I'm not a crier. I mean there are things that make me shed a few tears, but's it's really few and far between. It's a rare sight if you ever actually see me cry.

I get emotional when something or someone invokes a feeling of thankfulness or sadness and I usually shed a few tears, but it's not often that I get a good cry in.

Sometimes this makes me feel inhuman especially since there's this stigma that girls are the emotional ones in society. That girls are the ones who are capable of expressing their emotions so easily. That sometimes their emotions make them do irrational things. That our emotions guide our nurturing capabilities. That our emotional capacities are what draws men toward us. Etc.

If I'm honest, I only for real cry maybe once a year. This usually happens when I become so overwhelmed in my life that everything feels like it has been twisted just right to where I feel helpless and defenseless.

When I miss people in my life that aren't here. When I feel alone. When I feel like things have passed that I'm never going to get back. When it feels like everything in my life has taken a wrong turn. When I'm incapable of understanding why. And when I go to lengths that I otherwise wouldn't have if I would've known the truth of it all.

It really sucks. Not being able to have more control over when your body gives into the stress and the feelings of failure.

I can't cry when I feel like I need to, but there's at least one day a year when everything just catches up to me--the day where it feels like I can't accomplish it on my own, the day where it feels like the relationships and stories I've built for myself are not what I imagined.

Not being able to cry more often is truly frustrating because in some way crying allows me to process what I'm feeling. It's a phenomena that physically permits sadness and frustration to be let go of. And in this way, although exhausting, it's refreshing because it allows for a new start.

Yes, I'm strong but not because I can "hold myself together." It's because I'm wired to weigh the facts against my feelings. I see reason and I cling to it because feelings are often fleeting.

And so, the fleetingness rolls off in the moment and becomes ingrained into my system until I realize where it's gone. And when circumstances unlock that fleetingness, well that's when it happens.

All girls are different, and what I've come to understand is that it's okay to be a sparse crier. It doesn't mean you're stronger or unemotional or unable to connect.

It's not necessarily a weakness. It just means that we're wired a different way than what society projects on us.

If we weren't all different, then there wouldn't be any diversity in the world, causing us to be incapable of learning the things we would otherwise.