the first tear

welcome to FREQUENT CRIERS CLUB

i’ve had this hand-sewn patch from sweet Sofia for 8 years now. for 8 years, this has hung in every apartment. today, I know what it was meant for.

You’re in the middle of something. Any second now you’ll rush off. It’s okay. Me too. But before you read this, I need you to take a breath. I’ll do it with you.

Big inhale. Inhale. Long exhale. Exhale.

Good. Let’s go.

When I was three, I fell off the back of the couch and cried so hard I fainted. This happened a few times, apparently, the crying and fainting. My big sister says I’d shriek and wail, then my little body would go limp. Silent. She says my face turned blue. 

A few years later, my brother handed me a brown paper bag for my birthday. Inside was a hamster I named Maggie, the first of many pets that would teach me about boundaries. During a routine goodnight Maggie be good I love you, I stretched a finger through the bars of her cage, straining to pet her soft caramel fur. She must’ve sensed my desperation. She bit me. I bawled for what felt like the entire night, clutching my bandaged finger, overcome with rejection and grief and feeling.

Eventually, I learned how to cry without making any noise, tears rolling down my cheeks as I sat up straight during Sunday mass. In the parking lot, my mom would close her hands around my wrists and beg me to spit it out. I didn’t have the words.

In my 20s, life delivered more than rodent bites and Catholic guilt—it was divorcing parents, lingering body (face?) dysmorphia from a double jaw surgery, chronic back pain, bad breakups with bad jobs and bad boyfriends, festering attachment wounds, an uncanny inability to make friends, blah blah. Through it all, I continued doing what I did best. I cried about it. 

Basically, and not to brag, crying was kind of my forte. And I’m not saying that I constantly cried over frivolous things. I did, but that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that nothing ever felt frivolous. Even little things felt intense and unmooring. So you can imagine how the bigger things felt.

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Now, at 34, I don’t cry much anymore. At first, this was a relief, a sign of growth. Therapy! Healing! Boundaries! Therapy! Not to mention the parts of my personal life that felt most distressing in my twenties are finally on an upswing. I have a job I love, my chronic pain has settled, and I feel, well, lucky. And I am. Like, Jupiter exalted in Cancer lucky. Friends I’m positive I’ve known for lifetimes lucky. Big Sweetie Boyfriend™ who resembles a young Ralph Fiennes lucky. Elderly scruff potato of a dog who is still spry and mischievous lucky. Booty that I got from my mama lucky. 

That could be the end of this—my life got better and now I’m more well-adjusted and I cry less, yay! But that’s not how this story ends, because as things slowly, painfully started turning around, I became protective. Somewhere in my desire to keep my newfound peace and mitigate my chronic overwhelm, I started tuning out. I stopped crying and I also stopped laughing. I stopped getting into shitty relationships and I also stopped opening my heart fully.

I stopped crying and I got fucking numb.

That sensitive weirdo who had her first panic attack watching Anne of Green Gables, wept on every SEPTA train in Philly, and hid under her desk a week into her first Big Girl Job? She’s scrolling on her phone now. She’s reading fairy porn and doing at-home yoga except she spends it drafting emails in her head and skips savasana. She’s eating gluten-free boxed mac and cheese because apparently all her sensitivity leaked out of her heart and settled in her goddamn gut. She used to feel so intensely and so frequently that her brother once got her a patch that says I CRY EVERY DAY (lmk if you wanna see it) and now even a particularly intense bout of PMS doesn’t guarantee a good cry.

I don’t hate this version of me. Actually, I love her. I love her so fucking much that I’m willing to risk making a fool of myself with this silly little project, willing to show you my rusty writing, my bad habits and my internal aches, just for a chance at feeling alive again.

FREQUENT CRIERS CLUB is my attempt at reclaiming my tenderness in a world dead set on distracting, desensitizing, and disempowering me. It’s my hail mary to reconnect with my once-overflowing feelings and my crusty, dusty, dried up soul. There will not be any toxic positivity or fucking gratitude journaling. There will not be how-tos—goddess knows I do not know how to—or hot takes decrying the use of screens (do we have enough of those yet?). There will be humor and heart, failures and frustrations. There will be hope. Hope that by showing up here, I’ll crack myself open. (Then close again, because I’m at Aquarius moon and a rigid bitch. Then open again.)

And, if I’m really lucky, there will be tears. Lots more tears.

I sincerely hope you’ll join me and share bits of your own journey along the way. (Seriously please subscribe, I need the sensitives with me for this otherwise I will just keep watching 60-second home renovation videos and reading really bad fantasy books.)

***

This post is dedicated to

Alex Dobrenko`

. Thank you for taking a chance on me, for giving me work that helped me start coming back to life, for figuring it out with me, for being a bud, and for making me a better writer and human just by being you.

LAST THING THAT MADE ME CRY: Yesterday I admitted to my big sister that I can’t intuit her feelings when she texts me updates about her fertility journey. I felt like the world’s worst sister, trying to feel into her experience and for the first time coming up totally blank. 

WAYS I’VE BEEN NUMBING OUT: Fall TV, baby! Grey’s Anatomy, High Potential, Reasonable Doubt, Nobody Wants This, GBBO, English Teacher, How to Die Alone, Captain Odyssey. Also: Sarah J Maas books. Ugh.

WHAT’S BRINGING ME BACK TO LIFE: Eating too many GF chocolate chip cookies from Trader Joe’s fresh out of the oven and talking in British accents with Glen while we watch The Great British Bake Off. It’s called indulgence, innit bruv? Also: Kardashian-style “peaks and pits,” where Glen and I share one low point from our days and one high point. Seems too simple to do anything but it’s actually been flooding me with so much connection and gratitude and just, like, love? Fucking cringe if true. (it’s true.)

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AMA IN THE COMMENTS 👇🏻

Ask me anything, big or small, light or heavy.

OR, tell me anything. What’s the last thing that made you cry? How’ve you been numbing out lately? What’s sparking you up?