I used to be a person who did not cry. People who don’t cry take great pride in their parched tear ducts as if the absence of appropriate emotional response is some Olympic accomplishment setting us apart from mere mortals, and not what it actually is: a sign of severe compartmentalization of feelings, likely the byproduct of a time where you felt very much the opposite of an Olympian – just a broken human who cried them all out, before getting up wiping the last one and deciding to get tough. Life hurts, suck it up. On we march toward the Gold medal of emotional stuffing. As I will discuss later, I now have very dewey tear ducts, but years ago, I was a much tougher cookie. Now, I am the soggy cookie bits that sink to the bottom of the glass of milk while watching subpar Netflix promos. But it took a long time to get there. I remember going through seasons where I knew I needed to cry, wanted to, and when alone, would even make awkward forced facial expressions trying to evoke them on demand – nothing. Those tear ducts had some seriously tight muscle memory back then.

This was reasonable; they had been trained under the zealous coach that is called being an adult child of an alcoholic. As far as alcoholic homes go, mine was pretty good. My father was not abusive, just absent. But what my home lacked in physical or verbal abuse, it made up with stress – a pulsing undercurrent of disease. I didn’t tell any of my friends my dad was an alcoholic. It wasn’t that my parents told me to keep it a secret; it was just not something I wanted known. Who would? So I would have friends over, my mom would make pink pancakes with chocolate chips, and I would pretend I had the family I wanted. A normal family. I have since learned these do not exist; there are just families with versions of “normal” that are more palatable than others. Every time a sleepover concluded at my house, it was another triumph of an Academy Award-winning performance of “Normal Crinean Life.” But getting to do sleepovers at the houses of friends who I thought had the real deal in terms of functional families was my favorite. It is a lot easier to keep up the cheery act outside the war zone.

I remember when I was about 13, I had a friend whose parents were going through a really nasty divorce. Every time we did a sleepover at our mutual friend’s house she would talk, and cry, and talk, and cry about the split up. I found this irritating. This was because while the sleepover for her was a time to seek solace from peers, the sleepover for me was a time to be off surveillance duty for the silent pressure changes in our house that could be set off by the crack of a beer can opening….again. So when Friday night rolled around, and I took my poker face and Claire’s purchased caboodle to my junior high hang, my tolerance for my friend, who I perceived at the time was an emotional trainwreck, putting a wet blanket on my night off from family drama, was low. As my friend would share through tearful eyes about the betrayal of her dad’s affair, divorce, and the new family she inherited against her will, I would feign an understanding nod of the head with an inner dialogue of pure disdain that would have been best narrated by David Rose, “Suck it up. Everyone has problems. You don’t see me bringing the whole group down about my family secret; you don’t even know I have any problems! It’s not that hard to keep it together.” In retrospect, my lack of compassion and empathy toward my friend and myself is jarring [NOTE: to my old friend, if you are reading this, forgive me. I was a hypocrite].

Today I am a therapist, which I realize based on that last paragraph is ironic or terrifying – probably both. I still listen and nod while people cry. I gently nudge a tissue box toward them and let them know it is not there for strictly decorative purposes. The resistance to taking a Kleenex would make for an interesting sociology study. People will attempt to push tears back in with their fists, blink aggressively, or stare at the ceiling without blinking as if looking up, and the over-exposure to air will counter the gravitational pull of the long-overdue tears before accepting a tissue. Eventually, what goes up must come down, and that goes for long overdue cries. Letting ourselves cry is a symbolic gesture of stepping off the Olympic podium of superhuman strength, which got you through the hard stuff. It feels like a defeat and a victory complicatedly tied together. Some clients worry if they start crying, they will never stop. I have, thus far, not found that to be the case. But what is likely to occur is the loss of makeup and the beginning of healing.

The journey from eyes as dry as the Sahara to the point where I cry seemingly ALL THE TIME is a combination of so many healing balms God used that came in the forms of friends, our church community, caring pastors, therapists, heartbreak, an insanely challenging and loving mentor named George, good books, Making Peace Retreats, and a lot Tim Keller messages. Honestly, I still don’t like crying in front of people; the shower is my personal favorite spot. But I am not terrified of it, and I am not uncomfortable with other people’s tears (this is a good trait in a therapist). This is also good because I have little eyes on me constantly. I recently watched the Harry Potter 20th Anniversary special, Return to Hogwarts, with my daughter. I cried A LOT, and not just due to the sinking reality that we are now almost a quarter of a century from the original movie release dates… YIKES #nightcream. I had tears as I listened to the cast recall memories shared on the sets, had tears of sadness during the tribute to the actors no longer with us who brought beloved characters to life, I had tears of nostalgia for my own complicated childhood that was marked in time with the release of the books and films. The tears were complex and cathartic. And they did not go unnoticed… Upon seeing her puffy-eyed mom, my daughter asked me what was wrong. At a young age, she already senses and speaks to the cultural discomfort around tears. Tears = bad.

So, as I ugly cried after the Alan Rickman tribute and joyfully cried as I remembered seeing the great hall with floating candles for the first time, I attempted to explain to my daughter that tears are okay and can mean a lot of different things. I heard a study that children can handle telling their parents something that will make them mad, but saying something that will make them sad is much harder and often totally avoided. This contributes to why so many children attempt to shield their parents from the abuse they have experienced – it is tough on little people to see their parents cry, God forbid, over something relating to them they have to tell us. So, as a mom with a complicated relationship around tears and emotions, I decided to be seen crying while also letting her know she does not need to feel anxious or any responsibility over my emotional state. She didn’t need to worry about me or try to shield me from them. It is okay to cry. Parents have a unique opportunity to model what it looks like to have a healthy relationship with feelings. To model that crying is perfectly fine is an amazing gift. Faux the phoenix heals Harry Potter with his tears – it is a great image of the power of this amazing physical ability for release and a talking piece to young people (I realize any readers who are not Harry Potter fans are probably glazing over at the references. My apologies). Showing our kids that we can feel our feelings and are big enough to absorb theirs without theirs taking us down is vital. If tears are so rarely seen, they only signify the coming of doom; we are teaching our kids to put big blinders on their own emotions – to start that Olympic training to be stuffers. So next time you start to tear up and have little eyes on you, remember it is a great opportunity to show that big feelings are okay to share – not something to push down. They are telling us something needs to come out.

This can go for when you have eyes on you that are not little but normal size, that reside in the faces of friends, therapists, and sometimes even strangers. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t love the idea of a society where everyone is losing it. I am a CBT therapist, and while I value feelings, living life where feelings are in the driver’s seat doesn’t often lead to good lives- we have to filter feelings through truth. But God did give us feelings. He wept. They are important. The reality is this is a hard world with a lot of beauty swirled together with pain. If you are in a place where you can’t cry, are terrified to cry, or take pride in feeling nothing at all. I can guarantee you the price for that stoicism is high. What it saves you in replacing overpriced mascara will cost you in other ways. Fun ones, like chronic illness, bitterness, lack of empathy, lack of ability to have close personal relationships, etc. If that’s you, I challenge you to remove the dust from your tear ducts. If you don’t know how to do this, and if honest, it sounds too painful, get some help (shameless therapy plug), or just watch the Alan Rickman tribute section in the Return to Hogwarts Special.