When I was a youngin my mother would say this, or at least that is the way I remember it….that and the main verse playing in my head:
“I am a rock, I am an island. And a rock feels no pain
And an island never cries” – Simon & Garfunkel
As an adult trying like hell to navigate this crazy, intense, awful, sweet, and sometimes a cross-functional panel that is life, it’s hard to not let your childhood teachings (traumas?) affect your everyday life but mine sure as hell does, I just CAN NOT for the life of me show my pain. My Dad always says my Mom was a ‘silent sufferer’ and even though I am an unprofessional loud mouth I myself will let the tears burn inside my head before I let them run down my face. But when I do….It’s like a floodgate I tell you!!! That being said I believe this is a preconditioned tendency, to say (ready, sing it!) ” I am a rock, I am an island and a rock feels no pain and an island never cries”. In this society, we have amazing men like @Justin Baldoni who write books like “Man Enough”. The idea that ‘being a man’ is not crying is one I am familiar with. My last love was amazingly in touch with his emotions, potentially a narcissist and most definitely a cheating crap face but still, very in touch, as was my father when I was growing up, my Dad cried more in a short 5 years than my mother did in my 35 years with her. She had her own trauma though, abused in so many ways as a child, grew up far too quickly and lord knows how many other traumas.
Today while working from home, I had this overcoming feeling about, well, my emotions. For the first time in, well I can’t remember how long, I let myself cry. Songs that came across Spotify, triggers with my dog and calls, texts, I let them flow! Now it is 6 PM and I am puffy and who cares about the mascara I applied at 7 AM thinking I would go INTO the office before deciding or feeling that ‘nobody cares anyway’ if I go in. It’s been rough lately but I feel better having let out some of the island feels.
-B
