When people say that girls are emotional and cry a lot, I think that was true, much to my surprise, of myself this year. There were so many moments where I would just be in my room, surrounded by balls of wet, crumpled up tissues, the tissue box in my hand. From insensitive comments, to grieving over a lost friendship, to feelings of loneliness, I would often try to tell myself to stop, that I shouldn’t be crying over something, that I was just making it too big of a deal. Unable to face those who wanted to help me, I’d just send them messages of false-reassurance, saying that I was fine, and I was just crying to calm down. They would understand, and encourage me to let it out, which further made me feel more embarrassed and ashamed because I didn’t want to be so vulnerable and seem so weak. And after the whole emotional mess was over, I would calmly gather my soaked tissues, sweep them into the garbage can, place the tissue box back in its usual spot, declare myself “fine” and to move on.

Yet in actuality, I hadn’t moved on, at least not really. If you ask me to explain my situation, the more I talk, the higher my voice will go, and the more it will choke and crack. Then, if you talk to me long enough, you might start to see tiny tears begin to well in my eyes. And by that point, I hastily hurry up to finish lest I start crying again.

In the beginning of all of this, I thought that I was just overreacting, and would try to stifle my tears. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that crying in the moment, was okay. Not only did crying help me to release my pain, but it revealed to me just how much I had cared about things, how closely I had treasured my relationship with others, how sensitive my heart was. And is that wrong? To care deeply about things? To want to seek the presence and comfort of others? This year crying revealed to me that I wasn’t that tough and more stoic girl that I had once believed I was, and that was okay.