I processed is a little disjointed. One time my brother and his girlfriend came home to find me crying, loudly and miserably and drunkenly on a Sunday afternoon, just a few months after I had left my marriage.
I know I said I was sorry.
I distracted myself, talking about tears when I wanted to talk about apologies and how we should not say sorry for them. Or at least, work on taming the reflex. Say sorry if you must, but don’t say it again. Plow on, cry on, but resist the impulse to pile more shame on top of your pain. It’s an ugly cycle that I fear I perpetuate by saying “don’t apologize” and then we apologize for apologizing so much and are we all sick of talking about this yet?
Crying is something people do. Some more than others and that’s okay. Crying is sometimes a reaction to rage or happiness or grief or love or any myriad of emotions that people physically manifest differently.
If we can stop apologizing, if we can stop the attention on crying, we can listen to what our tears are telling us. A call to action, a call to process, a call to reach out, or a call to nothing but cry and release the build-up from your body.
I know where we learned all this; I think all women feel it. But life is so much unlearning and relearning that this is one that bears repeating. Cry. Don’t be sorry. Your emotions are allowed.
With Love,
Natalie