Crybaby

In sixth grade, my best friend told me that I cried a lot. What’s the worst thing you can be called in sixth grade? I’m not really sure… but “crybaby” is definitely up there. A cocktail of embarrassment, defensiveness and shame was shaken and poured over ice straight into my heart. I cried after she left my house.

It took me years to shake this weighty insult.

In seventh grade, I started noticing how much my mother cries. She cries at every movie. The part where the guy gets the girl. The part where the guy doesn’t get the girl. Or even worse… the part where the guy gets the girl and then loses the girl. I hated this. I would sit across the couch from her, trying to ignore the glimmer reflected in her eyes. Crybaby I would think to myself.

Something to know about my mom is that she loves giving toasts. She toasts at every dinner table, and any other kind of gathering, celebratory or not. Each toast, she cries without fail. Growing up, this proved to be a painful routine that made me ill with embarrassment.

In freshman year of high school, I began giving toasts of my own. I suppose somewhere deep inside, I knew that this tradition of toasting had value and would be a skill best learned instead of avoided. I started small, practicing at home with my family.

To my surprise, this whole toasting thing was not so easy. Turns out, I wasn’t too far from my mother on the crying spectrum. Toasts became a mental game. I would fight off the tears that forced their way behind my eyes and attempt to soothe the sides of my throats that seemed to swell, clogging my airway to speak. Sometimes, the tears would win and I would have to pause and collect myself.

I suppose the expression “practice makes perfect” isn’t applicable to all things- for this practice has not gotten any easier. I still cry while I toast.

Things did change though.

Last year this time, I had just been diagnosed with stage three breast cancer. I perseverated over whether my eyebrows had just been bleached from the sun, my usual summer routine, or were thinning from chemotherapy that had begun tormenting my body.

My ability to cry fell away with my hair. Involuntarily. Painstakingly. Maybe it was the antidepressants I went on. Or maybe it was the armor I began to construct around my heart after being hurt too deeply too many times.

I lost many things with this diagnosis, but I especially hated losing my tears.

While Caroline’s declaration that I was a crybaby may have stung, she wasn’t wrong. I do- I cry a lot. And not provoked by just bad things, but the good things too. And it may just be my favorite thing about myself now. I have gained such an appreciation for my tears as I’ve come into adulthood. I am a highly feeling being. These salty beads that blur my vision and ruin my mascara are an affirmation of this.

These past many months, emotionally stunted, production of tears halted, have been quite frustrating for me. I’ve been in too many situations, where I’ve longed for a cry. I’ve needed a release. I knew the feelings were there, I just couldn’t seem to express them through my body. These emotions were locked behind a door banging their fists on my heart as hard as they could but there was a missing handle on the other side. No matter how loud the ruckus, they were stuck.

Today, I sit perched on a rooftop in Florence, Italy- somewhere I have always dreamt of going. A year has gone by. I am cancer free.

Like a cliche poet, tears stain the page of the journal I write in. Theivs in the night- or today the bright sun- my emotions escape from confinement. Yesterday I cried of joy. I am in Italy. I made it. I did it. Today I cried because I miss my uncle Mike and wish I got to know him better before he went.

I’m not sure if its jet lag or Italian wine or perhaps my relief that the shit storm is mostly over.

I think sometimes we forget to pause, realize how far we’ve come, and how many goals we’ve accomplished. We’re normally hardwired to focus on our next “wants” and “goals” and “plans” and “future.” I don’t have a cure for this. It is the human condition.

Gratitude and heart are my weapons in combat against this future focused factory setting. Gratitude and heart keep me as the crybaby that I am. I am proud to have a heart that is soft and tender and stands open and unguarded. Proud to be grateful. Proud to be a crybaby.