Tears are rain upon the blinding dust of earth or whatever. They happen to us when we’re angry or sad or overwhelmed or watching Disney movies, on good days and bad days and nothing-notable days, they make us feel better and make us feel worse and who even understands them really? Not us! But hey look, we all cry. For example, these are things that made all of us cry recently.
IMPORTANT NOTE:
This roundtable was first constructed in mid-summer, and then added to a little later in the year, and then the day it was scheduled in early October turned out to be a tacky day to run a roundtable about crying so we put it on the backburner again… now it is finally seeing the light, but please note these answers are not timely and are all over the place, w/r/t the timespans of our lives.
We eagerly await a recounting of your most recent tears in the comments.
Alaina, Staff Writer
I cried last night, June 29th, because I turned on a Spotify playlist called “Evening Acoustic.” Like, full on sobbed, needed to get some water because I got dehydrated. I don’t think I was necessarily sad, I’m just two-ish days away from my period. But also, there’s a lot of change happening in my life right now, and change terrifies me and makes me want to run away to the mountains and get a new identity and have babies and start over. But I know that I can’t do that, so instead, I cry about it. On a scale of 1-10, 10 being the best, most healing cry ever, I’d say it was a 4. I still felt weird after it, so much so that I ended up unfollowing most of the people I follow on Twitter and Instagram. But I mean, at least my internet life has been simplified a bit. Oh, and I got ten hours of sleep out of it.
Kayla, Staff Writer
I have a weird history with crying. For the first two decades of my life, I rarely cried (unless I was having a conversation with my mother, the only person with the unique power to bring forth my tears during my preteen and teen years). Television and movies never made me cry. Many of my friends joked that I was a robot! Then I went on hormonal birth control and I cried constantly, about anything and everything. I haven’t been on birth control in a few years now, but once the crying floodgates were opened, they stayed open. I don’t cry as much anymore, but it does happen from time to time, especially on like all forms of transportation? But the most recent time I cried was actually a few nights ago when my girlfriend and I watched Hasan Minhaj’s comedy special on Netflix. I love Minhaj on The Daily Show, and Janet Mock recommended the special when I saw her at a talk, and I will pretty much do anything Janet Mock tells me to do. I did not expect it to make me cry though. When I looked at my girlfriend, she was crying, too. Minhaj is an extremely good storyteller, and stories about immigrant families always hit my heart.
Laura M, Staff Writer
I cried today! At work, at my desk, very quietly and quickly! Maybe four tears total before I Put A Lid On It, because we have an open floor plan and I would prefer to cultivate an air of ruthless efficiency and unyielding competence. So I think that doesn’t count.
Before that, the last time I cried was at A-Camp after the last night dance. My cabinmates had dispersed, the music was slightly too slow for me to dance to, and I walked back to the cabin alone, looking up at the sky and thinking about how grateful I was to be alive rather than dead.
Erin, Staff Writer
The lead up to me really crying is like starting a lawn mower that’s low on gas. It takes repeated, painstaking pulls that result in disappointing puffs of air before there’s one that makes the engine catch and become its own uncontrollable being. This was me a couple weeks ago after months of stressors came to a head with another stroke my dog had. For some background, I got my dog when he was a puppy over 12 years ago. He’s been with me for every move, every relationship’s beginning and end, every major change in my adult life. When Riese met him and me for the first time together she said something to the effect of, “Wow, you two really are on another wavelength.” For better or worse – because he has 100% ruined my life financially and otherwise – he’s my guy.
The combination of his age and breed is such that he now has mini-strokes on a fairly regular basis. It’s something we manage, and there hasn’t been one bad enough that it’s affected his limbs permanently, but a couple weeks ago I found him in a room unable to move. I could tell he was confused and he was scared, and when I hugged him he leaned his big head into my chest and kept it there like he was thanking me. That was the pull that got it to catch and WHOO GIRL if it didn’t take off on it’s own!
[Update 9/30/17: my dog died last month and I’ve been crying every day since!]
Stef, Vapid Fluff Editor
I used to cry very, very easily, but it’s become much less frequent as work-related stress has forced me to become a hardened shell of my former self. This all went to hell last week.
Listen, so my officemate and I like to have the National Geographic channel on in the background sometimes while we work, and the other day when I was about to get my period and felt extremely, EXTREMELY emotionally volatile, they happened to show a program about African wild dogs. This one female African wild dog couldn’t find any other African wild dogs to mate with so she was offering herself to some hyenas and I was like, girl, I’ve been there. I got weirdly emotional about it! Girl, I pled with her silently, you don’t have to do this. You’re better than this! She kept trying to find other packs of her own kind to hang with and perhaps mate with but it just wasn’t in the cards for her. She ended up making a home with a pack of jackals and it was too much for my premenstrual little heart. I swear I’m not the kind of person who cries at stuff like this but man, I was just having a day.
Heather Hogan, Senior Editor
I’m not really a big crier. I get teary a lot about stories (and TV commercials with pets) but I don’t find it very cathartic to just sob. I feel worse after I cry, always, and the day after too. Next Monday I’m having a big surgery that’s been a long time coming. I’m scared about it, about the procedure itself, about what they’re going to find or not find. I’m scared about the recovery, and the several weeks I’m taking off of work for it. (It’s been ten years since I took more than a week off of work.) My stress is compounded by the doctor’s bills that piled up leading to this surgery, and the countless hours I’ve spent on the phone with my insurance company disputing their willy-nilly decisions about what to pay, and about what health care is even going to look like for Obamacare folks like me next year.
It’s been a hard summer. I was physically attacked once on a bus by a guy calling me a “bitch dyke” and some teenage dudes threw rocks at me on my street just a few weeks ago shouting a similar thing. Two police reports, two follow-up visits. I have new neighbors upstairs and downstairs who are making me feel constant anxiety in my own home. I had to have an emergency root canal. The IRS thinks I owe them an extra $8,000. I’ve had to do some perpetual and frustrating emotional labor around a few adults whose behavior calls up a lot of bad childhood memories for me. Every day a new Trump horror. And I cycle through excruciating pain. (Thus the surgery!) I’m really very tired. But I haven’t cried one single time about any of it — until last week when I was going for my final pre-surgery blood work and I couldn’t find my lucky Star Wars t-shirt. I’ve had that shirt a hundred years. I wore it the first time I won a mountain bike race, when I emailed Riese to ask for a job, my first date with Stacy, my interview with Dolly Parton, to King’s Cross station. And I’ve worn it to every single one of my doctor’s appointments, ultrasounds, MRIs, and outpatient procedures this year. I know it’s not really lucky but it’s a security blanket and when I couldn’t find it in my closet, my dresser, the clothes hamper, under the bed, in between the couch cushions, anywhere, I broke down on the kitchen floor and sobbed my little guts out.
20 minutes later I did find it. One of my cats was using it as a bed. And I cried again.
Molly, Staff Writer
This is something I actually track because I’m working hard to be a better crier (I couldn’t do it for like ten years because of shoving all my feelings down for so long). It was today while I was editing a column at my other, newspaper job, about a couple of young journalists I knew who died in a plane crash a few years ago. They were rad women, and I think about them a lot. My coworker who wrote the column was good friends with them, and the idea of a big steel cross marking their crash site in the wilderness with their names, miles away from sight or even a real trail, gives me goosebumps. Oops, I’m crying again.
