I have a complicated relationship with crying. I was able to watch Old Yeller as a child with a dry eye. I would go years without ever shedding a real tear and then the seal will break and BAM! I cry at the drop of a hat.

One time the Nicholas Cage movie Windtalkers broke that seal. I walked out of my room to tell my mother, through my sobbing, I can’t believe I was crying to a Nick Cage movie.

This pattern, both frustrating and some magical power I possess, has given me a complicated relationship with tears as my insomnia has done with sleep. I understand the importance, can feel relieved when I can or can’t do it, and understand that sometimes my body just needs to figure out what it wants to do.

In recent years, I’ve started crying for various reasons. I’m tired. I’m angry. I’m in a good mood. I’m hurting. I’m awake. I’m frustrated. I misplaced my coffee cup. Usually they are small things. Sometimes it’s big things. Something I can’t get back. Something I lost. Time, people, what ifs, fear….all of it will leave my face puffy and my eyes raw. I’ll be tired and pained. My throat will be sore even if I wasn’t sobbing and gasping for air. And then I’ll splash some water on my face and go about my day.

Thinking about my project, currently leaning towards Three Birthdays, I’m crying constantly. I’m writing an outline in Starbucks and my eyes start leaking as I think about how I watched my mom slowly pass away. As I think about the person I thought could be the love of my life focus all his energy on something that wasn’t his grieving fiance. About how I fell hard for a guy after sleeping with him because I didn’t understand how I could be seen in that way. I cry constantly. I’m exhausted and look terrible. But I feel great, because I hadn’t fully cried out all of those tears.

I drowned some of them in whiskey as I called everyone in my family. I threw them up as my anxiety prevented me from keeping any food down for a few weeks. I cried them out in hot tears of anger without processing why my eyes were wet. I yelled them out and punched them out into various walls until my knuckles bled. But now, I’m crying them out in acceptance…or I hope so.

We can’t always stop the tears. They might not be welcome, but just like when you sleep for hours more when you are sick, your body sometimes needs to release some tension in the form of those salty buggers.

When was the last time you cried? Did it help you?