And I cried....

Oh how I cried. I cried like there was no tomorrow. For 90 days and 90 nights, I cried. Every. Single. Day. Big, fat, carbohydrate-laden tears would roll down my cheeks and cruise me along Depression Avenue.

I have always been a cry baby anyway. My tear ducts are five-lane highways to eye fluid traffic. In the good old days, James Bond (in an attempt to promote a semblance of anonymity, this is how I am going to refer to my not-quite-of-an-ex-yet throughout this blog. In the midst of all the pain, I can, at least, pretend that I was married to the sexiest man ever to invade Great Britain) would often laugh at my innate ability to produce tears. They would appear while watching just about every Disney film every produced and in every family occasion that involves hugging and giving of speeches – weddings, baptisms, funerals, Hannukah. You get the picture.

However, it starts to get worrisome when your tears start coming up at any random moment, like when you’re doing the grocery, or driving down the highway, or just doing nothing. It also becomes particularly embarrassing because I am not one of those chosen few who cry gracefully. Not a chance. When I cry, my eyes look like they’re going to fall out of their sockets. My nose grows into the size of a small continent in full rebellion.

It would not be an understatement to say that I was not looking very good during my three-month crying spree. I wore a perpetual look of doom on my face and my friends didn’t know what to do with me. I think their feelings hovered from wanting to adopt me to running away from me as far as their high-heeled shoes would take them.

At first, I rebelled against my tears and asked God to “please, please make them stop”. Until it dawned on me that God didn’t want my crying to stop. He, in His immense wisdom, is presenting me a gift so I can survive this heart-wrenching pain. For through these tears, I can start to let go.

So I let it all out. I cried for my false arrogance. I cried for my shame. I cried for my guilt, my pride, my selfishness and all the things that I brought on during the life that I lived. And I also cried out my hurt, my disappointment, my loss, my anger, my disillusionment, my sense of failure. And most of all, I cried out my pain.

And then one night, while I was lying spent on the floor after a three-hour marathon of sobbing, wailing and bawling, it stopped. Like a song that has reached its final crescendo, my tears faded away and finally stopped. And there, amidst the silence, with just the faint sound of my own breathing, I noticed the first ray of calmness descend. And I understood that the onslaught of torrential tears, much like everything happening in my life right now, had a purpose. They gave me hope that somewhere deep within me, I had what it takes to cleanse my soul and purify my spirit. That once the tears stop – and believe me, they will – you finally have opened the doors of finding the real you.