Alexis, Staff Writer
We were in the hospital with my grandma earlier this year. March, near the beginning of the month. I only remember that because it was near my dad’s birthday and I prayed a lot that she wouldn’t go on the same day my dad was born. I remember thinking it was a silly fear, because my family loves my dad so much that they’d never let even death cloud their love for him, but I worried because that’s what I do. I think I let that fear envelop me because I kept getting scared that she wouldn’t know where to go when she died, that somehow she’d make a wrong turn somewhere and somehow heaven would forget her. I kept thinking she’d see her husband again and I got scared because I didn’t know what to hope for if she did. I don’t know what place he’d be in and I’m not sure if I want her to follow. If heaven is a good place, do only good people go there? What if you love them? What if they loved you? Does that make them good enough?
So, that’s all hurricaning through my head as I sit in the huge and comfortable patient’s room with my family. All of us are taking turns crying and laughing and talking about what’s on TV (alternatively, the news, then Wheel of Fortune, then Jeopardy just like when I was little and would stay over at my grandparents’ house late) while we wait for my grandma to wake up and maybe recognize us. Her memory went a long time ago and she’s always been small but the loss she doesn’t even know she carries makes her seem smaller. Her hair is greying and her skin isn’t fitting right, it looks like she can go any minute and at first, I don’t go to her. Even though they’re pretending they’re not, the whole family listens as you say your final words to her and I wanted mine to be alone. But, I don’t get that privilege and I hold her too weak hand and lay my head on her bed and look up at her like I did when I was little and she looks back at me. She’s been mistaking me for her brother lately.
The last time I spoke to her, months before, she told me, “Jessie, I’m so tired. I just want to go home.” I hold her hand and I hope that there’s some kind of way tears give the words you can’t say right to the person who needs them most. I try to tell her she’s going home soon and we love her, I love her a lot. But I don’t think she understands. I want this to be some pretty story, but death doesn’t dress up just because you ask it to. She looked at me and I kept crying and she kept looking and she didn’t say anything profound or anything that gave me peace for where she was going. She looked at me and I cried. Then she looked away.
Mey, Trans Editor
Well, I’m usually a big crier, but I have been especially lately. I’ve cried every single day at least once since the start of A-Camp. Mostly it’s been because of my hospitalization and what led up to it and what I did around that time. It’s not been great, but I’m in therapy and I’m working on those things. But today, the most recent time I cried was actually because of Wonder Woman. I went and saw it with my mom and Nikki, and there’s this part where someone tells Diana that people don’t deserve her love, they don’t deserve to be saved. And Diana says my favorite thing ever, she says that it’s not about who deserves it, it’s about what you believe, and what she believes in is Love. This is how I want to live my live, and I haven’t been following it very well the last month or so, so even though I’d seen it before, when Diana said those words, I couldn’t help but cry.
KaeLyn, Staff Writer
Family mythology attests that I’ve never been a “crier.” When I was little, I’d fall down the stairs and get up smiling. I still don’t cry much, especially IRL. I think it’s healthy to cry! I encourage crying! I think it’s bullshit that crying is perceived as weakness! Even so, I have very high, thick, emotional walls with barbed wire on the top and crying gives people a peek over that wall that I don’t like. The last time I cried was watching Moana for the first time, the scene where Moana really sees Te Ka/Te Fiti for the first time and welcomes her to come to her while singing: “They may have stolen the heart from inside you/But this does not define you/This is not who you are/You know who you are.” I am Te Ka. We are all Te Ka.
Nora, Fashion and Beauty Editor
If you read my recent Friday open thread, you know I’ve spent a nontrivial amount of time crying in the last several months for shitty reasons — but my most recent cry was actually for a non-shitty one! I was spooning in bed with a person I’ve been seeing on and off for a few years (sometimes because of distance, more times because of conflict), and I realized how peaceful and purely affectionate our interactions had become since I’d started on anxiety medication and began to recognize and remedy my codependency. My big spoon is nowhere near perfect, but I learned I’d made things so much harder for the both of us by not being able to articulate what it was that I wanted, and then stewing constantly over them not being able to read my mind. I had assigned malicious motives to their completely healthy and normal human actions because my formative model for relationships was an emotionally abusive one that discouraged equality and communication. It just hit me how I didn’t have to lug around that baggage anymore; how I had finally been enlightened to my destructive patterns and their sources, that I had forgiven my partner and myself, and that I was now free to love from a place of gratitude, rather than a place of fear of abandonment. I left a substantial spot on my pillow, though, so now I look like a big ol’ drooler.
Faith, Contributor
I used to think I wasn’t a big crier but then I realized I bottle it all up then save it for movie night and also TV shows featuring baby animals. Inside Out rocked my emotional core and reduced me to a silent heave-sobbing mess. More recently, I may have cried twice while watching Okja on Netflix right before becoming a vegetarian for a week.
Vanessa, Community Editor
The number one thing that has made me cry recently is listening to podcasts taped the day of or the day before the 2016 election. You know, before we knew. When there was still joy and brightness and happiness and dare I say hope and optimism in our collective voices. When we thought we were about to elect Hillary Rodham Clinton. When we thought we were gonna finally have a woman in the White House.
I’m not seeking these podcasts out intentionally, but I keep stumbling upon them and they are so, so depressing. Bad With Money with Gaby Dunn features Gaby talking cheerfully about how she voted earlier that day and doesn’t know the results yet. She jokes about giving herself to the sea if Trump wins. You can tell she doesn’t think he will. On Sooo Many White Guys, Phoebe Robinson chats gleefully about what Hillary should do when she’s president. And on Buffering the Vampire Slayer, Jenny Owen-Youngs opens with a very somber message to listeners; this episode is slightly different than the other two podcasts because in the former episodes, our protagonists don’t know that everything is awful yet, but in this episode, Jenny knows. We all know.
So yes, the last time I cried was in my car, by myself, driving back to my home in Portland after spending a week on the rural lesbian land in Southern Oregon that I also call home (I have many homes). I listened to Jenny trying to make her listeners feel okay in this world; an impossible task. And I thought about the brightness in Gaby and Phoebe’s voices when they thought things would be different on November 9, 2016. And I cried.
Rachel, Managing Editor
I don’t cry much in general, especially in the past year or so because, idk, my heart has turned into a brick at the bottom of a lake! I cried this week on July 3 — my mother’s birthday, coincidentally — after coming home from the city fireworks by the lakeside, where I was part of one of several community groups observing and recording the police because the fireworks are historically a heavily policed and as a result violent holiday in my city. I’m one of the only people with access to a car, so I had driven a few people there, and by the time everything was finally done, around midnight, I packed them up and drove them back. Then I drove myself home, with the streets mostly empty except for a few drunk people and some personal fireworks going off in the side streets, and parked outside my apartment on the curb and turned the engine off and let the song on the radio finish playing — I wanna say it was Alessia Cara’s “Stay,” with that catchy tinny chorus — and stared out the windshield and did those gross little hiccups you make when you’re starting to maybe cry but, as Erin put it, the engine doesn’t want to catch.
I didn’t feel like I could or wanted to be out in the world — it was dark out there and not safe for me and even less safe for other people, and I kept thinking of these little babies playing in the grass and doing cartwheels six feet from mounted police. I didn’t want to be in my apartment either, which felt claustrophobic and sad and too hot. The only place it felt like I could be, at least for the duration of Alessia Cara’s “Stay,” was inside this Toyota Echo that doesn’t even have my name on the title. But tragically for me, you cannot live your entire life and die inside a Toyota Echo. So for the two minutes the song lasted I had a weird, humiliating, choked little half-cry in the driver’s seat, left a scattered voice message for somebody I missed who I knew was asleep, and then went inside my overheated apartment and sat in front of the AC until I thought I could fall asleep.
