Making Time to Cry
“If you want something to cry about, I’ll give you something to cry about.”
Perhaps you, like me, heard that phrase growing up. Or other phrases like “don’t be a crybaby”, “you can’t cry about everything”, add your own emotional development-stunting words here. Crying is something I struggle to do. I don’t let myself cry about much, or anything at all, really. The last time I remember fully crying, it was beyond simple tears. My pregnancy of 13 weeks had ended; we had been treated without compassion by our local hospital staff, sent home without support to process anything that had happened, and I had to go back to work on Monday. It was all too much, and I couldn’t stop the sobbing and, sadly but understandably, head-banging that ensued. Come Monday, I was quiet and reserved, but that was the end of the external crying.
Flash forward eight years, and I just got an email from my second child’s Special Education Clerk informing me of Transfer of Rights because, not surprisingly, my kid is turning 18 in less than three months. I felt moisture in the corner of my eyes and a turning sensation in the pit of my stomach. The sensations are something new that I am learning, through therapy, to sit with because I have fought, and continue to fight, crying so much that it doesn’t ever manifest. As I sit typing, I wonder what it would feel like to truly have a deep, gut-wrenching cry that shakes my body and allows me to physically let go of all that I am holding on to. But that won’t happen right now. I have other obligations. A seven-year-old in a sparkly dress, foam crown, and frog earmuffs running on the treadmill while the five-year-old is on the daybed surrounded by colored pencils and paper, chatting merrily about who knows what to themself. When I go downstairs from this office space, I will be met with a hallway full of items that haven’t found their home, two bedrooms that house three children’s explosion of things, a kitchen that needs a very deep cleaning, a front room filled with boxes that signal a side hustle aimed at bringing in some much-needed funds, and baskets of clean laundry that needs to be processed. Not to mention the downstairs, which is full of dirty laundry that needs processing. All of this is on top of changes to our family’s finances that are outside of my direct control: lowered benefits, the BBB BS that now means higher education can not be fully funded by loans, and a myriad of other rising costs. Like everyone else, I have competing schedules and needs - my work schedule, my children’s schedules, my unpaid internship schedule, my school schedule; the list goes on - it feels like there aren’t enough Google calendars in the world to help me manage my life.
A good cry is what I need. What I lack is time. Along the road of my life, as I have discussed before, I learned to prioritize efficiency and production, putting others first and pushing my needs far down into a bottomless hole. This hasn’t been healthy for me. It has contributed to chronic pain, suicide attempts, and a profound lack of connection to others in the world. Crying helps us connect to others. We are hardwired to respond to the cry of an infant, of the injured. It is in our nature to live in community. Constantly holding it all together means people assume you can bear the weight of more; we have learned to accept what we see and not question what is unspoken. We have learned to be embarrassed about our vulnerabilities, our inadequacies, our moments of need, and so we don’t show them. These practices don’t benefit anyone. So I say, make time for a good cry - or, even better, let it come whatever time it likes. Invite the release of emotions in, hold space for it - for yourself and for others.
