Permission To Cry
For the ones navigating emotions without a road map
I remember feeling frantic. Disoriented. Nothing bad had happened, but something was definitely wrong. My mind labeled it sadness, because it was the only explanation I could fathom for the tears in my eyes. But even as I choked back tears, attempting to gain my bearing, I knew it wasn’t that.
I remember the phone ringing and hearing my mom on the other end while I struggled to fix my voice. Despite the turbulent waves of emotions inside of me threatening to erupt, I felt the need to sound as stable as possible. As much as this random cry-spell was a new occurrence, calling my mom in a panic was even more of a foreign concept.
“Hey baby”
“Hey mom. What are you up to?”
I’m sure she responded with something mom-like but I never hear her. I was too busy trying to keep the tone of my voice steady and un-cracked. But I was cracking. In fact, I was coming undone. I wanted to blurt out that something was wrong and that I was “sad” for reasons I didn’t understand. I wanted to break down over the phone and hear the loving concern in her voice. But needing this, wanting this kind of attention was not a normal part of who I was. It never was, even as a child.
There’s a story about a time when my mom took my twin brother and I to the doctor because he had been crying for hours and she was afraid he might be sick, or ill with something more serious. The doctor did a thorough examination and determined that my brother was just a fussy baby. But when he checked me — the quiet infant observing the fussiness of her twin brother and the exhaustion of her single mother, he looked at her and asked “when is the last time you fed her? Your daughter is malnourished.”
This was me. My twin brother took up so much of my mother’s emotional real-estate that I learned at an early age how to shut my own issues down, how to solve them for myself, and how to avoid burdening others with my problems.
And yet, here I was, a sophomore in college needing the care of my mother in the most fundamental way, something she’d likely happily provide, but I didn’t even know how to articulate the “need” out loud.
After about 10 minutes, in a heavily pregnant space of silence, I finally reached my breaking point.
“Mom. Would it be okay if I was sad?”
I was asking my mom for permission to cry.
“I suspect that as a Black woman moving in this world, you learn to mask your most vulnerable emotions as a means of protection and survival. Most importantly, you never let your children see you crack.”
I only saw my mother really cry three times. While she commonly cried when it came to fictional movies and films, crying about life or real tangible issues was not something my brother and I were used to.
This became very apparent when, during a family cleaning day she suddenly started crying- out loud. She hid her face from us, but her sobs an sniffles were swimming around the room, ricocheting off the walls and reverberating in our ears. My brother and I were stunned and shocked at what we were witnessing. We had no idea what was happening or why, but our ROCK was outwardly crying.
My brother tried to rectify the situation- “mom what’s wrong? Why are you upset? What happened”? But I knew that this was not the time to ask these questions. This was an unplanned, uncontrolled outburst from our tough-as-nails, always buttoned-up mother. She never meant for it to happen. I shut him down and told him to leave her be. I continued to clean, acting as if I never saw it. I never asked her about that day because I didn’t think that I, a child, had permission to ask her about her life or her feelings. Thankfully, she volunteered the information weeks later in a quiet moment in the car.
My mother was not void of emotion. In fact, she was the beautiful embodiment of sarcasm, wit, intelligence and humor. She was loud and boisterous with a confident, deep raspy voice that commanded center-stage attention. My brother and I only knew her two ways: happy or angry. I suspect that as a Black woman moving in this world, you learn to mask your most vulnerable emotions as a means of protection and survival. Most importantly, you never let your children see you crack. This way of existing has been passed down for generations and up until that day, it’s exactly what my mother did. It’s likely what millions of other mothers raising little Black and brown girls did as well.
“For the women, teens and little girls like me who are taking on the world but were never shown a road map to navigating our emotions: give yourself permission to cry, feel, and become undone and know that you owe no one an explanation as to why.”
Like me, the girls I grew up with laughed at the idea of showing emotion, affection or vulnerability. We all believed it was a direct road to weakness so we avoided it at all costs. It wouldn’t be until my junior year when I returned to college that I’d realize that not all women had the same perspective.
One semester upon returning from summer break, I was greeted by eager arms and warm embraces from my mostly White classmates- something that always annoyed me. I had grown to expect these hugs and while I went along with it, I often hated it. I only began to appreciate it after going home and attempting the same warm gestures with the women I had grown up with. They looked at me like I was crazy. It just wasn’t what we did. Ironically today, I’ve become one of the most affectionate friends in my social circle.
The incident my sophomore year wouldn’t be the last, as a few years later, I’d be sobbing to my mother about the impossibility of completing all the things that were on my plate. I’m sure me needing her in this way was not only weird for me, but it was likely a bit shocking for her to see her fiercely independent, ambitious, problem solving adult child feeling lost and out of control of her emotions, but, she calmly soothed me and talked me off the ledge. I mostly remember the feeling of her warm hands rubbing my back as I leaned my forehead into her soft belly and wept. I hadn’t been “mothered” for years, and was thirsty for it. I was 21 years old. She passed away a few years later.
I eventually realized that crying or needing to cry was never about sadness. I’ve always been attracted to the act of taking on impossible tasks and so crying was my body’s response to stress. As I aged, I learned to embrace it and today, I cry all the time- it’s necessary. But the journey to get here was long.
Early twenties: Ignored my emotions in my early twenties which resulted in random outbursts of anger or tears. I knew I had to pivot.
Mid-Twenties: Scheduled in-the-dark crying sessions in the midst of stressful weeks. Movies, emotional music & writing helped most here.
After Thirty: Accepted my body’s need to expel negative energy through tears and now I allow my emotions to flow freely as needed (but never in front of others as much as possible. I’m still working on that part).
I suspect that for most people, including my childhood friends today, age softens us as we navigate life’s difficult moments and come out grateful, appreciative, and honored to have made it through.
For the women, teens and little girls like me who are taking on the world but were never shown a road map to navigating our emotions: give yourself permission to cry, feel, and become undone and know that you owe no one an explanation as to why. Know that in these moments we are actually our strongest selves- vulnerable, and open to the lessons of the world. Use these moments to ask for help, to build yourself up, find a new way forward, and become stronger because of it.
Because it’s what we do. It’s just who we are.