"DONE WITH THE SICKNESS" in "WRITER@WORK: Stories From A Lone, Urban Girl"

If many people love “Kiss From A Rose”, then my favourite Seal song is “Don’t Cry”. It is one of the ballad tracks that has a calming effect on me. I listen to it a lot at certain times. Not just every breakup, but also after the funerals of everyone I love.

Why? I grew up hating the idea of crying at first. I’ve learned that society has always perceived crying as a sign of weakness. They’ve always associated emotions and feelings with one’s inability to control themselves. They also assume it’s always a girl-thing. Well, it’s true that we do cry, but there’s one thing they even forget (or choose to ignore):

Aggression is also a form of emotion. Why is it considered a strength and even cooler than crying? Is it because most boys do that? How about the fact that God creates tear ducts for everyone?

From Feeling Sick To Having Had Enough

“Girls are cry-babies…”

“Shut up.”

“Look at you, all teary-eyed…”

I didn’t remember much. Ma told me that I’d grabbed that naughty little boy back in kindergarten by his collar. I was already a chubby girl and he was smaller, although I can’t remember who he was and how his face had looked like.

Because of that, I made him cry instead. I didn’t, I couldn’t, and I don’t remember how it ended. I only know that decades after that, Ma still laughed about the incident.

“Why were you so angry? What did the boy say?”

I wish I could remember more. Some say it no longer matters. I guess I could say, I’ve been learning how to hold back my tears almost all my life. Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I fail. Sometimes those haunting taunts are still loud in my ears.

Once I managed to make the tears really go back inside. My eyes stayed dry, even after I’d witnessed a heated argument between two people I love. Somehow, I willed the tears back in.

However, minutes later, they rolled down my nostrils. No kidding. What did I get from that? No, not my toughness or the so-called whatever. I have one word for that:

Migraine. It was quite a severe one. Some other people may have defined it with another: stress. I could’ve let myself cry like most normal people do (not just girls and women), but instead I held them back. I just hated how it was associated with weakness. Ugh.

Sometimes even fellow women are mean to each other. They think they’re such badass when they laugh at you for crying in public – or at least in front of them.

“You’re such a baby.”

Once or twice, you can still accept the teasing. Once it gets too often, it sounds more like an insult coming from a secretly insecure person. The funny thing is, they still want to call themselves ‘your good friends’. There’s a thin, fine line between honesty and rudeness. Call me touchy as you like, but not everything needs to be said. What benefits you from that anyway?

After a while I’ve learned to pick my battles wisely. Life is too short for people like that. They can think whatever the hell they like about me. If that’s how they react to my tears every single time they see them, then they’re not even worth my time and energy.

It’s even worse if they also hold a double standard. They can cry, sometimes over petty things, and they’re only human. If it’s other people doing the same, they’re weak.

“Don’t cry”?

No, do so if you need to. It’s human nature. Nobody has any rights to forbid you. This is also why I never make fun of, laugh at, or scold any guy who cries in front of me. It’s just not fair.
Of course, after all of that, you still need to decide when to stop. What’s your next step, once you’re done with such sickness?

R.