When did you first see your parents cry? 

And what does it say about you? 

I was 18 years old when I first saw either of my parents cry for the first time.

And I know this, because it was utterly strange, like seeing a dinosaur walk the streets of Brooklyn. My dad, hunched over with his headphones perched around his neck, tried to hide the tears falling down his face, as I moved my things out of boxes into my dorm room freshman year of college.

I didn’t, in fact, even see my mom cry. I heard it in the stories (and complaints) from my sister, who said that my mom had cried much of the drive back from Ithaca to Chicago, In the Lonely Hour by Sam Smith playing in the background. 

What was most shocking about my parents crying, was that they didn’t. For much of my life, I viewed my parents as stoic, strong, and unemotional. And because of this, I often asked my parents if they really loved me. To me, love was emotion. Love was crying, love was vulnerability, love was softness. And my parents gave little to none of that. 

Though they gave little of that, I’ve begun to see that love is more than passion and feeling and emotion. It is letting your daughters run a car wash business outside your barbershop. It’s taking your daughter alongside you on fishing trips. It’s putting your kids in gymnastics and ballet and tap dance and track and field. It’s driving 30 minutes downtown to pick you up when you missed your Metra train. It is, so to speak, “putting a roof over your head, food on the table, and clothes on your back.” 


So what about you? And your feelings and emotions? 

A therapy session inspired me to meditate on this question, of when I first saw my parents cry, because I’ve been digging and trying to figure out my own relationship, at 28, to my feelings and emotions and vulnerability.  

I was a very emotional and sensitive kid. The slightest of offenses sent me into a spiral of tears. I cried about everything! 

I’ll never forget in 3rd grade, my teacher had read through the list of students on the honor roll, and my name wasn't called. In the back of the corner, I sobbed. I was a failure, I thought. How was this possible, I was smart!! This must be a mistake. The tears came pouring even harder. It wasn’t until my teacher caught wind of my sobbing, and realized that she’d made a mistake, that I had made the honor roll, was in fact at the top of my class, that the tears began to dry.

I was a bonafide crybaby. And I was often chastised for it. “Don’t cry over spilled milk,” was an idiom often given to my sensitive, emotional, younger self.

But why does this matter? 

My parents' relationship to their feelings influence how I’ve dealt with my own. At 28, I am a much tougher and hardened young woman. I learned that grieving over a breakup was silly. That depression was a character flaw, a sign of weakness, that the world would chew me up and spit me out if I didn’t toughen up. That silliness and humor were acceptable ways to mask or play down hurt and pain. That anger and screaming and yelling were valid emotions, but sorrow, grief, and sadness were not. 

Because of this, my relationship to my emotions is… fraught. I’m an expert at invalidating my own feelings. Disassociating from them. Pushing through them instead of sitting with them. Distracting myself from them by piling on more things, more work. It's seeing feelings as inconveniences and thus seeing other people's feelings as an inconvenience as well. I can analyze and assess my feelings far better than I can actually just feel them.

And this has come at a high cost in my life. 

At present 

Sometimes I sit, in sadness, of who I might be, what I might be capable of, in friendships, in relationships (ah the emotionally unavailable man + why I often am drawn to or find familiarity in that), in love, in my work, if I had at least more support, at a young age, with people who were able to validate my feelings and emotions. People who were able to hold the complexity of my feelings and emotions and healthily express theirs.

But I don’t sit there for too long (well ofc because I struggled with my feelings!! lol), because I also feel called into the challenge of learning, of growth, of developing healthy relationships to my feelings. (And in some ways I love writing because it allows me the space to sit with, process, and share my feelings in a safe way.)

I hope to someday be a parent; I dream of raising little humans. And I’ve learned a lot about what it means to be emotionally available, especially from the people in my life, from friends, to past relationships, to family members like my aunt, who created safe havens for me to share my emotions.

I want to create a space for my children to express their feelings. To tell them that feelings are natural, human, they are good. I want to walk alongside them and help them navigate the terrain of their feelings and emotions, not invalidate them. I want them to be healed humans navigating an already difficult earth, wearing their heart (and feelings) on their sleeves, so to speak. I wish of that for everyone, I think the world might be a better place.

So… when did you first see your parents cry? And what do you think that says about you? 

P.S.

To my parents, I love you all so much!!

I am incredibly strong and resilient because of you. And I dream of nothing more, than for you to find the crevices in this cracked world where you are able to soften, to be weak, to cry, and to have your feelings be seen, as well <3