Cry, Baby, Cry

I've been going through a hard thing these past few weeks. I'm not trying to be cryptic, I just don't know how to tell the story yet, or if it's even mine to tell.

Over these past few weeks, as the news I’m navigating went from bad to worse and the days began to feel harder and harder, I've noticed my body tensing — my shoulders were inching toward my ears and my neck wouldn't extend as far when I stretched in the mornings. One day my husband Paul reached for my hand unexpectedly and I jumped.

"Oh my God," I said. "That scared me. I am so sorry."

"You're tense," he said. "I'm sorry you're feeling that way." 

I've been trying not to cry. Crying would make things seem more real. Crying would feel powerless, out of control. Crying would make me feel foolish, like I wasn't handling everything I needed to handle. Maybe, I thought, if I start crying I won't be able to stop. 

But then I did cry. It happened almost by accident; I started tearing up at the end of a poignant TV show and then let myself stay with it, until whimpers became great wracking sobs and at the end I felt wrung out, pleasantly exhausted and so much better. Maybe because I'd been so aware of the stiffness of my body, I noticed for the first time in weeks that it was gone.

“I can’t believe how much better I feel!” I nearly shouted at Paul, who had been holding me while we sat on the couch and I cried.

My neck could turn all the way, and I delighted in rolling it around, amazed at its elasticity. My shoulders were down, my arms hanging loosely instead of stiff at my sides. I swung them and noticed how much lighter they felt. A slight dull pain that had been radiating through me for the past few weeks was, miraculously, not there anymore. All that vigilance, all that work I was doing to keep the crying at bay, was gone. And I was just left with a warm glow. 

I've never been great at crying. I'll stay stoic during a funeral while I dole out Kleenex. I'll tough it out. For a while the TV show "This Is Us" was the only thing that could — without fail — get me to shed tears, as long as nobody else was in the room with me. (When I'm upset Paul often asks, "Do you want to watch your crying show?") Often there's an inverse relationship at work: the more difficult and emotional the event, the more likely I'll try not to cry. Keeping it all in feels safer sometimes. 

Then this week I got a massage, an appointment I’d made months ago. Thanks, past Allison, I said to myself as I drove to the appointment. I noticed, as the massage therapist started kneading, that my body was tense again, after another week of being strong in the face of the unnameable hard thing. This massage feels good, I thought to myself, but not even as good as that cry felt the other night. Then I rolled my eyes at the privilege of that statement.

The massage therapist started working on my right knee and I tensed up even more; my right leg is always ticklish. It seemed a little bit silly to laugh. Who laughs during a massage? The room was low lit and smelled faintly of eucalyptus; I felt like my loud laughter would break some sort of relaxation spell that had been carefully cast in this moment. I felt my body tense more as I held in the laughter, my lips closing tightly over my teeth. I squirmed a little to hold off the giggles. I concentrated hard on not laughing. It was taking a lot of energy.

Finally I came clean: "My knee is ticklish for some reason. I'm trying not to laugh." 

"Well," he said. "When given the chance to hold something in or let it out, I find that it's always a better idea to let it out."

"I'm getting that lesson from all sides this month," I said. And then I laughed because I was still feeling ticklish. And it did feel good, to let it out. So I laughed some more, in wonder at how light I felt when I did what my body wanted me to do.

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