I don’t cry often. But I cried on Wednesday. As are most Wednesdays, it was an emotionally draining day for me. A feeling of being overwhelmed at work, followed by marriage counseling and Al-Anon at night. It was a day in which the tears seemed to have taken up permanent residence on the surface of my eyes.
I am really working on crying. It doesn’t come easily to me. Even when I get teary-eyed, I don’t often allow the drops to fall. I suck it up, stay strong and rationalize my way out of crying. When I showed up at marriage counseling, having asked my husband to bring me a mini bottle of wine for the session — I was serious, but he didn’t do it — it didn’t take long for my emotions to show.
“You look sad,” said our counselor.
“I am.”
“My job,” she said, “is to get you to stay in that sadness until you’re done with it.”
Uh? At $50/hour, that’s gonna be expensive. I think she must get a bonus for actually making me cry.
For me, crying shows a vulnerability that I don’t want to face. Holding it together, being the strong one in the face of adversity, that’s the image I want others to have of me. Yet, I am learning that sometimes it takes great strength of character to accept the pain that comes with — that calls up — a good cry.
So I cried there in our counseling session, feeling very uncomfortable crying in front of my husband, the one person I should feel most comfortable sharing my feelings with. But I did cry.
I went to Al-Anon that night and asked someone to be my sponsor. She, in the very nicest way possible, sort of declined. She agreed to be my temporary sponsor, to help me meet others who might be more available to sponsor me. While I understood and respected her perspective and was grateful for her offer to help, I couldn’t help but feel rejected. Then someone in the meeting who just rubs me the wrong way corrected me, privately, for something I had suggested. It all added up to one big reason to cry.
So I went home and I sat with my husbanded and opened my heart to him, allowing him to see my hurt and to just be there for me, when normally I would have stuffed those feelings of rejection and shame to a place where I didn’t have to deal with them, adding one more brick to the wall around my heart.
Recently I read Psalm 51:19 which says “My sacrifice, God, is a broken spirit.” I’m trying to remember that in those times of brokenness when I am able to let the tears flow, I am giving a gift to the God — and when I choose, the husband — who loves me.