Riese, Editor-in-Chief
The last time I cried was a few weeks ago when a couple who’d made an offer on this house took back the offer for reasons too frustrating and dumb to get into here. I was in Los Angeles visiting my very patient girlfriend Sarah who I met this past February. I’d just packed to fly home and she was heading off to class and I was heading off to the airport. We’d been so giddy and ecstatic ever since the offer was made, and so had my friends. I was so excited to be getting out of here, to no longer literally live inside the epic logistical and financial nightmare I was faced with after a soul-crushing breakup.
And then I got an email from my real estate agent about the inspection and I cried. Generally I try to avoid crying because my face reacts like it’s just been dunked in a vat of poison (it gets red / swollen / puffy for hours / days), but I cried through most of November and December, after the breakup. Then I stopped for a while. But in the days leading up to the offer being made, I’d cried most mornings before getting out of bed, ’cause I felt like I was gonna live inside this mistake we made forever, like there’d never be an offer, despite it being a truly beautiful house. That’s what everybody says when they see it, and they’re not lying. It’s a gorgeous house! But I bought it in a specific context — we were engaged, we wanted a place we could live in forever, which meant big enough for a family one day — and that context is gone like so many things I believed in last year. The fact that it was just me on the paperwork felt like a technicality until it became the most defining factor of my life. The towns I live near are incredible, wonderful places to live, objectively. But it’s also my hometown — where I grew up and went to college, and I was deeply unhappy as an adolescent and in college. So it’s haunted, really. My ex had empowered me to face my ghosts in a way that felt like the closure I’d needed for so long. But now it’s just me and the ghosts. (Also there are definitely literal ghosts in this house, ask Erin!)
I think the initial plan was Detroit, but then we saw this place on Zillow, and it was everything we’d ever talked about, so the location became secondary — notably, it’s on five acres of land, and my ex wanted land ’cause she wanted to be a farmer. That’s how a city girl (me) who likes a coffee shop and gym within walking distance ended up living in the country, 20 minutes from the nearest grocery store. The rest of this decision is foggy. I got confused, I guess, between what I wanted and what she wanted, but also I wanted her to be happy and successful, which meant what she wanted was what I wanted, so that’s where things got confusing. I also figured that no matter what, it’d be way cheaper than making a mistake in New York or California, and I could spend the money I saved on visits… but it’s actually been a nonstop life-draining financial nightmare. My bills have never been higher. I think I also confused “accepting that the midwest is actually awesome” with “being a person who wants to live in the midwest right now”? Because of the work I do, not living near LA/SF/NY or another lesbian hub has been harder than I’d anticipated.
Now there’s another, much lower, offer on the house, which I accepted, despite it meaning I wouldn’t even break even, let alone profit, despite the brand new roof, everything that I did and everything Erin did and everything Sarah did to get it ready — but the foundation needs work before we can close.
When the contractor gave me the truly epic foundation repair estimate, I didn’t cry. I just sat here and stared at the wall and felt empty, like a five acres of land I don’t want or like an empty promise or maybe, more generously, like the bones of a house without anybody inside it, like the house will be when I leave it, which I will, because I must, and soon.
Reneice, Staff Writer
The last time I cried was last week when I watched Moana. The moment you find out her grandma got her wish and became a stunning, graceful, glow-in-the-water stingray after she died. I was no good. I sobbed like a baby into my hands and blubbered about how beautiful it was and how important it is to carry the spirits of our elders and ancestors with us. I need to call my grandma.
Yvonne, Senior Editor
I’ve always been a chillona. It would get me in trouble with my aunts when I was a kid because they said I needed to toughen up. My mom would always defend me and say that I was just sensitive. My partner was often frustrated with my ability to cry easily especially in the beginning of our relationship because she didn’t know how to deal with it. I’ve gotten a lot better with how easily and how often I cry but I still cry a lot more than most people!
The last time I cried was last week. My partner and I moved to a new apartment in the same city and it’s just been super stressful and chaotic at home! Our stuff is in boxes, I don’t know where anything is, our house is a mess, we didn’t have clean clothes, I work from home, our dishwasher wasn’t working. It’s just been a lot. One night my partner and I got into a huge fight that was about the bath mat but it wasn’t really about the bath mat but how we communicate with each other when we’re angry, annoyed or stressed. And then it just exploded from there and I was super impatient and just wanted to go to sleep and she wanted to discuss it and so we had a shouting match and said some things while crying. Then she left the apartment in the middle of the night and I cried a little more before tossing and turning all night.
Raquel, Staff Writer
I cried last night, a lot, because I’m exhausted of getting rejections for jobs I’ve been told I’m qualified for (maybe that’s the problem), and was passed on for a position I really, really, wanted—a remote design position for a media company that I daydreamed about so much, that would allow me to rub elbows with journalists and writers and to move to Alpine for a year and live quietly in West Texas and maybe write a book and hang out with cowboys and look at the big bright stars above the McDonald Observatory and write poetry and then, maybe, even apply to grad school— dreams dashed, and so then my girlfriend read a very sad piece I wrote about my depression and my exhaustion and my terror of being a Real Writer and so she sent me a google doc of potential low-residency MFA programs, because she is so thoughtful, and then I cried for an hour because I’m a baby.
Irony! Heather Hogan’s writing makes everybody cry (in a good way) yet doesn’t herself cry that often. Well played, HH; well played.
Thanks team for the post; this is great.
I cried yesterday watching the Jim and Andy doc about the making of Man on the Moon.
You are speaking the truth! Heather’s writing almost always makes me cry.
I thought exactly the same about Heather.
I really like this time-spread format with the mini updates about what has happened since.
It’s kind of like a TV show/film where you get a round-up at the end showing what happened next to everyone, which is incidentally has a high chance of making me cry. Basically, if this page had a backing track of the piano from a Bake Off season finale I’d be in floods of tears right now.
I can’t decide if you publishing this today was perfect timing or terrible timing. Either way, I’ve cried pretty much every day this week. Multiple times. I’m completely heartbroken, and I have a bunch of huge and truly life changing decisions to make in the next few days and so. much. adulting. to do and the anxiety about all of that has just kept compounding the the point that I feel completely paralyzed. Aaaand now I’m crying again.
<3 <3 <3
I hope you find all the courage you have within you for this growing time that's causing you pain, and all the love for yourself that will see you through.
You will make it. Hold on, you lovely one, hold on.
All the love to you, @arvan12, as you navigate heart break and those life changing decisions. ❤️
You’ve got this, Allison, you can do it!
This thing on heartbreak helped me a lot when I was dealing with a few bumps and bruises to the area recently…https://www.brainpickings.org/2015/04/29/david-whyte-consolations-words/
Hope it might for you too. Good luck
I cried last week because after walking to the pharmacy in the freezing cold they told me they didn’t have my anti depressant prescription, and I’d already been without for 4 days (I KNOW I KNOW) and then the pharmacist lectured me on not leaving it until the last minute and I think I said “DON’T MAKE ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT MY LIFE” even though I had indeed left it to the last minute. Then I burst into tears and and sat in his pharmacy for half an hour sobbing on the phone to the after hours helpline.
