Crying Day

Today was a crying day for me.

I could blame hormones, but I won't.  I think I've had cumulative emotional experiences that have exceeded my capacity to be stoic.  Earlier this week, I started reading The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt.  This morning before I got out of bed, I read a difficult scene where one of the characters is lost.  I didn't cry for the character.

Last night, I went to a fundraiser for the Seattle Children's Theatre.  Earlier in the day yesterday, I was talking to a friend about bringing children to live performances, whether theater, dance, music or opera.  Kids not only have to respect the other audience members, they have to respect the performers.  One of the most moving times I have been in a audience was this winter during a Seattle Children's Theatre's production of James and the Giant Peach.  James' parents died, and his aunts broke his father's glasses and ripped mother's scarf.   For what seems like an eternity, James very carefully packs up these fragments.  The theater was packed with kids on field trips.  No one breathed.  No one fidgeted.  It was intense.  At the end of the show, there is a question and answer session  One boy about eight years old said, "I don't have a question.  I just thought this was a great show.  This was a great show."  At the time, I burst into waterworks.  Yesterday reminded me of that experience, but I didn't cry.

I met with some friends today for coffee who are looking for work.  It is a great and lively group, yet finding a job is more critical for some than others.  I smiled along with them, but I didn't cry.

After that, I talked to my dad on the phone about my mom's Alzheimer's.  "She's had a rough week," my father said.  "Her short-term memory has been bad."  My father is an optimist.  When he says something is bad, it must be awful.  My mother must have forgotten her own name or something equally bad.  I listened to him, but I didn't cry.

Then I read an article on BrainChildmag.com about a mother's experience with her son's diagnosis with diabetes.  Perhaps the hardest part for me to read was when the woman called her mother to ask for help.  The grandmother is a psychologist, and was meeting with a patient.  The boy's mother phone-stalked her own mother until she answered the phone, and asked her for help.  I don't even know this woman, and I cried my eyes out.  And not a little trickle of a tear, but several minutes of flood.  I had to stop reading and make some tea before I could finish.

This article was moving, and I do have two friends whose children were diagnosed with diabetes recently.  Nevertheless, I would not normally cry for ten minutes over a magazine article.  Hence, the idea of emotional overflow.  This article opened the floodgates and released all of the emotion that had been building up over the past several days.

I settled down for a bit after reading the article and then went to Metropolitan Market to get something for dinner.  At the store, I saw a woman with a sloppy buzz cut.  I thought, That is an interesting and unattractive haircut, I wonder why... When I saw her twelve year old daughter bouncing behind her with the same haircut, I knew.  Metropolitan Market is right next door to the Ronald McDonald House, where families can stay while their children are treated at Seattle Children's Hospital.  Thank goodness I had a good cry earlier today, otherwise I don't think I would have made it through the store.  I was able to hold it together until now.