Let It All Out Says The Wise Man: Stories for Crying Humans

Dec 22, 2019 just after noon

As I cling to the old man’s Jean leg, weeping under the tree named Vesper Charlie, it’s very clear to me I am brave as fuck.

Sure I might not have the best emotional regulation skills in the west. Yes, I certainly have a habit of weeping in acquaintances arms or in this case squeezing the liver spotted hand of a man with a white cane, who tells me to “let it out.” Who talks about his big floof of a dog that can sense emotions who is standing with a woman who is further down the sidewalk and creeping and crab-stepping away.

I am brave with my tears. And normally people telling me to “hold on” or “let it out” or otherwise directing me in how to have my emotions would bother me and today,it doesn’t. I let him and the other man, the man who got there first, who started it all by looking at me with kidness, pet my head and shoulder.

“Are you okay? Are you okay?” says the second man

I say “Yes,” and I am laughing and crying.

“See she is laughing,” says the first man, the man without liver spots, the man I have danced with a few times and exchanged jokes with says: “She is okay.”

And he misgenders me but, now hardly seems like the time to trot out the old “they/them” pronouns I prefer, now when I am slipping and sliding though the ground is firm at the base of the tree.

These men are worried, but I am not. You see,I understand that I can hold both things at once: being okay and feeling absolutely wretched “ I am just feeling very human.” I say trying to get them to understand that this is utterly normal for me.

The man with the liver spots and white cane says “That’s a very good way to feel, human.”

The other man has already moved on. I still have so much sob in me and I am grateful that my honorary grandpa keeps telling me to let it out.

“I wish there was something I could do for you.” He says as he goes to leave and then few steps away from me on the sidewalk he calls back “And you better enjoy the rest of your day!”

I think he thinks he has failed because my tears have not entirely stopped, but the truth is, he succeeded when he held my hand and told me “let it all out.”

That the flow of emotions isn’t failure at all, but rather a success in trust. Thank you for encouraging me to cry. Thank you for stopping.

It is easier with someone else there, to press my fingers into, to lean on. Thank you!

I am a mess and it’s a compost with something fixing to grow. Let’s keep watering it!

And I let myself be helped. I told him near then end when he was “Shhhh shhhing,” I didn’t like it. That I didn’t like to be Shhhed as I cried but the truth is that was an old reflex.

In the Shhh shhh I was taken back to a baby being cushioned in someone’s arms, and a kind soul rocking them to the sound of the wind “Shhhh shhhh.” Not to quiet but to soothe, like a breeze rushing over the broken skin of my heart.

Only if it was broken, breath would sting, so maybe it’s not broken anymore.