Also last night, watching Blue Planet II, when the clownfish all teamed up to move a heavy shell for the female to lay her eggs!
The last time I cried was last Thursday when I was diagnosed with an eating disorder!!
The time before that was October, a week-ish after my birthday, when my mom told me my writing was too angry/feminist/whatever for anyone to want to hire me!!
i am so here for angry feminist writing <3
It sounds like your mom doesn’t think the publications *she* reads would want to hire you – which may be true because she probably isn’t your target audience so your writing might not speak to her demographic – but that doesn’t mean nobody will! I truly read very little that ISN’T angry feminist writing.
Yeah…..
sometimes I feel like she likes my writing because I’m her kid, not because she likes the content.
So far it hasn’t stopped me from writing angry feminist words though!
I silently cried a little Saturday night. It’s been a long fall here in Houston, and I’m just tired. My anxiety has been extra for the past three months and it’s all coming to a head that I’m not quite ready or prepared to deal with.
Last Tuesday, I casually wept through the final dress rehearsal of a world premiere opera we opened this past Thursday. It brought up so many childhood ghosts and captured the difficulties of being different in a small Midwestern town that the hot tears steadily cascading down my face burned in painful memory and catharsis, a dissonance and resolution in its own.
I sing opera and it made me really happy to see another opera lover here on Autostraddle! Your post really resonated with me. Sending good vibes your way, I hope things get better soon.
Let me know if you’re ever in Houston! I’m always excited to meet other opera lovers.
Thank you all for sharing this part of the heart of all your wonderful selves.
It’s all beautiful and devastating and true and a million miles from our everyday “How are you?/ Fine, how about you?” interfacing with the world.
I cried on Friday night, trying to stay silent in the bathroom at 3am. For work and head pain in part, but mostly because I’ve let myself get lost, and I’m starting to find myself again. I don’t know where or how I’ll be in another year, but I do know that I have a lot of learning and honoring myself to do. And sometimes pain is the cracking of an eggshell as you grow beyond.
Love to you all here, every one of you on each of your most precious journeys, that of your own true selves.
Sending so much love and strength to you as you get back to who you are. <3 <3
~~~ thank you ~~~
And fiercely uplifting love to you too as you navigate this slippery world when it tips you over again and again…you are brave and your strength as you face others and yourself is true.
Love you Snaelle
Love you too Carmen ~ <3
Love you Snaelle
P.S. Erin, I’m so sorry to hear about your dog. Losing a pet who’s been with you that long is so fucking hard. Love to you x
True. Always hard to lose a friedn
I cried last night because my dad made insensitive comments about my queerness being a “choice that I’ve made” and a “lifestyle” when I thought we were way beyond that.
Oof. I’m so sorry. I’ve had similar experiences, and it’s so crummy. Hopefully you already know, but in case you need to hear it again: your identity is not trivial, and who you are is not a lifestyle. You are a valid an amazing person!
I cried last night while having a discussion with my significant other about our relationship… it wasn’t even a negative conversation. I’ve been crying a lot lately which is generally unlike me. I’m usually annoyingly positive and happy-go-lucky, but over the summer a lot of highly emotional things happened with my family and I suddenly moved to a brand new city without a clear plan and without friends and the transition has been a lot harder than I thought it would be. I also entered my first queer relationship about 4 months ago which has been incredibly positive, but very intense and emotional.
A few weeks ago I was hit by a car while riding my bike, I was wearing my helmet but still had a concussion which I am still dealing with almost everyday. I’ve been increasingly irritable and very anxious because I’m extremely frustrated that my recovery feels so out of my control and so stagnant which has put some strain on my relationship.
I’m so sorry that you’ve been having a hard time, and that you got a concussion on top of all of that! I’ve had a handful of concussions over the years, and they are truly the worst. I always get super emotional/irritable/frustrated with how long the recovery feels like it’s taking and also embarrassed that something invisible and seemingly so minor is affecting me so much. You will get through it, but in the meantime I hope that you’re able to be gentle with yourself, physically and emotionally. It really is brain trauma and that is some real shit! Try to remember that if you had a broken foot or something you wouldn’t feel nearly as guilty about taking the time you need to let it heal and not pushing so hard. Good luck!
I have always been a crier but this year I seem to be doing a lot more public crying! The last time I cried was last weekend, standing in front of the security line at the airport. Thanksgiving with my conservative, religious family was an emotional trip for me, and on the way to the airport, my dad said a lot of hurtful things about my queerness. My mom realized I was hurt and walked me into airport, where she told me how she was working on getting my dad to be more supportive and loads of other very nice things, which promptly caused my eyes to turn into waterfalls. I spent the 6 hour flight back to SF tearing up over her words all over again
I cried on my partner Saturday about AIDS day and my uncle who died when i was young and my self pity on missing out on having a gay family member due to the epidemic and seeing every one’s AIDS memorial posts online.
Thank you so much for this. I am deeply touched and very grateful for your beautiful crying stories (I am nearly crying about them now!) Also, thank you for the space to tell our crying stories.
I am a biiig crier. I am very sensitive, also chronically depressed, also I am autistic and prone to meltdowns during which I often cry. I am also an activist and my sense of justice is really intense, I hate nothing more than being treated unfairly and not being recognized for my work. I am also learning more and more about ableism, and my queer activist wheelchair-using cerebral palsy-having autistic self was fed up with non-disabled people not getting it, which is the cause of my last crying session on Monday. I work for a volunteer organisation that gives workshops about sexual and gender diversity to schools. I do that without getting paid. I am also one of the people who works the most for this (it’s a lot of fun and I love it!). I am also disabled and stressed out 24/7 which is normal being a disabled person in this society. Everything my coworkers do takes me like, 20 times the effort. Also, most of them do not really care about being reliable about our work and they know that I’ll do everything last minute if I have to so they don’t really cooperate. so when I forgot that I had a workshop to lead on Thursday I felt REALLY guilty about it, but also, I was just so TIRED and had recently come home from a (wonderful) writing workshop in Austria where I had only slept 4 hours in three days, I was exhausted, so I figured, since I am the one always doing everything, that I could cancel the workshop. When I did this, my coworkers pressured me a lot in our public WhatsApp group and told me that they needed to be able to rely on me, which made me really angry bc…nobody of the other unreliable people ever got told off in that way and I am…reliable af?? when I found someone to replace me for the workshop I got told that my behaviour was unfair towards the others…my “I am being treated unfairly bc I am the one doing all the work, also, try being disabled one day you fuckers”-buttons got pushed, I got triggered and started yelling, heavily sobbing, hyperventilating, crying and throwing my phone across the room (full-on meltdown mode, yay!). I got angry again when I got told that the others had described me as unreliable (which is, again, no surprise when all work is put on me). so….that was my crying story :D thank you for the space and to everyone willing to read this nonsense…love u.
Geez, your coworkers were being awful! I’m sorry you had to deal with that. Thank you for sharing your story – a lot of what you said resonates, and it’s good to feel solidarity, even though I wish NONE of us were experiencing this garbage. Sending supportive thoughts your way <3
I cry semi-regularly and it’s always alone in my apartment and even then usually in the shower to drown it out (old habits) and it’s always, always, always abt feeling so crushingly alone / like a failure that my ribs could just SNAP IN HALF and my lungs burn like something is Clawing
Then I feel guilty because I do have actual real life friends, it just *feel like I do* because apparently you’re supposed to, like, open up to people, or some shit.
