Cry, baby, cry

"Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward."
-Kurt Vonnegut

My best friend and I share many characteristics, but the one I am thinking about today is our tendency to cry when frustrated. When we were at a competition, and my other best friend and I were fighting, Michelle ran into the bathroom because she was crying from being so frustrated with Mary and I (and rightly so). I cry when frustrated, too, when I worry over something that I can't control or when I'm misunderstood and not given a chance to clarify. Those situations are the most concerting to me and elicit the most tears. And then the concern people show you when you're crying is upsetting (because I don't like being weak), in turn frustrating me, and then making me cry more.

Once, when I was about 8, I was playing with my brother and I got hurt. He turned to me and told me that I was "such a crybaby". The next day, I was on the playground at elementary school. My friends and I were playing "Hide-and-go-seek" and I was hiding behind a partition on the playground platform. A kid ran by me and accidentally stepped on my pinkie. It hurt, and I wanted to cry, but because my brother called me a crybaby I refrained. Later that day, I noticed that my pinkie was entirely purple and brown and about the size of both of my thumbs put together. I showed my teacher and she sent me to the nurse's office. The nurse made me a splint and called my mother. As it turns out, that boy on the playground broke my pinkie.

I'm torn on the goodness or evilness of crying. I know boys don't like to do it, or at least don't like do it in front of others. I know it can be soothing to girls, and I know that I've had a couple of good crys that cleansed me.

I think what bothers me about it is how involuntary it is. I don't like not being in control. This is what bothers me about drugs and also about Janet Jackson's album "Control". Crying acknowledges the admission that one is human, that outside events can and will influence one's emotional makeup.

But isn't that what makes us beautiful? The indiscrepancies, the flaws, the moments of weakness? Isn't that what causes the most bonding between humans, rather than physical beauty or intelligence or humor?