This Fall of Tears
By Becky Code, Ph.D.
(slightly modified version of the original “Tears that Fall” which was published in Weird Sisters West, Dec. 2004.)
It happens at this time of year, every year. Days grow shorter, mornings colder, and tears start falling from the limb of the eyelid, hanging from the stem of the nose.
My sister-in-law, Joan, has five children, four of whom have already left home for college or their own married lives. This fall her youngest, a daughter, the baby of the family, recently moved out of the house to start her freshman year at Columbus State. For several days afterwards, Joan cried uncontrollably, knowing that her life would never be the same, even though her daughter is less than a two-hour drive from home, even though she was coming home the very next weekend.
Joan didn’t find much consolation in being reminded that her daughter will always be her daughter or that she’s just experiencing the “empty nest syndrome.” (Easy for me to say, I who have never had children.) It didn’t help for other mothers to tell her, “Oh, I went through this too. You’ll get over it.” Rationality is no band-aid for the heart.
And it made me wonder how many times this scene was being re-enacted in homes across the country, and how often people feel like they have to deal single-handedly with their own grief while those around them quickly avert their eyes, tuck tail and scurry into their holes of jobs, hobbies, or cell phones. It made me curious why we so often beat ourselves up for breaking down, for apologizing for having been reduced—never elevated—to tears, for transgressing that polite societal norm that forbids us from discomforting those around us, even though there are millions of us attempting to mop up our tsunamic grief with a mere handful of flimsy tissues.
* * *
I myself have been crying, crying a lot, in the past several years. You’d think by now I’d have grown accustomed to this embarrassing teary-eyed woman I’ve become who drops in on me unexpectedly at work or who crashes my friends-only dinner party. Who invited her? I find it difficult to acknowledge, to accept—let alone embrace—this red-eyed, sniffling stranger who suddenly appears dressed in my clothes. I could give you all kinds of reasons for my tears: loss of long-time connections due to my divorce, finding it harder every year to do the things I love, trepidations in facing retirement. But justifications only seem to reinforce the notion that tears are inherently bad. To provide some logical cause for my tears leaves unchallenged the assumption that they signify some unpredictable force that needs to be curtailed, some wild river that needs to be dam(n)ed. Oh, I could blame our misogynous Marlboro Man culture that labels tears weak and effeminate, but that does little to relieve my internalized self-policing and the accompanying shame I feel when I cry.
* * *
I’ve been noticing that there seems to be an unspoken hierarchy of occasions in our society at which the shedding of tears is inequitably allowed. The loss of a loved one, the loss of a home, a leg, a job (but only if you’re fired, not if you resign), all register high on the socially-acceptable-tears meter, whereas the death of the family pet, hearing a piece of moving music, or sending your child off to kindergarten barely move the needle. Apparently, some tears are simply deemed unworthy of wetting the earth.
Even for those more privileged occasions when it is deemed acceptable to cry, there is some nebulous appropriate time period for mourning that must not be exceeded: “This has gone on long enough so just pull yourself together. Get over it.” Reproaches need not be spoken. A single raised eyebrow is sufficient.
And we even lash ourselves with our own wet hankies.
Thus, tears must meet strict standards of eligibility otherwise we might have everyone everywhere running around crying. And we couldn’t have that, could we?
Laughter, on the other hand, is rarely subjected to such emotional discrimination. Can you imagine how the tone of the film, “A League of Their Own”, would have been transmogrified had Tom Hanks instead yelled, “There’s no laughter in baseball!” Not only is laughter not banned in polite society, but we want to take part in it, to share a rib-rumbling guffaw with complete strangers. But someone else’s tears? We go running for higher ground like they’re some flash flood, fearing we’ll be swept away.
When we sweep someone else’s tears under the rug with the efficient broom of “PMS” or “menopause”, aren’t we conveniently adding padding under our own comfort zone? Propping up our own shaky self-image as strong, capable, and clear-eyed on the backs of those we label tender-hearted, sentimental, weak? It’s as if we as a society conspire to poke tears to the back of the cage with the sharp but silent “keep it together” stick. What are we so afraid of that we feel compelled to render tears invisible – much as I covered my sister-in-law’s feelings with the invisibility cloak of “empty nest syndrome”?
* * *
What would this world look like if everyone cried as easily as they laughed? If we encouraged each other to put our best sad face forward? If we slapped yellow unhappy-face stickers on everything around us? Would some mega-corporation adopt it as its logo, have it copyrighted and exported globally?
Perhaps we should institute a National Right-to-Cry Day or Bring-Your-Tears-to-Work Day when everyone would not only be allowed to cry in public, but would be praised and celebrated for crying blatantly, brazenly, and in your face. Crying with an attitude, unleashing a torrent of “I don’t-give-a-damn” kind of tears. No one would be permitted to read the newspaper or check their cell phone while someone else is crying. No one would be allowed to shush anyone in a restaurant when their raging hormones unleash a flood of tears into their grilled chicken salad. And no one would be allowed to simply slink away muttering self-protective platitudes like, “It’s so brave of you to cry in public.”
In preparation for National Right-to-Cry Day, however, I, for one, would have to practice looking at the pain in the faces of those around me by forcing my teary-eyed self to gaze into a mirror without turning away in shame. I’d have to remove my ten-gallon hat and stop making excuses—damn this piece of grit in my eyes! ---and just let the tears fall where they may. I’d have to admit that I couldn’t always lasso the hurt, whether mine or Joan’s or anyone else’s, and drag it off to the nearest slaughterhouse.
But there’s a lot of grief in cutting loose my Marlboro Man image, in letting it ride off into the sunset. A lot of tears in saying adios to a close amigo who has spurred me on life’s trail for as long as I can remember. Because every tear shed feels like a mortal act of self-betrayal somehow, tightening the noose around the neck of my fiercely independent yet faithful companion, not knowing who or what—if anything—will be left once it falls dangling through the trap door. Who can I ever put that much trust into again? How can I ever trust myself again?
And I wonder if my sister-in-law would tell me, “Oh, you’re just going through the “empty saddle” syndrome. You’ll get over it.” Who would willingly cut themselves off from the cultural herd to let go of their Marlboro Man with me?
* * *
Tears – the crack in the mortar of our communally erected, socially sustained, individualistic façade. In spite of all the feelings of disconnectedness in our society, how much collective energy do we spend trying to keep it from crumbling, this flimsy Hollywood Western movie set?
Albert Camus once wrote, “Live to the point of tears.” Sounds like he may have been hedging a bit. C’mon, Albert. Let’s really live! Pass the point and jump off the cliff! To the freefall of tears—and beyond.