IDK. I think I should just get a dog
Doesn’t * feel like I do
omg crying alone in an apartment about being so lonely you can’t breathe is basically me every other day! & feeling guilty (because I moved to another country away from all my friends so I shouldn’t really complain :^o )
I totally relate – it’s okay though, have faith that one day we will both have dogs and hopefully also people we can open up to x
Thank you for this. For your stories, and your candidness. All of you.
I last cried walking my dog. I was thinking about my brother who passed in July. I’ve cried a lot since then. I to often find myself crying on various forms of transportation like Kayla.
Once when I was in high school, I didn’t cry for over a year. It was somewhat intentional, as someone had called me a crybaby and I responded with an “I’ll show you” attitude. Then I started crying again when I read The Flowers in the Attic, incidentally when the little brother dies. I was in a bath, and vowed to never let anyone else have sway over my choices of crying or not ever again.
I’m so sorry for your loss <3
Being mocked or punished for crying suuuucks!
I don’t cry very much, I sort of bottle things up until they become toxic and then I drink too much and cry for 5 hours straight (and the next morning wake up with a pounding hangover from alcohol and emotions and vow to never do that again…and about 4 months later the cycle repeats)
Anyway, I last did that Saturday night because of a potent combination of homesickness, exam stress, job application stress, lack of sleep, poorly processed grief over my dead ex from almost 3 years ago, and vodka.
Occasionally I will sniffle over fictional characters (abuse survivor narratives hit an especially vulnerable point in my heart) but outside of Drunk Crying Nights I don’t really cry as such. I think I burned out my tear ducts when I was a kid and cried at everything.
Riese I’m so sorry about your house situation. I hope it all worked out!
The last time I cried was over Thanksgiving when I saw Coco.
thank you emma! yes, i am out of the house finally, which was its own ordeal but @sarsquared helped me for a full month and cameron for a weekend to get everything out of that place and into a POD or to goodwill or to the dump. now that place and its ghosts are behind me and i am living out of a suitcase in los angeles but it feels like things will come back together in time. <3 <3
The last time I cried was while reading this roundtable. The time before that was ten minutes prior, when I was reading Corina’s December horoscopes article here on Autostraddle. The time before that was when I was reading KaeLyn’s recent article about holiday decorations, which I realize was probably not supposed to be a tearjerker, but I have a lot of complicated pre-holiday feelings.
So, one could chalk all these instances up to the fact that I cry easily, but I’m pretty sure they’re ALSO a response to the powerful writing that you all produce and publish. Thank you, Autostraddle!
The last time I cried was just now, reading this, so thanks.
The last time before that was last week, I ended a relationship a few weeks ago which was my first relationship since my ex wife and I got hit with a whole load of feelings about that which I thought I was over, and about relationships in general.
Also I want to throw rocks at the people who hurt Heather and the people who hurt physically or emotionally anyone else on here, and I’m not really a violent person.
ME TOO! I’m not usually a violent/angry kinda person, so the visceral surge of anger and wanting to throw rocks at those people that I felt reading this really took me by surprise. Heather, I hope you know you have a queer woman internet army ready to deploy whenever you need it.
I’m a Scorpio sun, Pisces rising, Pisces moon, so I feel VERY deeply and cry EXTREMELY often. Most people think I am exaggerating when I say I cry every day, but crying is just a part of the way I experience every day emotions, so i cry at least once a day, if not more. It’s not something I think about really because it is always happening. But BIG cries recently include last night when my girlfriend and I got in a fight about what we need from each other in dealing with trauma and then last Wednesday after my first therapy session since college. My therapist is a man (after 5 months of waiting on waitlists for a non-dude LGBT therapist) and when he asked me to do a mindfulness exercise I immediately started sobbing. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
My girlfriend/partner/person that makes you believe in all the stuff you thought was dumb before you met them died suddenly in May. The early part of our relationship was extremely rocky and after we had been broken up for a couple months, she sent me Carrie Underwood’s cover of “I Told You So” as sort of a peace offering/way back. We were together ever since… 8 1/2 years.
A few days ago, I was playing games on my laptop (procrastinating) and listening to music, when all of a sudden it came on, even though I had lost all my music in a “you need to back up your computer” life lesson a year or two ago. I think it made me cry even more than the first time. It was the feel better after kind of crying though:)
Actually music has always kinda made me a crybaby. even as a kid.
I am so sorry for your loss. I know words aren’t usually the thing that helps with loss, but I am still sorry. Take care, and do your best to be kind to yourself. <3
I’m really sorry, that must be so hard.
wow, i love you all a lot. my fellow staff members. all our commenters. everyone who is here. i love you a lot a lot.
also, update: since i wrote this i have cried several times (i used to cry all the time but that stopped a few years ago after an epic breakup — i think maybe i used up the majority of my tears?) but the MOST RECENT TIME was on saturday, when i woke up after staying up so late watching the tax bill pass in the senate in real time in the middle of the fucking night, and then i texted my girlfriend suggesting that maybe we should move to canada, and then i texted my family members who voted for trump to yell at them and ask them to explain themselves again, and then i got in the car and picked up my girlfriend and drove us to the event we were working, an unveiling for a feminist astrological datebook, and when we got to the venue i asked my girlfriend where she thought i should park the car and she said “wherever you want babe” and i looked at her and started sobbing hysterically and couldn’t stop and then i parked the car and kept crying for five minutes. then we went inside and sold feminist astrological datebooks to older women and a few younger women, too.
anyway. love you.
Did your family ever reply? Are they even in the right tax bracket that lowers their taxes?
they did not reply in a meaningful way, no. :/
I feel like my family’s response would also not be meaningful.
This was my first thanksgiving without a dear, big sister-like, amazing friend who passed away in the spring. I cried bc fb reminded me of a video I had shared of her being silly and wonderful the last time I shared a thanksgiving with her.
I’m so sorry. I would be totally devastated if my best friend died.
In the last 3 days my mom was diagnosed with cancer, I broke up with my girlfriend of 2 years who I honestly thought I would marry someday,and I got rejected from an internship. Oh, and it’s finals week. The moral of the story is that there have been a lot of tears. I need a hug and a drink, dammit.
I hope you get both–the hug and drink, that is…maybe two or three of each after the week that you’ve had.
I’m really sorry. Sometimes life throws multiple things at people in a way that is so unfair.
I cried this morning (and last night, and the night before) because on Friday I finally told my husband that I have been questioning my bisexuality and that I think I might be much more gay than I realized and he’s pretty devastated and now we’re going to start therapy and I’ve never been so confused and sad. He’s such a wonderful person and I love him so much but I have no desire to have any kind of sex with him and that’s a big problem that deserves a lot of big cries and oh boy am I doing that.
The last time I cried was angry crying that you’re also angry you’re doing because you don’t feel like crying you feel like roaring but even if you weren’t at work you’re pretty sure your voice would just break and the people you’re angry at just wouldn’t feel the fear you want to inspire if you basically squeaked at them.
