Quote: I'd say I am just now approaching the point where I feel safe to feel my greif, confusion, anger, sadness, etc.
This is exactly right! When the house is burning down and you're running out into the street with your valuables, you're just glad to be alive. Then as the days and weeks go on, you're STILL glad to be alive, but you become aware of all you've lost, AND as you so wisely said, now it's safe to feel those feelings.
You're NOT falling apart. I don't even know what that phrase means...
underdog wrote
Quote: p.s. Oh yeah, I now cry at the drop of a hat. That sucks the most.
I've always been one to cry at the drop of a hat (I cry at Purina Cat Chow commercials...), but I've reframed that tendency and now see it as an enormous gift--- to be ABLE to cry at the drop of a hat. Let's face it, there's a lot in our lives and in the world to cry about. Tears honor the magnitude of the events we and others face. See this as a virtue, as an indication of sensitivity... and buy waterproof eye makeup.
Here's something on tears:
Quote: The Tears of Women, Written by Ms.Baker
For the fifth time this week, a girl in tears has stumbled across my path, or sought me out personally. At first, I thought all this profuse weeping was perhaps due to some major karmic disturbance caused by an interplanetary misalignment in another galaxy far, far away. I had a suspicion that God was putting teary eyed women in my path because I carry around lots of ultra-soft kleenex and cinnamon Altoids candy.
But now, I remember that I once had the fortune to have a kind and sympathetic strange lady at Heathrow Airport lend me her shoulder to cry on when I was suddenly and uncharacteristically overwhelmed by a tragic incident in my family a long time ago. So many things in life occur in circles, patterns, and cycles. Perhaps it is my turn to give back what that unknown, comforting shoulder gave me at a time when I was being strong for everyone else, without anyone I trusted to whom I could bare my own grief and ease my heart close by.
Our collective feminine tears reminded me of two passages, read once long ago:
“Be very careful if you make a woman cry, because God counts her tears. The woman came out of a man’s rib. Not from his feet to be walked on. Not from his head to be superior, But from the side to be equal. Under the arm to be protected, and next to the heart to be loved.” -Hebrew saying from the Talmud
and
It is such a secret place, the land of tears. -Antoine de Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince
Moral 1: Tears should never be construed as a sign of weakness in either men or women, even for someone as proud as I am, who licks her wounds in private. They are visible echoes of a soul in conflict and torment, or perhaps even unimaginable joy. Always respect them.
Moral 2: Offer your shoulder, ear, and Altoids to someone weeping, even if it is a stranger. You never know when it might be your turn. Sometimes, the compassion of a stranger is exactly what one needs.
N.B. (I am very susceptible to the tears of others, and find it hard to control my own when someone cries in my presence…Cry, and I cry with you…)
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