I sat on my stoop one day before going to school in the first grade and I cried my little green eyes out. I was not scared to go to school, I had a fabulous outfit on, lunch was packed, my hair was brushed, and I was all set to go. But, for some reason, I was so sad. I remember my mom asking me, “Sweetie, what is it? What’s wrong?”, and I really had no idea.
I was taking notes vigorously in Mrs. Solosky’s eighth grade Chemistry class and out of nowhere, this sensation to cry came over me again. I quietly got up and went to the bathroom where I cried my not so little green eyes out, just as I did in first grade. I had a ton of friends, once again, a fabulous outfit on, made the sports teams I wanted to, quite honestly, for an eighth grader, life was good. Still, I could not figure out why I was crying.
It took until my sophomore year of highschool to piece together this puzzle I had struggled with for so long. I was in the shower one night after basketball practice and this sensation came over me again. Dramatically and scenically I cried in the shower, washed my face off and when I got out, I felt like a new person. The sensation after I cried was such an enormous relief on my body, I then realized why my body had almost forced me to cry on a random basis.
I believe in crying. Crying hard, crying dramatically, crying like you are on the scene of a Nicolas Sparks movie. It is healthy, it is helpful, it is necessary. In an article posted on Frontiers in Psychology titled, “Is crying a self-soothing behavior?”, it was noted that, this natural function, “is predominantly linked to stress reduction and the experience of mood enhancement.” This article describes how crying is just the body’s way of releasing negative emotions. Additionally, the article adds their expectation of the, “self-soothing effects of crying to be the consequences of homeostatic regulation that are promoted by crying.” It is imperative for us as humans, both men and women, both young and old, to have a frequent and safe release of our emotions, both happy and sad. While, crying can be linked with sadness, which is a perfectly valid assumption, we must link crying with a more uplifting and accepting connotation. In the effort to do this I will say, I believe in crying to be happy.