Long story short an unofficial boss Co-worker was on vacation and my manager happened to schedule the other two people I work with regularly off at the same time and also seasonal product moves and also giving me a seasonal employee is not help if I haven’t trained them to help yet and what do you mean you were waiting for me to ask you for help with the front window WE ARE NOT MARRIED, THOSE DECISIONS ARE NOT EVEN MY JOB
I somehow managed to NOT cry on the phone with the surgeon’s office because I have been waiting for almost a month to get a surgery date and have been calling at least once a week and I HAVE NOT HEARD BACK and I am SO FRUSTRATED WITH THIS (i am frustrated with the rest of health stuff, i am scared of the medical test i have tomorrow, i’m afraid of some more medical tests i have in a few weeks because while hey if they show that my gallbladder is fucked, that’s an answer to my severe GI problems but….it means another surgery WHICH IS WHY I WANT TO HAVE THE SURGERY I KNOW I NEED SCHEDULED SO I CAN WORK AROUND IT). If I have to call them again and don’t have a date, I give myself 90% chance of crying.
My last cry was…Friday? Saturday? Whatever day I had the worst migraine I’ve ever had that was also probably the most pain I’ve ever been in because I’ve never been that incoherent from pain before and I didn’t even realize i was crying until after the leftover oxycodone from my last hospitalization took effect and i realized my pillow was SOAKED, though like, it also could have been at least some drool because I was at that “fetal, shaking, and making that halloween decoration noise” stage of migraine/pain and was really not moderating what was happening with my mouth. I am positive it was crying though because I am having a pain flare the likes of which only come after I cry (which is SUPER FUN WHEN YOU’RE HAVING A PAIN FLARE BECAUSE YOU CAN’T CRY BECAUSE CRYING EQUALS MORE PAIN SO HAVE FUN REGULATING THAT NORMAL PHYSICAL RESPONSE).
The last time I cried before that was when I got to see Fun Home and I definitely cried during Ring of Keys which I had kinda expected to happen, I cried more later in because of the musical/stage representation of a suicidal mindset that was too on the nose to my own experiences with being there in a way I’ve never experienced even through other media about suicide. At least some of the crying was gratitude at being lucky enough to be on the other side, to BE HERE. (And some of it was also the fear that I will be there again because…that’s pretty statistically likely to happen with my mental illness.)
Even before crying became the number one pain flare trigger, I didn’t cry much, except in frustration (or from movies which I realize as an adult is because I bottle things up and movies are the place I can let it out) or in therapy regardless of how upset I actually am, which is probably related to the bottling emotion thing (or from random other circumstances I’ll just cry uncontrollably because that’s What My Body Is Doing Now and doing anything but rolling with that will only make me cry harder because I will get frustrated that I can’t Control My Body; these types of crying are also incredibly unsatisfying and only leave me in pain, with a headache, and severely dehydrated).
Now I try to avoid crying more than light crying because of pain. I also try to avoid more than light laughter too, for pain reasons. The fact that pain prevents me from experiencing the full range of emotions without negative repercussions–that I need to censor my emotions and emotional response for MY OWN health–is one of the things that makes me incredibly bitter and frustrated and sad and incredibly, incredibly angry, and is the biggest issue I have with my chronic pain and other disabilities.
eesh, last time i cried was a few weeks ago, a bit drunk and sobbing my heart out while writing a letter to my mum that i’ll never send, trying to convince her that god doesn’t think i’m hellspawn because i’m not straight – she just doesn’t seem to be able to make up her mind about it, which is infuriating, and has left me in this holding pattern that i can’t claw my way out of.
that was depressing! i mostly don’t cry unless it’s something to do with my family, and this particular thing has been a source of a lot of tears.
also, sending hugs to anyone who wants them because we are all having sad and stressful times, it seems <3
Also also, AFTER every therapy appointment, but never ever DURING a therapy appointment (HEAVENS NO)
Last time I cried was over the weekend. Reason being was a combo of dysphoria, dysmorphia, and a society that is trying to make it harder to be lgbtq, more so non-white trans. I also cried for the lgbtq community in the U.S. and world wide that don’t have the safety of being in a place like Los Angeles and California That people are dying for just being lgbtqi, women, Jewish, Muslim, POC, from the MENA region of the world, and just being an ally. It hurts that my safety only comes from lying and pretending to be something I never was. Like California shouldn’t be the only state to pan trans or gay panic as a defense. An abusive asshole should not be president. Brb, I need to wash my face now.
I definitely cried reading this…
I honestly can’t imagine what it would be like to be a person who doesn’t cry much. I cry ALL THE TIME. I spend so much time trying to figure out where and when to cry, and trying not to do it in less acceptable settings. And then fixing my makeup and telling people my eyes are red because “allergies” (I wonder if they think I’m high).
Do you non-criers have so much extra time? what do y’all do with it?
update: last time i cried was on december 1st because i watched angels in america and i thought about how reagan killed an entire generation of queer folks and how much tr*mp and him have in common and how we all deal with death way too young and life is way too hard for us right now and always. really glad at this opportunity for sharing my sad feelings with y’all.
I love this and all of you so much, and thank you so much for sharing this. I love these roundups and getting a glimpse (small or big) into all of your lives.
The last time I cried was on the subway last Friday, reading Ms. Marvel (which I chose, ironically, because I was on my way to a friend’s house for dinner and thought it would be delightful and cute and put me in a good mood). Usually when I say I “cried” on the subway I mean like “my eyes welled up a bit and I looked at the ceiling for a second,” but [um spoilers for the last Ms. Marvel trade] Ms. Marvel’s friend was forced to come out by a bad guy and everyone at school saw her embarrassing teen lesbian love letters to her straight best friend and it was very stressful. And then! Her friends came up to her in the hall and one by one gave her a big hug. You guys!! I cried real actual big tears on the R train. I had to wipe my cheeks, even!
Anyway I want to pile you all into a big group hug just like that.
I’ve continued to cry just about every day for those same reasons, and new issues that arose based around those same things. But my new most recent cry was last night bc i’m in a long distance relationship and I really, really miss my girlfriends.
I cry pretty easily at movies and books, and in arguments. I’m also very prone to crying after long periods of stress, so I usually schedule some time for myself during or after exams/busy periods and put on a sad movie and cry it all out.
I cried last month because I got home and realised that the submission date for an assessment had passed 2 hours before, at 9am. Then I cried two weeks later when I got an email saying I was still able to submit it. Maybe that second cry was out of relief? Maybe I was crying because I had to go through the stress of doing the assessment? Whatever the reason, there were a lot of tears.
I also cried while watching Moana.
I cried this morning after finishing some Lyft driving. Too much just seems unattainable… getting caught up financially since being laid off, understanding my handle on my emotions (or rather lack of), building a local network of friends, beginning transitionining, and having a better relationship who I thought of as a possible best friend (even soulmate). In not giving up but it still is very difficult.
Sounds like you’ve got a lot on your plate and you’re still surviving <3
The last two months I’ve cried almost every single day, thankfully I’ve had a little break the last week! So I think the last time I cried was my birthday, the day before thanksgiving, because I was really upset with my family, felt like I didn’t have any friends, and had ruined my life by starting grad school. My family will always be a source of crying, but thankfully I feel more connected to my friends right now and even met a new person recently that I hope to get close to, and grad school does suck sometimes but it is also great and it’s not solely to blame for all my struggling lately.
I used to not cry a whole lot, crying would induce headaches almost instantly. But then I started T and couldn’t really cry at all, and then I went off after a year, it has been like waterworks ever since! I cry like I have never cried before!
My first thought when I saw the topic was “Oh wow, crying! That’s where I’m a viking!”
