A couple of weeks ago, I was having a particularly emotional day, one in which I could not actually stop crying.
It was one of those full body experiences where there is nothing you can do except let it flow out of you so wear your sunglasses everywhere, even inside, and also before you get out of the car run your eyes through the air conditioning vent – types of days.
It was also unfortunate because I had an eye appointment that day and you can’t get your eyes checked while they’re full of tears, which I observed out loud to my optometrist by saying, “I can’t stop crying today – but also you can’t get your eyes checked if you’re crying, dummy!”
And he laughed about it with the sad pity look you give someone who’s crying and you want to help but don’t know how to. But now in hindsight I am wondering if he thought I called him dummy because it was really my inner monologue coming out and calling myself dummy. I’ll now think about this for the rest of my life.
The eye appointment was ahead of the next cancer treatment I’m trying because the last one didn’t work. This one, called Tivdak, has some concerning side effects, including ones that affect your eyes, so I have to have an eye appointment before each infusion and wear ice on my eyes during treatment. All of this feels very scary to me. And TBH, reading about it and who it is for also scared me, and so even though my mind shifted into “simple observer” mode as I moved from appointment to appointment on that day, my body didn’t.
My body cried.
It cried so hard.
And the thing I really started to think about that day was, why do we apologize for this? It’s truly ok that I cannot contain the overflowing emotions within the contents of my body, this is heavy stuff, anyone would/could lose their minds. But why isn’t it OK? Why do I feel the need to resist this? And then apologize for it on top of it.
As the tears rolled down my face that day at the optometrist’s office, I whispered, “I’m sorry. It is just coming out, I have no control over it.”
But we all cry. Why are we sorry?
Crying is our body’s way of physically releasing the enormous range of emotions and actual pain we are trying to apologetically stuff down. As Eleanor Shellstrop said in The Good Place, which I literally watch every day it’s my comfort show, “If you try to ignore your sadness, it just ends up leaking out of you anyway…”
Which on this day was obviously true.
Unfortunately (or not), the circumstances we’re navigating don’t always match up with the timing in which we have to navigate them. Most of the time, we don’t have a say in when things happen. They just happen.
Resisting that does not help in any way.
And can I just say? NOT crying does NOT make us stronger.
I would argue that, in fact, crying out loud in front of someone for all to see instead of stuffing it down is what makes a person stronger. Giving yourself and your body that permission – that FREEDOM – to not be embarrassed by a normal human emotion. That’s strength.
Not crying if your body is 100% needing to is like trying not to limp if your ankle is broken. Or apologizing for limping if your ankle is broken. Doesn’t that sound ridiculous?
I move that we start to universally accept crying in public when our bodies need to and not hide away in the toilet when it happens. Like when we get the runs, we have to go with it (because you know what happens…) but it always eventually ends. So why not let it run its course?
Because I’ll tell you how the rest of my day went (spoiler alert): I never really stopped crying. I couldn’t.
But I still had things to do.
I remember consciously saying to myself at the stop light when someone looked at me from the next car over, “Fuck it. I’m just gonna let it happen.”
So I did.
I cried in the car. I cried parking the car. I cried walking into Publix. I cried standing at the deli counter ordering my sandwich in sunglasses.
I cried when I said “footlong turkey and provolone on white – Publix turkey not Boars Head” (nothing against boars head).
And I cried when I had to shake out the words “mayo lettuce onions and vinegar” “no that’s all” and “thank you” as the poor teenager (lol) obviously didn’t know what to make of the interaction.
I cried through the checkout, back out to my car, heaved a little bit in the car, and cried into the driveway and through the eating of my sandwich.
Eventually it did end, I’m happy to say, although I did cry a little while writing this post.
But I don’t think that’s a bad thing. In fact, as a writer and inherently a very emotional person in general, I’ve spent most of my years trying to control when and where my crying happens.
Part of my growth is just being one with it. And not caring about what someone thinks of me while I’m doing it.
And also, not trying to edit who I am because it makes someone else uncomfortable. (This last part has been so important.)
That’s a whole ‘nother topic I’ve worked a lot on. I’ll leave that one for another time but leave it here because I want to remember to write about it.
While you’re here, I want you to know that if you’re ever around me and you cry for whatever reason it is you’re crying about, it’s ok. I also hereby give you blanket permission to cry while getting your pub sub, going to the eye doctor, or in the car or wherever it happens and for you to freely feel your emotions.
I don’t think we should try so hard to hide it when we’re limping along.
The limping eventually heals, but really only if we allow it.