One thing my girls know about me that many others find surprising is: I am a fucking cry-baby.
A few weeks ago I picked up A Band of MiSFits and began to read chapter one on the dismissal of Bengie Molina. Three pages into it my eyes began to water and my mom threatened to disown me in the middle of the Costco book aisle.
I don’t cry over everything and have a pretty high tolerance for pain (hello, have you seen how many tattoos and piercings I have?). But when it comes to ridiculous shit like pitbulls, polar bears, romantic comedies, and sports it’s pretty much a wrap. I really don’t mind it though. At times I find it comical, and some even find it strangely endearing. However, the one thing I am apologetic about crying over is – LOVE. Which is stupid because it’s probably the most common entity people do cry about, so why the apologies?
Because it makes me feel weak. It makes me feel sorry for myself.
I’m just surrounded by so many strong women that I barely ever, if not never see cry. I can only remember my mom crying ONCE. Just once in my entire life, and it was over a death in the family. So it makes my crying over heart ache seem trivial. Yet, if one of my friends were to do it, it would seem just and more than reasonable. I would even encourage it.
It’s a little fucked up actually. I think it’s OK for me to cry because I’m weak anyway. Yet, I only think I’m weak because I associate it directly with crying. My girls are stronger than me based on the fact that I never see them cry, so when they do it’s OK, because even Superwoman was still a woman. Self-sabotaging isn’t it? Even when I’m cutting myself some slack, I’m still my hardest critic.
Some may side with Common and say “I guess knowing when I’m weak is when I’m really being strong,” and I get it. But I still think that knowing when I’m weak … is just me being weak. What can I say? I’m stubborn, and old habits die hard. I guess I’m slowly learning to give myself a break. To play devil’s advocate, what makes it not OK for me to cry? What makes me so special or any different from any other human being? Exactly.
Benjamin Disraeli once said, “Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do, you apologize for truth.” Thank God, ‘cuz I was never a good liar anyway.