Have You Tried Crying About It?

Today was… a day.

I always have a lot of plates spinning at once. It’s how I prefer it. I’ve given up trying to be chill about my life. I’m passionate, driven, and easily inspired (or excitable, really). I need an outlet for that at all times.

That said, sometimes all those plates are wobbling at the same time and the pressure I put on myself to keep them going becomes overwhelming. That was today.

There are days you can’t create enough, organize enough, or exercise yourself into or out of that kind of stress. You can’t distract yourself from the heaviness in your chest. You can’t even focus long enough to do anything except ruminate in your own head about how everything is (seemingly) falling down.

I was deep in this feeling by the afternoon. Driving home from picking up my kids, I was just trying to hold it together. And then they started telling me about how tough their days were. Various kid-sized troubles, but still a big deal to them.

We’d all had bad days… with one big exception.

They cried.

They cried in a room full of other kids. They cried more than once. When it hurt, they let it out. Conversely, I had not. I’d rage-cleaned and complained to my brother via text. I’d called my husband and doomscrolled through TikTok. None of these things gave me ease.

Guess which of us felt better by the end of the day?

I have no science behind any of this, but I think crying is probably good for us. The catharsis is real… and in many ways, it’s more real than the struggle. Yet, I loathe to cry. After all, I’m a grown-up. I gotta be tough. I have to deal with things using my intellect and life experience.

Apparently, I was gravely mistaken.

I needed to cry. I always need to cry. I need that expulsion of emotion. I’m not chill about my other passions. Why hold in the hurt?

Something else struck me about this afternoon… my kids don’t ask for permission to cry. I don’t know any children who do. Most just cry when they need to. For some reason, I feel like I need to wait for the right moment, and if it’s not, I’m compelled to apologize. How ridiculous. We’re adults. It’s our party and we can cry whenever we want to.

So, I don’t know about you but when I’m finished writing this, I’m gonna go bawl my eyes out. It was a stressful day and I’m gonna cry about it. Sounds like the grown-up thing to do.

~jennifer.