To Cry

I wanted to delete this, I really did. Saved as a draft it was over and over again, but now in my goal and attempt to finally be the “Just be mee” “a day in the real life with mee” after I read the blog post from tara whitney and many other puzzle pieces started coming together, real writing and heart sharing and recording is where its just gotta be. that equals truth from the heart.

So crying…

“the preparation of the heart belongs to man” -an old proverb

“A hard heart is walking in denial of Truth.  It kills you, it shuts off your feelings and makes you dead inside.  Dead to emotion, especially joy.”-John Mark Earle

If you were like me, you grew up out numbered by boys, brothers, cousins, their friends, and the list goes on and on.  Being a girl in a little boy’s world isn’t full of princesses and dress up, (believe me, I have a daughter of my own and she has the “girl world” down pat) and although I had my own room and mom did her best to make sure that there wasn’t any “boy world” near my room, somehow “boy world” crept into everything.  Even crying.

I have never been a cryer. well not really.
I grew up with three brothers, two of whom were very close in age to mee and although it isn’t all their fault (I love you guys)especially while watching movies that I just really wanted to cry at, only tears were allowed to slowly slide down my face before the endless teasing began.  And where in worship I just wanted to bawl (ok this did happen on more than once, especially when I was a teenager) I would just raise my hands towards heaven and lift my face, instead of not caring who saw me cry and let it all out, I tried my best to keep it in (I think that worship is one of the only times we can let out all of our emotions because they are true and pure)  When hard times, events happened, I just journaled, or sat down, or went for a walk.  And it all was me ignoring what was in my heart.  My true heart.  But that has been the journey to figure that one out.

Do you remember that moment, the last time you really cried as a child?  Or maybe remember occasions where you did cry often?  I cried when I was a child (that doesn’t count as I have never been a cryer, does it?) and I can remember the occasions and having really good excuses to cry.  When I was 10 years old, I got teased because I ran to my room and cried to escape my neighbourhood friends, and my “boy friend crush” that was over visiting for the afternoon, gave me a hard time about not understanding what “making out” was.  So I ran to my room to hide and cry, but my window was near the front porch, where everyone was, and I felt like my 10 year old world fell apart when they started chanting, “Melissa is a big baby, she runs to her room to cry and probably still needs a blankey.” After that I didn’t run to my room and cry on my pillow.  I tried to stop crying, I tried to be tough.  ”Aww not like a girl!” whose femininity seems to be defined as: females cry.  But instead, tried to fit into the boy’s scene, all around me of, not crying.

Talking about crying with my husband, he told me a really good example about being a child and crying.  My son, on many occasions has tried very hard not to cry.  He will choke and grunt, hit his chest, all when he is “over-the-edge-so-sad-you-can-see-the-tears-welling-up-behind-his-eyes” kind of sadness, and still no tears, no crying.  Both my dear husband and I have felt it is not like a child to do that, and since we knew the reason he wasn’t crying was because, some one told him that, “boys really don’t cry.”  John Mark finally talked to him and  this is what he said, “If you try to make yourself stop, there will probably be a time when you want to cry and you won’t be able to.”  He was talking from experience he told me later, that when he was a child, he was told the same thing and when he got older and wanted to cry, nothing happened.  Taking away from that lesson with son and father, crying if stopped is just not natural, we were meant to cry, for some reason we were made to.

I have come to realize that if you don’t cry because you are trying to be something you are not, then that is not a good enough reason to not cry.

Back to the top quote; my husband would always talk about having a “hard heart.”  I never really paid attention to what it was until one day, he told me the quote above, that he didn’t like, didn’t want, in fact loathed the times he felt like he had a hardened heart.  Then I knew I needed to pay better attention.  But I didn’t know what it meant until I went through a time where I had it myself. I felt like having a hardened heart was brought on by decisions and attitudes that I had allowed, especially un-forgiveness towards situations and other people.  And having ahard heart was painful, terribly painful and it hurt alot too.

After having a “hardened heart” I realized that when you can actually cry, when tears can actually come out, I should let them come. There is just something about crying that lets my heart open up and breathe a little.  This summer I have cried alot, especially after leaving my loved ones and dear friends in Cold Lake, life just isn’t the same without any of them. But I have slowly realized that the more I cry (little bits at a time) helps to heal my heart a little bit at a time.

Another thing about crying, I always thought you had to cry hard and long.  AND have a good hard head ache to follow.  Not true.

In fact just recently, something happened, and immediately afterwards I was angry, bitter, resentful.  But all of a sudden I felt like crying, and instead of choking it back and distracting myself, like I have done countless numerious times, I began to cry, not stuff it and lock it up inside somewhere.  John Mark was taking a nap and I went, found him, layed on his chest and had a cry.  The more I cried, the more I realized I was ok, the more that frustration lost it’s power and the easier it became to remember the bright side of the situation.

So often I have skipped over the tear part and jumped right into the looking at it from the bright side, but then later still had to deal with my emotions, usually they had become very negative by that point.  After my cry, I didn’t have anger issues or a mental break down of sorts, I just cried.  I think I actually cried for less than a minute, got up, left and John Mark had no clue, becausethe world was right again and I had a good attitude about it all.

I haven’t found a perfect solution.  ”Cry for 8 minutes and you will have no stress and no wrinkles.”  No, I wish it were similar to that, but to be truthful, it takes alot of hard work to guard my heart and make sure it doesn’t become older than it should be, colder, harder than it should be.

So the point of all of this, is be real.  Be true.  This “truthful journey” to be ourselves isn’t always easy.  Shutting up and not letting emotions out though is not the point either.  Tara Whitney said on her blog that we can’t always be happy just happy, we need the whole picture.  My mother always said that having the whole picture in front of you, that going through hard times (insert where crying should come into play) allows us to celebrate and rejoice when there are good times.  That good memories are worth remembering.

As long as you can remember the journey that got you to them.