I’m a crier. Always have been. Always will be. But lately I’v even been outdoing myself. It is as if the waterproofing of my heart and soul have worn out, and the tears just keep leaking through. Sad ones, fearful ones, joyful ones, grateful ones, and WTF ones. Rather than holding them back, I’m choosing to simply allow the tears to fall as they wish. And boy do they wish.
I started to notice it when my husband and I had a conversation about the long-promised-but-yet-to-be-built dining room table. The table is a subject for another day, but suffice it to say that his suggestions about how we might tweak the agreed upon design, or re-arrange our great room opened the floodgates. At first the tears were ones of anger, even rage. But over time, as we sat at the hopefully-someday-to-be-replaced table, they turned into tears of sadness, pain, fear, and loss. I simply couldn’t stop crying, and probably shed more tears at that table than Tom has in his entire life. At one point he quietly asked—probably holding his hands up to shield himself in case I threw something at him—“Mol, do you think this might be about more than the table?” Ya think?
Of course it was. It’s almost always about more than the whatever it is. The table was simply the dam that broke and let everything else out. Everything else included all the things I didn’t realize I’d been carrying. Pain for important and necessary struggles in the lives of those I love. Fear for our country, our world, and our planet. Sadness for the responsibility I bear (and you do to) for the state in which we collectively find ourselves. Grief for the losses that are sure to come.
And.
Tears of joy found in the gathering together with family and friends, the celebrating of milestones and moments, and the surprises that fill our cups. Tears of happiness that arrive with shared cups of coffee, home cooked meals, good news of any sort (it’s there if we look for it), laughter, help that arrives unbidden, and answered prayers. Tears of gratitude for the raising of good humans, the loving of one anther, and the agency to live and work for a world, and a country, in which all are seen, represented, and welcomed.
There are plenty of reasons for even the non-crieriest among us to shed a tear or two. The world is a mess. Our country is a mess. And if we’re honest, most (ok, all) of us are a mess in one way or another. I’m not saying everyone has to turn into a weeper like me. But every tear holds a message. They signal the things that matter to us, clear our vision, and spur us to action. They connect us to one another, pave the way for deeper understanding, and communicate what words sometimes can’t.
Tears open our hearts in a way that holding them in never will.
It is said that God saves all of our tears in a bottle. I sure hope She has a huge one for mine.
