no reason for tears

The tears flowed freely tonight, long overdue emotions finally surfacing and releasing themselves into the bitter, wet, coldness of this night. I cannot really tell you what caused the tears or why they continued to relentlessly flow. What I can tell you is that I am now sitting here in a peaceful state of serenity, knowing that whatever the reason may have been, it was a night the tears needed to fall.

I used to believe that I had to have a reason for crying. That there had to be something wrong, something that I could identify, something I could offer as an explanation if anyone should happen to see the cascade on my stained cheeks. I used to believe that not knowing, not having a definable reason, meant that the tears should not be falling. And if they did decide to fall on their own accord, I felt guilt. A lack of validation, an embarrassment, a fear that I would be misunderstood or that something was indeed desperately wrong and I just could not bring it into awareness.

After several years of continuously pursuing my journey of self-growth and discovery and a few years of working with patients in the field of clinical psychology, I have come to realize that the tears often flow in the times that I can allow them to surface. They may flow from mere exhaustion, physical or emotional. They may flow from an overload of stress, too many obligations weighing down my fragile shoulders. They may flow from witnessing an incredible act of love or kindness or seeing the grief and loss on the faces of a family in mourning or hearing the words of inexplicable pain that have been endured by those who never deserved to feel such turmoil. The tears may fall from reading words that touch my heart, from seeing the beauty of a sunset when the rest of the world swirls in chaos. They may fall from my own physical pain or a wave of anxiety or a day when the depression threatens its spiraling return. Or they may fall from holding the pain of so many patients, from the knowledge that I cannot save each troubled soul or bring hope to every lost being.

Whatever the reason may be, my tears have an insight that I may never fully know. When they well within my eyes and my throat gets tight, as the first one begins its gentle descent, followed by another and another and sometimes the eventual downpour that leaves my eyes swollen, my head pounding, and my heart aching...when my tears fall, they do have reason, a reason of their own. As the years have passed and the experiences lived, I have come to accept these nights, knowing that after the last tear has fallen, I will once again be blanketed in a peaceful state of serenity.