Last time I cried was when reading about Erin’s dog above, last time I full-on ugly-cried was probably due to some political shit.
Unlike HH, I consider getting teary-eyed to be a form of crying*, and I’d say I do it almost every day. Sometimes I need to wipe away tears, sometimes I can blink them back. It could be a sad or inspiring song on the radio, great news from a coworker, the sight of an awesome tree or bee, movie, etc.
I think I cry for emotional relief as much as anything; it’s not usually because of something bad but because something touched me and I have a body that makes tears.
Because I’m fascinated by the subject of crying, I’ve read “Crying: the Mystery of Tears” by William Frey and “Crying: the Natural & Cultural History of Tears” by Tom Lutz.
*No shade on HH, who is a precious creature.
I love you all so much. Thank you for sharing your hearts, it has opened mine a little bit more.
I never, ever cry about personal stuff. But over the past month I’ve unexpectedly broke down sobbing—a feeling so foreign that I was actually laughing between racking sobs. I’m not even sure how to process it yet, but this round table has inspired me to try. ❤️
love you, love you, love you. <3
Crying now after reading this post and all the comments. I just want to make you all tea and wrap you up in soft blankets and make the world safe and warm and peaceful for all of you. <3
Ugh I’m all restless coming off a medication regimen that made me all cotton headed and feeling talkative but don’t want to look back in horror later at people coming out of the woodworks to comfort me for something I don’t need comforting for because I shared something they find upsetting but is just Tuesday to me. Which seems pretty bitchy. Sorry?
I rarely cry for collection of reasons, one of which I realise now as an adult is because my mother despises crying. I have memories of her face curled up in disgust by my tears and “sniveling”, the whining and whimpering. Nothing would make her give up on helping me crying and well…whining. Even typing that word makes me cringe like I’ve stepped in shit.
I think as child I might have been normal and cried easy like children do but I learned not to the extent someone who claimed to love me found me monstrous and this was when I was not actively trying to be a little terror. There comes a point I think in every outcast’s life where they lash out at the world that doesn’t want them and I wasn’t at that point anymore so being treated like a monster by when I was just a freak who thought was my fellow freak really hurt.
The learning not to cry isn’t all on my mom some of it is on me and the strange time frame when I tried to be a monster and burn out my sympathy for any and all humans.
When tried to be that wild thing that would drop dead never having felt sorry for itself.
Ugh nope not going to the hows. No because if mommy kinda dearest didn’t give you the horrors that will.
Kay so crying is rare event for me or feels like it anyway, like a butterfly landing one’s nose sounds too twee and magical.
But sometimes I am surprised that it happens and feel blessed I am capable of feeling.
Other times it’s so frustrating and makes me feeling like toddler who doesn’t have a handle on modulating their emotions and all of the things come bubbling over because hitting and breaking stuff is not available.
The last 2 times I cried I posted about it in the FOT but without the biographical details.
So it was last Thursday when I cried.
I dunno if I wanna risk it if it’s *spoilers* for the play I watched or not.
@alarae Is it really spoilers if one were talk in detail about Lemmel in the line near the end?
I can’t tell.
Okay so warning
If the play “Indecent” is play you haven’t seen and don’t want it spoiled stop reading.
—————————————————————————————
I mean it
—————————————————————————————
****************LAST CHANCE*************************
Kay here it goes so Lemmel has spent the entire play nurturing and believing in the purity of Rifkele
and Manke’s love in a cruel and awful world. That even in the damned Lodz Ghetto (a place where jews and roma were walled in by the Nazi before the organized mass murder part of the Holocaust) he is putting on the God of Vengeance.
So we’re watching the tender scene of love between two nightshift wearing lesbians in the rain in someone’s attic.
Then a “blink in time” and everyone who was in the attic is now in a line, an impossibly long line.
(Yes it’s now the organized mass murder part of Holocaust.)
No one is speaking words project up on the wall:
Lemmel sees Rifkele and Manke break free of the line [the two actressess move like they’ve broken free of some sort of time freeze or maybe rised from the ocean]
They escape [the actresses exit like children escaping their overbearing guardian]
He closes his eyes, he’s not afraid anymore.
[end scene]
I did not just cry, I sobbed like I broke something.
The last time I cried like that I broke 3 toes.
I fucking had to pause that play.
I was both NOT OKAY and OKAY at the same time.
It was both catharsis and feeling trapped.
“Me oh lord I know I’m one.”
Because my imagination is full of queer characters and uh lately queer characters in world setting far into the future, post-earth humanity. And still some innocent sweet part of me wants to believe we’d make it. That humanity will outlast our home-planet.
That a diversity of queer humans will exist beyond the end of planet Earth, a part of me believes.
That bit with Lemmel hit me with that “epiphany” (IDK to call it) like a brick and I don’t know what to do with.
Any of it.
LEMMEL!!!!!!!
“to me after the messiah come no hate no beating no sin”
If crying was ordinary for me that would get me blubbering again.
Cause:
Oh boy I feel you about how our parents can really teach us how to/how not to express emotions . My dad would often yell at me to stop crying when I was kid (which was a wildly ineffective way for a parent to react to a kid crying! but certainly did shape me over the years). I definitely still feel like crying is showing weakness at best and emotionally manipulative at worst, even though I’ve tried to relearn the whole deal. I totally tear up/cry all the time about stories, and I think I have a body that just makes tears, as someone put it really well above, but still nearly every time I cry for ~personal life reasons~ my first instinct is to hide/squelch it at all costs. I usually pretend I’m not upset for as long as possible, and then end up apologizing profusely for crying if any tears do leak out. I’m trying to work on/through this, and your comment helped a little, just to hear that someone else is dealing with a sort of similar thing.
Anthropology there’s this concept that culture is an adaptation for humans the way a thicker coat is for other animals because a big power of ours as a species is our bond, our ability for big gosh dang bunch us of to work together successfully towards a common goal. The people who raise are the first ones to enculturate us, it by their standards our minds try to arrange themselves as well a survival instinct. Don’t sweat your instinctual responses, they are not your fault.
I’m not sure this trying to comfort with sciencey concepts is going well have pupp hug gif
Also fuck the idea of tears as manipulative fuck it right into the sun.
And raising one’s voice at smaller being does not ever make them calmer. I don’t know why that is such a hard concept for some men to grasp.
I don’t think raging out is better or worse that apologizing profusely but that was my old response to tears and it huh when I think about it that still lead to apologies.
Emotions are messy.
I’m touched by everyone’s comments here and am a bit nervous to post my first comment on Autostraddle.
I cried twice today. Once at 6 am when I sobbed into my pillow because I would not and could not get up for school. Today was the first time I’ve been absent all semester, but I still feel guilty for taking a mental health day. I know it’s senior year. Everyone tells me I should relax, but frankly that’s a little hard to do when you’re taking 7 classes, 4 of them AP. It’s not just schoolwork, yearbook is kicking my ass right now. It seems like every spread needs to revamp its copy, and I’m in a race to edit them all. I feel like I’m practically suffocating from stress.
I thought I would be able to get everything done this weekend. But next thing I know, it’s Monday morning and my eyelids are drooping at 4 am. I wake up at 2 hours later–all sweaty and terrified because there’s still shit to do, and not enough time to do it. That’s when I break down and beg my mom to let me stay home for the day.
