My father used to tell me to never let anyone see me cry. It was a sign of weakness and anyone who saw me do it would think me weak and would walk all over me.
I have a lot of issues that stem from things my father taught me.
But I know that crying is good and okay and healthy. It just means that I’m experiencing profound emotions. I’m feeling so much and so deeply that I can’t hold it in my body.
I saw the musical Rent for the first time in about ten years a few weeks ago. Cried pretty much the entire second act. Sitting there listening to this beautiful music, these wonderful actors pouring their souls into their craft, tears streaming down my face. I made no move to wipe them away knowing that my movements would distract those sitting around me. I just let the tears fall and fall and fall.
It was beautiful and perfect and I couldn’t stop the little voice in my head from shaming me.
I hate the things that have been ingrained in me for no reason except someone along the way in my father’s life or his parents or their parents, someone decided people shouldn’t cry in public and passed it down through the generations to me.
What other things were passed down? What other things are we told we shouldn’t do in public. How we should or shouldn’t act. What we should or shouldn’t say. Arbitrary rules that someone made up that governs all our lives. That keep us from being happy or at the very least content. Imagine what humans could accomplish without the time and effort being used to following these arbitrary rules.
We made these things up.
We can unmake them.
We can cry in public.
Writing the Year 