-cry-

Thanks for following, Perfectly Imperfect and Swati {can't find a link for you}! Hope you enjoy the world of Pandora :)

{A very odd post.}

-cry-

Some view tears as beautiful.

Some say tears bring peace.

Some call tears a weakness.

Some see tears as release.

Some people weep when happy.

Some people sob when sad.

Some peoples' tears are lonely.

Some people cry when mad.

Some people give in to tears a lot.

Some people seldom cry.

When and why for all is different, and

I've come to wonder why.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You know I'm a complete analytical nut and that I like to keep lists and records. Well, twenty-eleven was most definitely the "worst" for record-keeping, because I had a special notebook dedicated to recording a whole bunch of stuff throughout the year. One of the lists was of the times I cried and why.

Anger/Frustration: 6

Actual Sadness: 6

Sad Movie/Book: 4

Other {includes homesickness from Europe}: 4

Love-Related: 2

Nostalgia: 2

It works out that I cried 24 times in 2011. I cried the least number of times in May {1 time} and the most in August {5}.

However, the last time, to this day, that I cried was September 9th, 2011.

I'm not sure what to make of that. The obvious answer {which you are all shouting at the screen} is "NOTHING." It means NOTHING. It means that I haven't cried, and that's all it means. It's not a big deal, and if I hadn't been intentionally keeping track, I wouldn't even know.

You are probably correct. But the possibility of something meaning "NOTHING" has never stopped me from analyzing anything.

{Ever.}

Possibilities:

I haven't been sad since September 9th.

I've become completely heartless.

I've learned to control my emotions.

My tear glands have quietly self-destructed.

It is not Possibility 1, I can tell you that much. I've been sad and almost cried on several occasions since last September. {One of them may or may not have involved someone eating my last reindeer peep. It was a bad day, okay?}

I also don't think it's Possibility 2. I don't feel COMPLETELY heartless. A little bit, maybe. I'm definitely cynical and a little on the cold side. But I wouldn't classify myself as completely and totally without heart.

I think the most likely Possibility is number 3; I think I've learned to control my emotions a little better. Part of that reason is certainly because I don't want to cry about everything, but the bigger part is that I like to challenge myself. CAN I stop myself from crying? How long can I go?

{I've discovered that drinking water when you feel like you're about to cry helps immensely. The act of swallowing loosens that heinous wad of emotion that gets lodged in your throat. Just in case you want to become heartless too.}

I doubt my tear glands have self-destructed. I'd be using eye drops like nobody's business and definitely know if they had.

So I've stopped crying to see if I can and in the process become naturally less emotional? Most likely. But it never occurred to me until today that that might not be a good thing. Am I compartmentalizing dangerously? Will I soon explode into a shower of pent-up tears? What if I stop feeling things altogether?

I wasn't worried until something awful happened today and I felt like I should be crying. I almost WANTED to. But the little anti-tear monster I've created rose up and incinerated the feelings without my consent. I couldn't cry. I felt a faint prickling in my nose, but that was as far as it got.

It felt sort of awful. When you cry, even if you don't like to, there's usually a sense of relief and release that comes with it. It makes you feel freer and better able to breathe. But I didn't get that. I just felt the wind-up to crying and then it passed, leaving me feeling sort of indifferent.

Right now, I'm back to not caring. I wonder why I started this post and am contemplating deleting it. But, since I've spent the better part of 45 minutes analyzing and clacking away on the keyboard, I probably won't. I don't want to waste all my hard work.

I might make me cry XD

~Stephanie