The second time I cried was when I was texting with my best friend. We both LOVE talking about the future, so our conversation naturally gravitated toward our plans after high school. We talked about where we’d like to live ideally, and he acted as my faux real estate agent and hunted down a beachfront house in New Jersey for me to “purchase”.
After laughing about what he sent me (me: dude my limit is $500k and that’s assuming a lot of things go right in my life. he: PUSH $689K???? me: UR FUCKEN NUTS!!! he: *sends pic of a gorgeous house* PUSH! me: OK FINE!), I found myself blinking back tears as I thought about who I was when we met. We’ve been friends for 12 years, so I met him in preschool when I was 4.
I thought about my timid 4 year old self with the messy bangs and extreme overbite that taught herself English through Yu-Gi-Oh cards and Saturday morning cartoons. I thought about how happy I felt when I tagged along with my mom to the market and watched her swipe her shiny food stamp card to buy groceries. I thought about how confused I felt when I saw how large my friends’ houses were compared to the tiny one bedroom abode my family shared. I thought about how angry I got when my dad told me to stop reading since it was a waste of time.
In that moment, in the car when I was holding back tears, I felt proud and emotional of how far I’ve come. Yes, I’ve screwed up and got a D in math and had a fair share of breakdowns, but the bottom line is that I’m going to be the first to graduate high school and the first to go to college in my family, and I did it all myself.
I’m never going to feel like I’m good enough (probably because of class anxiety and a mix of other things), but I’m feeling okay–I know that I’m competent in a few things and I’ve got great friends with hearts of gold that I’m privileged to know–so maybe that’s enough for now.
Hi Syd,
I’m so proud of you for recognizing when you needed to stop and take care of yourself! That is so hard to do when you’ve got a million things going. Senior year is an exciting/difficult time under any circumstances and you’ve certainly got a lot on your plate with so many AP classes and yearbook work. You’ve got nothing to feel guilty about and so much to be proud of!
It might help to remember that literally everybody misses deadlines. All. The. Time. (Sometimes that leads to something unexpected and glorious, like Riese’s hotel breakfast art.) Not just high school seniors, but grown-ass successful adults. Do your best to meet your deadlines, but don’t let it weigh on you when you can’t. You’re only human and taking care of yourself is more important. Don’t be afraid to tell the rest of your yearbook staff you’re in over your head at the moment and see if someone can help pick up the slack.
I’m glad it sounds like you’ve got a good support system. Hope you get to recharge over the winter break.
<3333333
(also I took half the year off my senior year of high school due to mental health reasons and in Malaysia that's a year of a major national exam, sort of one level below SATs. I did OK. Take as many breaks as you need, you'll make it through <3)
Thanks for the love!
Oh Erin. I am so sorry your dog passed. But I’m so glad he got to know so much love. Thank you for that.
Riese, your story made my heart break. Broken futures and subsuming yourself for the other person because their happiness is also your desire and urgh, so much. <3 <3 <3
I don't remember why I skipped out on this roundtable when it came time to fill it, but the last time I cried was for a weird happy version of a very difficult painful time I'm going through right now. Long story extremely short, one of my bestest friends (who I've written about here before) is acting so much like a douchebag that I've had to break up with him, and while he wants to resolve things he's not really meeting me halfway on this so I doubt things will get resolved fairly if at all. This has caused me a lot of anguish and feelings of betrayal – it really is like a romantic relationship gone sour. So yes, many many tears.
But the most recent tears were because of friends who care. I was falling apart one morning, the day I knew a friend would come over to keep me company while I attempt to clean the disaster that is my apartment. I didn't want this friend to deal with things alone so I put out a call for more people, and two other friends showed up. Between the three of them, even though none of them knew each other, they cleaned out my fridge, cleaned my bathroom, helped me with laundry and groceries, basically got my apartment hospitable again. They heard me cry about my ex best friend (who a couple of them knew personally), they showed me love and care. I felt so guilty but so loved at the same time. I'm tearing up remembering this <3
I last cried when Carrie Fisher died and nobody understood why. I hate crying and in my family we do not show our emotions ever, which is probably where that comes from. I have a quota where I am allowed to cry once every four months and never in public.
The last time I cried was the other day reading something about how none of Carrie Fisher’s scenes were altered for the new Star Wars movie, or something like that, and how much her co-stars miss her. Celebrity deaths don’t usually affect me like that so I was actually surprised at myself for getting so emotional about Carrie Fisher!
The list of managers and teachers I haven’t cried in front of is honestly way shorter than the one of those I have.
I have cried during previews for bad action movies. I have cried while trying to ask a question in class. I cried while asking a question at a panel at a professional writer’s conference. The only two times I’ve ever been pulled over I’ve cried, and then apologized over and over to the cop for crying, because I wasn’t doing it on purpose. I cried when I asked for feedback from a world-class swing dancer at a dance event. I cried last time I talked on the phone with my best friend. I cried when my nephew turned 5. I cried when I realized for the first time how truly fucked the environment is, and have cried every single time I think about it since (which is a lot!) I cried when I finished All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, and every time I read certain Mary Oliver poems. I cry when Kristen says something particularly sweet on Buffering the Vampire Slayer/Getting In Bed. I cried every single time we sang Jerusalem the Golden back when I still went to church. I cry every time I hear a pipe organ, and I openly sob when I hear O Magnum Mysterium. I cried when I saw Welcome to Night Vale live. I cried when I last talked to my brother on the phone. I cried when I read Ms. Marvel or Lumberjanes comics. I cried when I got lost navigating the metro one time in Chicago. I cried when I missed my exit driving from Madison to Mankato. I cried at work when an editor sent an email that could be misconstrued as mean, even though I don’t think he actually meant it that way. I cried when my cat rolled over and stretched out her paws and flexed her little bean toes last week.
At this point I consider crying to be a physical reaction to stress. And hunger. And depression. And signs of love. And existence as a part of humanity.
I honestly wish I could cry less only because it makes people around me panic when they see me cry, and I want to just go around with a sign that says “I am ok, I’m just having some feels, please leave me be”.
I’m a weirdo because throughout the day today I decided I needed a good cry. I felt like I was pencilling in “Cry” intonmy schedule.
Reasons are stress, work, and my semi-long-distances girlfriend who has yet to fully respond to a text I sent her that said I feel like I’m putting more effort into our relationship and I know she has a busy schedule but sometimes you have to make time. To which she has told me yesterday and today that she will respond when she gets home from work.
Oof sorry about that.
I keep coming back to this roundtable wow??
Growing up I was known to be Stone Cold, but the older I get, the more likely it is that I will tear up at random newspaper articles / npr stories. Time of day is relevant here: morning is a Weak Spot for weeping over the news.
Last time I cried at a news story was during a rerun of something on NPR about the tsunami in Japan, and how survivors were going to an unconnected payphone to “call” their lost relatives.
I love the vulnerability and humor and snippets of daily living that this amazing thread is opening up. <3 <3
I cried yesterday evening- it's finals week of a new master's degree in a program I didn't think I'd ever be in; I've had countless conflicts with a professor who really should not be a professor; the financial shock of going from a person with a full time gig with pay over ten bucks an hour to being a full time student who works maybe ten hours a week is hitting hard this holiday season; and I had just spent my last couple of bucks till next pay check on groceries. When unbeknownst to me my splurge of the shop- a 2.68 jar of artisnal corn salsa- drops. Shatters. Splashes everything. Annnnd I sobbed because obviously that's a metaphor for my life. Duh.