Once I thought tears were a weakness. Once I thought I\u00a0should be ashamed of not being strong enough to control my\u00a0tears. So I hid them, from everyone, and never let anyone\u00a0see me cry. I had learned early on as a child that tears only\u00a0made daddy angrier, made him not listen, and sometimes\u00a0made him hit.<\/p>\n
The same thing happened in my first relationship, too, at\u00a0least, my first grown up relationship. He would be ugly,\u00a0angry, and sometimes even vulgar, but when I cried, he’d\u00a0only get worse.<\/p>\n
Tears only made men angry, made them violent, made them\u00a0shut down and not listen. They said tears were emotional\u00a0blackmail, instead of simply being true expressions of pain,\u00a0hurt, sadness.<\/p>\n
So I learned early on to hide the tears as much as possible. I\u00a0hated it when I cried, feeling foolish, weak.\u00a0But one day, when the weight of the world had been too\u00a0much, I cried. The phone instantly rang, as though he knew I\u00a0needed him. I tried to stifle the tears, the choke in my voice,\u00a0knowing that I must always be happy, always be strong, or\u00a0else he would run or get angry or shut me down, like those\u00a0before him had.<\/p>\n
But he heard me anyway.<\/p>\n
The question asked, “Are you crying?”<\/p>\n
And then the long pause before I answered, afraid of\u00a0speaking the truth, terrified of what the response would be,\u00a0but unwilling to lie to him.<\/p>\n
“Yes,” was my whispered response.<\/p>\n
There was no hesitation in his voice when he said, “Oh,\u00a0baby, what’s wrong?’<\/p>\n
Honestly, I couldn’t answer him. I didn’t know what was\u00a0wrong. This is something many men do not understand, that\u00a0sometimes, tears do not necessarily mean anything is\u00a0wrong, but at times, there can be nothing right, even if there\u00a0is nothing wrong. Men don’t seem to understand this.<\/p>\n
I told him I didn’t know, and the tears began falling again,\u00a0this time, because I just knew he was about to shut down on\u00a0me, blow up, get angry…<\/p>\n
Instead, he said, “I’ll be right over.”<\/p>\n
And he came… not even five minutes later, and when I\u00a0opened the door, the first thing he did was put his arms\u00a0around me, hold me close to him, kiss me on the forehead,\u00a0and tell me that everything was going to be okay. And I\u00a0knew, in his arms, right at the moment, everything was okay.<\/p>\n
It didn’t matter what was happening in the world outside, or\u00a0the reason that I cried. All that mattered, right in that\u00a0moment, was that I was not alone.<\/p>\n
And I cried… and he let me cry… and he didn’t try to fix\u00a0anything, he didn’t try to tell me what to do, and he didn’t try\u00a0to make me laugh when I didn’t want to. All he did was let\u00a0me cry.<\/p>\n
There was no anger. There was no pride. There was no\u00a0turning the tables around to ask what he’d done wrong.\u00a0None of the things to which I had become accustomed. He\u00a0just let me cry.<\/p>\n
In that moment, I learned that, with the right influence and\u00a0support, with the love he held in his heart for me, that tears\u00a0could be as much of a strength as anything else.<\/p>\n
One day, he was gone, and my tears could not be contained,\u00a0and I have searched my whole life, not for someone who\u00a0could make me smile when life was good, but rather for\u00a0someone who could let me cry, and make it safe to do so.<\/p>\n
Many years later, another came to me, and he held me close\u00a0for a time. And I remember the first time he saw me cry too.<\/p>\n
He had hurt me, broken my trust, and he knew he was\u00a0wrong. My tears were because of him, and he knew it.\u00a0When the tears came, I braced myself for the retaliation that\u00a0would inevitably come. As I stood in the kitchen, my back\u00a0turned to him, and my shoulders heaved with the sobbing\u00a0tears I could not control. I knew he would explode at any\u00a0moment.<\/p>\n
But that moment never came. Instead, he came up behind\u00a0me, took the spoon from my hand I was using to cook with,\u00a0and turned me around, putting his arms around me, and he enveloped me in his love, in his arms, holding me close to\u00a0him, kissing me on the forehead, and telling me it was going\u00a0to be okay.<\/p>\n
He said he was sorry, so sorry he’d hurt me, and he would\u00a0not let me go until the tears finally subsided. We talked all\u00a0night, and he let me explain why he had hurt me so, and\u00a0when the sun rose that morning, I found myself, my tears\u00a0finally dried, falling asleep in his arms, spent but safe.<\/p>\n
And in that moment, wrapped in his love, I knew that it would\u00a0okay.<\/p>\n
Women do not cry for emotional blackmail or to lay guilt.\u00a0Women do not cry to manipulate you or confuse you.\u00a0Women do not always cry because you have done\u00a0something wrong or because anything actually is wrong.<\/p>\n
Do not try to fix us; we are not broken. Do not try to make us\u00a0laugh; for laughter through tears is not real joy. Do not turn it\u00a0around on you, because we, by nature, are caring and loving\u00a0creatures, and we will try to ease your pain, and ours will get\u00a0lost in the process.<\/p>\n
Simply hold us close, envelope us in your arms and your\u00a0love, and let us cry.<\/p>\n
There is strength in tears. There is power in genuine\u00a0emotion.<\/p>\n
I will never forget the first time he saw me cry, and let me\u00a0feel all I needed to feel, and held me close.<\/p>\n
I will never forget the time he made me cry, and was man\u00a0enough to stand before me and ride through the pain with\u00a0me, allowing me my feelings, and promising me nothing,\u00a0except that he was there for me… nothing more, nothing\u00a0less.<\/p>\n
I will never forget the first time he saw me cry….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Once I thought tears were a weakness. Once I thought I\u00a0should be ashamed of not being strong enough to control my\u00a0tears. So I hid them, from everyone, and never let anyone\u00a0see me cry. I had learned early on as a child that tears only\u00a0made daddy angrier, made him not listen, and sometimes\u00a0made him hit. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":315,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n