Closing the floodgates

I never used to cry much.  Crying wasn’t encouraged when we were kids.  Stiff upper lip and all that.  Emotion was not to be displayed.  So I didn’t cry when my first boyfriend cheated on me with a friend, I didn’t cry at my grandmother’s funeral, and I never cried when I first left home for a year in Bangkok.  (That year though I did learn to cry in the shower.  It’s very therapeutic, you know.)

So when I lost my first pregnancy, and I cried, it was a surprise to me.  In fact, the emotions that were released then were shocking to me.  I'd always felt a degree of control.  But suddenly control - of my body, my emotions - was gone.   Then came the stress of trying to conceive again, and a second ectopic pregnancy.  By now, the floodgates were well and truly open.  I like this analogy.  When we were children, we used to drive an hour or two up into the mountains, and along a series of lakes created by a hydropower scheme.  (My Dad loved to go fishing, and we used to go too sometimes on picnics.  My one and only fish – a brown trout – was caught in one of these lakes.  I didn’t like fishing, though I loved the natural environment.)  Anyway, one of these lakes had a large dam, with floodgates that were opened when the lake was full or in danger of overflowing.  The sheer volume of the water pouring out was always staggering, and I often wondered how they would ever close the floodgates against the magnificent power of the water.

I discovered personally that closing floodgates isn’t that easy.  I cry at everything.  I cry at pretty much anything remotely emotional.  I cry at great sporting victories or achievements, and medal ceremonies always get me, whether I know the winners or not, so I’m bracing myself for the coming Olympics.  I cry at anything remotely moving; happy moments and sad ones, newspaper articles and TV advertisements.  A while ago a friend was sharing that she and her husband were going to do something exciting with their about-to-be adult daughter.  My eyes filled with tears – happy tears, for her.  Fortunately, she understood and did the same!  I find it a bit debilitating.  I even struggle to tell stories that move me.  My husband and I joke about it now.  “Stop (talking/watching/reading), you’ll cry,” he’ll say.  “Too late!” is invariably my response.  And I would have liked to have said words at my father’s funeral.  But I wasn’t physically capable.  The tears would have come, my voice would have cracked, and I would have turned into an undignified mess. 

Initially I hoped that, as I healed from my losses and accepted my life without kids, the floodgates would close, and the tap would turn off.  But no, not really.  I feel as if I go through life now, skimming along the surface, knowing that there is a huge well, no, a lake of tears, suppressed but not controlled, just waiting to burst through.  Of course, hormones/age could have something to do with it.  Perhaps I can hope that in ten years time I won’t be so emotional!

On the plus side though, I have learned that tears are great mascara removers.  I wish I could bottle them.  I’d make a fortune.