Tears start with a certain rawness to them. At first, they start as a deep quiet calm, a slow tremble. Your throat and stomach begin to tighten. Your eyes become a brilliant hue of their normal color, you close your eyes. You hold back for a moment that feels like eternity. The sea of emotion finally breaks free, like bricks crumbling one by one. You smile faintly, and look away as your eyes well up with tears. A lone tear slides down one cheek, turning into a cascade of tears running down both cheeks, flowing endlessly into every crevice, moving around and under the brim of your nose, mixing in with your mucus, reaching your chin, finally letting go, falling towards oblivion.
These are real tears.
From a young age, boys are taught to hold back emotion, the phrases: "Be a man," "You're not a crybaby are you?" and "Grow up" come to mind.
Men are taught to be Coliseums of strength and power. Society has taught boys from a young age that showing emotion is weakness, the chink in our steel plated armor is tears, the cracks start as empathy, the killing blow is true honesty. The enemy of true manhood was programmed into my mind before I could even think for myself. Power, leadership, finesse, cunning, physical, mental strength, athletic ability, attitude and swagger are just some the ways to be a man in this world. I bought into these ideas, lived them, yet I felt empty, a void in my heart was ever present.
I began to ask why isn't theatre, musical talent, artistic ability, poetry, writing, love, empathy and passion glamorized? Can men truly be open with their emotions, let alone, dare shed tears?
To be open with your own emotions is one thing, but to share emotions with others is truly a beast laughing at you, taunting you never open up your heart. Some see guys can't remember the last time they have cried, for some it's been months, years, even decades.
Guys show true emotion with friends and sometimes family, but tears are shown in the quiet, the silence, the safety of a desolate room or alone in the silence of an empty chapel. The overarching theme is tears from men are almost always met with the cold embrace of darkness, tears from men are never shown in the light, but in the desolate quiet.
I would never show emotions of true sadness to those around me. Why would I? A man is seen a strong, free spirited and wild at heart. There was no place for tears. Or so I thought.
To repress emotion leads to self-destruction. This turmoil, this dark sadness never released, only takes the individual further away from who they truly want to be. A man who strives for happiness can only be happy with what he feels in his heart. My heart yearned for so much more, yet I buried my emotion away from others, and myself. Tears did not come easily, I had made it nearly impossible for true raw emotion to flow freely from me.
I knew the only way to truly show emotion was to let the tears come, but to also not be ashamed of them. There's something special about being able to be completely open with people and show tears. Tears are a way towards truly glimpsing the beauty of the soul. I learned that I felt a relief, and that started with a single tear, that transformed into a warm embrace from friends and family.
A new beginning, to the greatest of known unknowns..
My life.
