#50. Your Last Cry

As a child I used to cry all the time, usually at films or T.V. shows. I remember once being kicked out of class on movie day when I was around 5 because I cried so much when the cat in Stuart Little told Stuart that his family didn’t love him and were out having fun when actually they were out searching the city for him. I just didn’t understand why the cat was being so mean to him and it made me really upset. I even got banned from watching The Lion King because I cried every time Mufasa died.

However, as I got older, and especially when I got teased for being so emotional for crying over fictional characters, I taught myself not to cry at things. I decided that crying was weakness, and that to avoid getting picked on I had to not show weakness, and thus I had to not cry.

Unfortunately for me, my determination to never lose face in front of others ended up backfiring on me completely, and these days I still struggle to cry on front of people at all. It’s something that I’m working on, but sometimes I still find myself seeking other people out when I’m in tears as it forces me to stop crying and pull myself together.

I also very rarely cry completely, I’ll let a few tears out, maybe a few sniffles. But full on heart wrenching, body wracking, soul tearing tears are something I very rarely experience. I don’t think I even cried like that when my Dad died, I was too busy trying to hold it together for my little brother. I had to be the strong one, and for me that meant not breaking down, and not giving in. I cried a tiny bit during my speech at his funeral, but that was in front of people, so I quickly made myself pull it together.

The last time I cried however, was a few days ago, and it came completely out of the blue. Actually, not completely, I was watching an episode of iZombie, and whilst it’s usually a pretty light-hearted show this one episode had a character death. I knew it was coming, I expected it, I even expected to let out a tear or two.

What I wasn’t expecting to happen was for the whole scene to trigger something else inside me, to a break down a wall I didn’t even know I’d built. Before I knew what was going on I was sobbing, full on heart wrenching, body wracking, soul tearing tears over the fact that I missed my Dad. In that moment I wanted nothing more than to have just another day, hour, minute, with my Dad, even if it was just sat by his bedside holding his hand.

It completely blindsided me, but at the same time I think it was something that I needed. I’d been holding onto those feelings for so long that it turned into a ticking time bomb. I just needed that little something that lit the fuse.

Advertisement