I Like That I’m Crying

I’ve been crying a lot lately.

The tears always seem to know where they’re going before I do.

Sometimes they last a minute.

Sometimes I close the door to my apartment, collapse into a heap on the floor, and let everything I’ve been carrying spill out.

Sometimes it feels like relief.

Sometimes it feels like breaking.

But it always feels like it’s leading me somewhere.

I’ve started thinking of the tears as branches of a river.

Each branch carries something different.

Loss.

Fear.

Regret.

Anger.

Hope.

Sometimes I’m crying over something that happened years ago. Sometimes I’m crying over something that hasn’t even happened yet. Sometimes it’s heartbreak. Sometimes it’s gratitude. Sometimes it’s simply the weight of caring deeply about people I cannot fix.

Different branches.

Same river.

And strangely…

I like that I’m crying.

Years ago, I would never have said that.

For most of my life, I believed happiness was the only acceptable emotion.

Happiness made people comfortable.

Sadness didn’t.

And if I’m honest, I’ve always cared a little too much about everyone’s comfort.

Not just my own.

Theirs.

Because somehow their comfort made me feel comfortable too.

Crying doesn’t usually do that.

When I tell people I’ve been crying a lot, they immediately want me to stop.

The funny part is…

Most of them have never even seen me cry.

I’m crying alone in my apartment.

They only know because I tell them.

And even then…

It makes them uncomfortable.

I’ve started laughing a little when I tell people because I know what’s coming.

They get that worried look.

Then I get to tell them the best part.

“I actually like that I’m crying.”

That usually confuses them even more.

But I mean it.

Because I think these tears are progress.

I think they’re evidence that something inside me is softening instead of hardening.

For twenty years I’ve worked with children.

If there’s one thing children know how to do, it’s feel.

They cry because someone took the blue crayon.

Five minutes later they’re laughing because someone made a funny face.

Then they’re furious because someone cut in line.

Then they’re over it.

They don’t judge the emotion.

They don’t question whether they’re “too emotional.”

They simply experience it…

…and move through it.

Somewhere along the way, we adults forget how.

We become experts at managing emotions instead of feeling them.

We tell ourselves not to cry.

Not here.

Not at work.

Not in public.

Not in front of the kids.

Not too much.

Not too long.

We tell children things like, “It’s okay to feel your feelings.”

Then we spend the rest of our own lives apologizing for ours.

I think we mean well.

When someone we love is hurting, we desperately want to take the pain away.

We want them to stop crying because we assume that means they’re getting better.

But maybe that’s backwards.

Maybe the tears are the healing.

One of my closest friends worries about my crying more than anyone else.

And honestly…

I understand why.

Twenty years ago she watched my light slowly dim until it nearly went out.

She watched me lose myself.

She was there during one of the darkest seasons of my life.

One day she came to my parents’ house while I wasn’t home and painted three words across my bathroom mirror.

You are enough.

To be loved by someone like that is one of the greatest gifts of my life.

Her concern isn’t judgment.

It’s love.

When she hears I’ve been crying, she’s afraid she’s losing me again.

If I could tell her one thing, it would be this:

These tears aren’t taking me backward.

They’re taking me forward.

They’re teaching me not to run from myself anymore.

They’re teaching me to stop grading emotions as good or bad.

They’re teaching me that tenderness isn’t weakness.

It’s evidence that my heart still works.

I hope I cry easily for the rest of my life.

I hope I cry at weddings.

At babies being born.

At dog videos.

At stories of redemption.

I hope I cry when someone I love is hurting.

I hope I stop apologizing for having a soft heart.

Because maybe the world doesn’t need fewer people who feel deeply.

Maybe it needs more.

Maybe what people need most isn’t someone who knows exactly what to say.

Maybe they just need someone willing to sit beside them and care enough that their heartbreak becomes ours for a little while.

If someone can look at me the way my friend looked at me all those years ago…

With worry.

With compassion.

With unwavering love.

Then I think that’s a pretty beautiful way to live.

And if a few tears are what it takes to become that person…

I hope the river never runs dry.