I believed that strong people were those who exhibited little emotion. I believed that strong people were those with a stiff upper lip and who didn’t cry. Crying was something shameful and showed weakness. Crying was to be avoided or at the very least, done privately.
I’ve been on one hellava journey.
I grew up in a Dutch immigrant community where all my friends were children of Dutch immigrants. These are people who left the Netherlands after it was decimated during WWII and forged a new life leaving behind an old one. Immigrants are a tough breed. They don’t have time for the frivolous things of life such as emotions because for them life has to be done. They are Human Doers, not Human Beings. They are busy surviving life and have little time to really live life. As a result, many aren’t that good at emotions. I envy the French and the Italian who cry easily. I read phrases like, “Jesus wept” and have to remind myself that there is no weakness in crying. If Jesus, the son of God cried, there is clearly no weakness in crying. But I still suck at it. It is rare that my Constant will see me cry.
After my sister died, a friend of my parents came to us kids and told us that we needed to be there for our parents because this was tough on them. That was one of the stupidest things ever said to me. As if we weren’t all having a hard time. As if we weren’t supposed to be doing this together. As if grief must not be a shared experience. But my sixteen year old self didn’t know that though. I didn’t know that grief, like joy must be shared and I spent the next three years trying to “be there for my parents.” I told my older sisters off if they were doing something that would hurt mom. I rarely cried, and definitely didn’t in public. My laugh was shrill and false. I was grieving but I needed to be strong for my parents – or so I believed.
I married someone who never cried. In the twenty plus years that I’ve known him, I have never seen him cry. I’ve seen him get angry but even that he would try to quickly squelch. I saw him as a pillar, as someone who was strong. He was the rock and I was kite. That was the story I was telling myself. I didn’t realize that he was pinning me down and I could no longer fly.
It was a huge revelation to me that emotions needed to be felt. I thought sadness and pain and anger had to be avoided at all costs or if that wasn’t possible, must be numbed. I turned to alcohol during the darkest times in my life. I had my first drink after my sister, whom I was closest to, died and whenever life became too hard, it became my go-to thereafter. Whenever emotions became too tough to handle I had something to help me with that.
I drank through the first half of my divorce process trying desperately to numb the pain. But my Constant’s voice kept ringing in my head, “Your emotions are your strength.” I have never heard that before. I have never believed that before. But those words were a life raft to me. Those were empowering words. I no longer had to shrink myself and try not to feel my feelings. For the first time I could break out of the constraints I was in and for the first time I had to lean into my emotions, not numb them. It was one of the toughest things I’ve ever had to do. Sitting in the pain and feeling the pain and accepting the pain was uncomfortable and near unbearable. Yet I learned to do it and in doing it, L learned I could bear it. Sitting in the pain made me realize that I can do hard things.
The last time I really numbed my emotions was on ANZAC Day 2019 – 25 April. That was when I decided to really learn to feel my emotions and not try to escape them. ANZAC Day is the Australia and New Zealanders Remembrance Day (although they celebrate that as well) and for me it was a sentimental decision to choose that day. When living in Australia, I would get up at 3am to go to the Dawn Service. It was important to me to go and I felt a part of something bigger than myself. So many of our holidays revolve around what we get out of it. For Easter, we get chocolate, Thanksgiving, turkey, and Christmas, lots of gifts. This was a holiday that focussed on others. The lens wasn’t on me, myself, and I and what I get out of it but on others and their sacrifice and us honouring them.
Learning to sit in the pain was super uncomfortable and I desperately wanted to distract myself from feeling these feelings. I gave up my go-to and walked through my own Gethsemene. Going through this I tried to find ways around it, over it, under it, numb it. Lord, if it be your will, take this cup from me. But I had to go through it. Friends and family deserted me in my darkest time while going through a divorce and not only deserted me, they judged me from afar. They stood along side my ex and hurled accusations at me. I had to sit alone in the pain. I had to let it burn me. I had to let it refine me. And I had to let it redefine me.
I had to learn that I can do hard things. And in doing the hard stuff, I learned that I can indeed do them. And I am learning that I am much stronger than I thought I was. I am learning that my emotions are my strength and that crying is not just acceptable, it’s a sign of strength.
Darlene
no longer small 