*Why does everyone always say it makes you feel better if you cry? It doesn't. Tears don't heal what hurt you and they don't change any outcomes. I especially hate the ones that make you sniffley and gulping.
*The weirdest time that I remember not crying was when I dropped Sarah off at her first day of college. She was very teary and homesick and I hadn't even left yet. I remember thinking that I had better not cry or she'd lose it all together. When I was driving home, I swallowed and felt tears run down my throat. I realized I had been crying inside, even if not outside.
*I used to cry quite easily. I cried in movies, I cried reading books, I cried in plays. That all stopped probably about 10 years ago. The last time that I remember crying a lot over anything was when we moved. I don't cry so easily now. But when I do, I really hate it.
*I had a boyfriend in high school who would melt at the sight of a girl in tears. I think I used that sometimes. However, it just made my first husband more angry if I cried during an argument; possibly because he never knew what to do to fix it.
*My mother absolutely hated it when I cried. She would call me a ball-baby and say that I was feeling sorry for myself. I probably still do.
*I think I cried all the way through my twenties and thirties. I remember at my father-in-law's funeral crying my eyes out because I loved him so. He was the father figure I never had as a child and now he was gone. My friend, Karrie, told me later that she was amazed that I could cry as hard as I had and look pretty good. She said my eyes weren't swollen and my skin wasn't blotchy. I think that is fair compensation. If you have to spend a lot of your life in tears, at least you should look okay while you're crying.
Stocking Candy Cookies
2 months ago
2 comments:
Tears. hm. I spent the first 40 years of my life proud that the only time I shed tears was at funerals and weddings. No crybaby girl me. No way. And to you crybabies, get yourselves under control.
For the next five years, I allowed myself to cry when dropping off a kid at college or when talking about ill health of a loved one.
Then my reality started to change and the tears came as I began to feel again--in situations that anybody would cry in, and more and more, during moments wherein tears were completely unexpected.
That is when the medications were administered and the crying stopped--you know the drill, "what? you're crying? here, take this and it will help you feel better or at least all around you will feel better if we just stop those leaky eyes of your"--even though I wanted desperately to feel those warm, wet drops on my cheeks, running freely, cleansing me. Alas, no drops escaped my eyes and no completion of the act of feeling and cleansing occurred.
That is when I contemplated and began the discontinuation of the medications. Because now, I understand the importance of the feelings. Whether joyous, broken-hearted, blessed, or cursed, all of those feelings are real and must be acknowledged and if necessary, accompanied by the tears.
Tears are my goal now. To be able to experience the moments, wet or dry, as long as all is real.
Friend, I hope your tears are accompanied by calm or happiness or only simple fleeting pain. But mostly joy.
Here's a man's opinion...
I love to feel the tears that always roll when Spirit overwhelms. In those times I feel the angels very near... and in those times I know that JOY is in fact overwhelming my mortal ego of toughness.
I must heartily agree with Gillian. You know how deeply I've done the drug thing... and when you get into the psycological "cure" stuff that is supposed to make you "normal" you finally come to the conclusion that the drugs are about turning off natural emotion. I love Gillian's comments on "cleansing."
I have written for a long time. I know when my writings are coming from a deep source when Spirit confirms thought through the act of tears... "Jesus Wept" is a confirmation of this cleansing process... I have wept with Him, and they are anything but sissy tears!
I remember once having the goal of tears accompanying the reader's response to my writings because I knew then that I would have touched the Universal Song... and that my gift would have found birth in another soul. I don't know if that makes sense!
I also look forward to the cleansing that tears bring me. By the way, my favorite place for the Lord to drop in on me is while I'm driving... apparently my favorite meditative place! He knows how much I love that Presence... and those tears that overwhelmingly start in my heart and come through my soul and out my eyes! I tell him it's a good thing He's there, otherwise I'd be a real danger to my neighbors in the next lane!
I once served with an Elder's Quorum President and we talked about this very phenomena... He said that if he didn't feel those tears at least once a day, he figured he was out of balance somewhere with the Lord.
So there's two men's opinions! You are so brave to share such intimate feelings on the internet this way Johanna, my friend! I must amen Gillian's final paragraph... may you find and feel and love tears of Joy!
Often when I feel my tears coming, I remember you telling me how it felt to you to walk in the rain... the joy you feel... there's a metaphor for Heaven "crying" in Joy because of your sweet spirit walking with them!
Tears are my validation that Heaven exists.
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