Posts tagged with "crying"

The Weeping Sky

Thumbnail: Hurdman station on a rainy day

Thumbnail: Walkley station on a rainy day

It has­n’t stopped pour­ing since I woke up. I’m trav­el­ing through the city in my favourite hood­ie. Thinking about you and your del­i­cate wrists. The pho­tos I took of you smil­ing, always look­ing away. Wondering what it must be like in your world. Wondering if we’ll ever meet again. Wondering what you meant when you told me it’s hard to be alone when you’re told you’re grow­ing old.

I write this so I won’t have to write about you again.

Perhaps in a sim­pler world things would have worked out dif­fer­ent­ly, and you would have giv­en me a sec­ond thought.

But I have no tears in me.

The sky weeps instead.

Unplanned Feelings

I found a small boy sleep­ing on the steps with a birth­mark cov­er­ing his face and won­dered what kind of god would give a child that.

—Sarah Miles, The End Of The Affair

I’m in such a weird mood tonight.

Met a nice, loqua­cious young man at the bus stop. I saw him hob­bling there, his man­gled gait vis­i­ble from the win­dow of my house. His voice was loud and verg­ing on uncon­trolled, “My car is in the shop, I have to be there by sev­en, I can’t be late, I’m coach and man­ag­er and med­ical staff of the Generals, so they can’t go on the field with­out me.”

With inno­cent, child­like can­dor, he con­tin­ued. I won­dered if he was aware. If peo­ple took him less seri­ous­ly. If I real­ly under­stood who he was.

He got on the bus first, and in a con­fi­dent tone, said to the bus dri­ver, “Can I get pri­or­i­ty seat­ing?”. I con­sid­ered sit­ting next to him and con­tin­u­ing our con­ver­sa­tion, but by the time my trans­fer print­ed out, he already start­ed with the per­son next to him, “I can’t be late. I’m coach­ing foot­ball…”.

So I cried on the bus because Misery Is A Butterfly, even though it was­n’t loud enough. Even though I put it on. I was doing it to myself, you see, because of this mood. Because I need it and want it and won­dered how I’ve ever lived with­out it.

I’ve been read­ing Beautiful Losers. Can you tell?

I don’t plan on writ­ing these things.

Then again, I don’t plan on feel­ing this way.

Embracing My Emotional Reactions

I laugh when I’m ner­vous. Especially around girls I’m attract­ed to — total gig­gle­fest. I also laugh uncon­trol­lably around peo­ple I meet for the first time. People low­er their guard when there’s laugh­ter, and I sus­pect my mind sub­con­scious­ly finds humour in every­thing to put peo­ple at ease around me.

Around peo­ple I hate, I’m dead silent. That’s how you know I don’t like you: if I don’t talk. The mere pres­ence of one of these peo­ple forces me to ful­ly con­cen­trate on not drilling a 4‑inch hole in my tem­ple with a cord­less DeWalt.

Pat’s dif­fer­ent. He told me once that if you ever see him shake his head and shrug his shoul­ders, you’re in his black­list. In an act of faith, he’ll give every­one respect and will even go so far as to stab you in the front, but he gives up if you cross his line of ethics. He’ll nev­er be involved with any­thing relat­ed to you after that. It’s not that he hates these peo­ple, like me, he los­es all inter­est. This is prob­a­bly even worse than my reac­tion which, because his is cold. You mean noth­ing to him. I try to let go as well, but I can’t. In the back of my head I cling to the hope that these peo­ple can change. Sometimes I also won­der if these peo­ple ever lis­ten to them­selves and can under­stand exact­ly why I hate them, because it’s so obvi­ous to me.

I also cry in emo­tion­al sit­u­a­tions. It does­n’t have to be any­thing par­tic­u­lar­ly sad or hap­py, just a time when emo­tions are high. Intense sports games, Tim Horton’s com­mer­cials, some­times just because some­one else is cry­ing. I can hide it pret­ty well though; peo­ple don’t under­stand if you start cry­ing in a seem­ing­ly innocu­ous sit­u­a­tion.

As frus­trat­ing as these emo­tion­al reac­tions can be, I know they make me who I am.

I used to try des­per­ate­ly to remain cere­bral and log­i­cal — like Pat — but my emo­tions would always get the bet­ter of me. Now I’ve learned to embrace them. I could only do this after accept­ing myself and becom­ing con­tent with who I am. They give me some­thing Pat does­n’t have: intense inspi­ra­tion. That rush, when your stom­ach churns, when your head is burns, when you heart flut­ters.

They’re a part of me, and they make me who I am.

Multitasking Emotions

Left screen, I’m going over the bach­e­lor par­ty footage. We’re recov­er­ing from a night of drink­ing over bacon and eggs in a high-cor­ner wide-angle shot. Right screen, I’m talk­ing to Aaron on Messenger.

Aaron: bro, you know I love you
Aaron: like for real
Aaron: no shit
Jeff: thanks man, i love you too
Aaron: no ‘you’re my bro’ shit
Aaron: the real deal

“No ‘You’re my bro’ shit”, he says. Bro. The word we some­times use to remind each oth­er that we’re fam­i­ly. Nothing emas­cu­lates some like the “l” word, but we’re passed that.

“you know I love you”. He was first to say it this time, and it cat­alyzes the tears down my face.

The video’s still play­ing. In it we’re ebul­lient, frat­er­niz­ing, and I can’t help but laugh along too.

I remem­ber anoth­er time, about three years ago, when I broke down after deal­ing with my mom and her incor­ri­gi­ble ways. I rolled a joint and smoked it as soon as I got off the phone. As the weed went to my brain, my mood evened out. I was numb to the pain but the tears did­n’t stop, like a phys­i­cal reflex.

What a strange feel­ing it was to be cry­ing and laugh­ing or stoned at the same time.

Life is the same way. It’s nev­er black and white, and there’s no absolute right or wrong. There are grey areas, points of pas­sion between plea­sure and pain.

Even cry­ing from joy is an enig­mat­ic micro­cosm of such an idea. I remem­ber doing so only one oth­er time, at the end of grade 7, dur­ing the final audi­tions for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Out of 10 schools, we were com­pet­ing to spend the sum­mer singing on stage with Donny Osmond. When they announced the name of our school we jumped out of our seats in cheer, but I could feel my face gri­mace from the emo­tion, tears fill­ing up my eyes. It’s as if you’re over­tak­en by sad­ness that you’ll nev­er feel as hap­py again.

Like yin and yang, one does­n’t exist with­out the oth­er, and often they exist at once.