it's ok to cry

im never one to cry in public.
in fact, i was taught that it was weakness to cry.
i didn't grow up with that mentality.
HE taught me.
HE told me tears were manipulative.
HE told me it was passive aggressive.
HE told me it was a sign of weakness.

so i held it in.
i fought for my life to suppress every tear that wanted to fall.
i suffocated my sadness with a fake smile to everyone that came to congratulate us on the birth of our child.

and then one day, i gave in.
i couldn't fight anymore.
i cried and i cried and i cried.
i cried until my eyes were bled dry of every last drop of saline.

i was free.

i still to this day have a problem with crying. 
i try extremely hard to suppress my sadness and feelings.
i mask everything with a smile and snort.

but just now something clicked.
something just made sense for a tiny moment.

i was trying to take out my contacts and one was just STUCK.... and i mean STUUUUCKKK!!!
so i kept kind of pulling at it, and in doing so, i got something in my eye.
it burned.
it burned so bad and tears started to well up in my one eye.
and then i remembered from some sort of science class:
tears are your body's way of ridding foreign objects from your eyes.

all of those times ive felt like exploding with tears over a situation, it was just my body's way of ridding that horrible experience from it.  the foreign body of trauma and heartache and pain... my tears were just washing away those things that didnt belong; that would only bring me down and take me away from where my life is going.

so, moral of the story... it's ok to cry.  it's ok to just let disappointment and fear and grief go in the form of tears and it doesnt matter if it's in the privacy of your own room or in front of your coworkers and a pretty sassy doctor.  those are just painful experiences leaving my body and we ALL have those and go through moments of tears.  every eye cries out foreign particles of dust and debris.... every eye of every living creature... and likewise, we all feel pain and loss and sorrow sometimes and those tears are washing away the physical and emotional foreign bodies that just destroy our vision for a moment and really just don't belong there.