I am a swallower. I am that last little crumb of your cookie that hangs out in your cup no matter how many drinks of milk you take. I am that girl in every movie, disheveled, unbathed with a pint of ice cream, surrounded by tissues, pizza boxes and The Way We Were blaring on the television.
During one chapter in my life I was infatulove (infatuated + love) with a very tall brown skinned boy who had dreads spilling every which way out of his head. He was from here and there and was funny and charming.
He took my heart and pumpkin chucked it across three football fields, through a valley into a river where it hit a patch of rocks and fell down a waterfall into a deep chasm.
I thought I was dying.
On one particularly difficult evening after many glasses bottles of red wine my roommate put on a record (yes a record).
“Now you say you’re lonely….You cry the whole night through…Well, you can cry me a river, cry me a river….I cried a river over you….”
It spoke to my broken heart.
That evening I cried many rivers. Over and over my roommate and I listened to the record a million rotations plus one and cried our pretty little selves to sleep.
Crying has never been a side effect for me. It is the effect. It is happiness, nervousness, sadness and despair.
It is my best emotion.
It’s a cleansing of my soul and you are the unfortunate audience. I’m probably an ugly crier which makes for an even more unfortunate situation.
I have embraced my affliction. With reckless abandon I have cried a river in a room full of strangers, to my boss, bill collectors, while giving speeches and sometimes alone in my car during the slow jams hour or when Delilah is on (who I am pretty sure has made more people cry than Barbara Walters).
I no longer try to fight the tears back instead I give it all I got. I am a surrogate crier for my Mother who sometimes can’t cry for herself. I have probably cried for you or someone you know. I happy cry. I angry cry. I cry out of frustration. If crying were a sport I would be LeBron James, Michael Jordan or Mia Hamm.
Like an athlete, at some point you don’t play the game as well. Your knees give out. You become slower. You don’t throw as fast. Pretty soon you find yourself on the bench--watching someone else play.
I started to notice the tears don’t come as easily anymore. That it takes just a little more effort or maybe that I put more effort into not letting the emotions show. I notice that I started to care more about what others thought instead of how I felt. I decided to be polite and not make others uncomfortable. I decided that maybe I needed to be a big girl.
Then one day it happened - one day my little girl took a spill. She was airborne and fell on the playground. In front. Of. All. The. Big. Kids. I could see that look a mixture of pain and embarrassment and a touch of confusion not quite sure which of the two emotions she felt more. I saw the tears welling up in her eyes. I saw the pink spreading across her round cheeks. Her eyes darted down and she quickly moved her little legs towards me.
“Are you okay?” I asked cautiously in almost a whisper.
She buried her little face in the crook of my neck and mumbled “Uh-uh”. I scooped her into the car. No tears yet. She wouldn’t even make eye contact. As soon as the doors closed from deep in her belly the tears came out like a roar.
The roaring continued for a good portion of the trip. No reassurance from me would comfort her.
Finally, it was too much. At first it hurt my heart, now it was hurting my eardrums.
“Eva, it’s okay sweetie. Let’s stop crying now, it’s not going to make anything better.” Slowly the cried hushed.
As I caught her eye in the rearview mirror she looked at me determined and answered….
“It makes me feel better!”
And just like that my little one reminded me that this life, each moment is mine to feel and love how I want.
So cry on, laugh on, rage on my lovelies because this is your world to feel as you will.
Just remember to pack some tissues!
Love,
Me.
