Last week, I started to cry because Michael Jackson is dead. He's been dead for six months (and gone long before that), but, sitting in the car with my husband and a backseat full of boxes, I suddenly found myself heartbroken that someone whose music I'd loved as a child was no longer here.
This was just one of the dozens (hundreds?) of heartbreaks I've experienced recently. I would say Suddenly, everything makes me cry, but that's not true at all. After Westley was born, I cried a lot: feelings of frustration, anger, impotence, disappointment--all related to motherhood, babyhood, postpartum depression. And while the sadness and the overwhelm has eroded, the crying has continued. I'm done crying about motherhood, for now. Now, I cry about everything else.
Music, more than anything else, makes me cry. It doesn't matter what kind. Classical, indie rock, even pop music can do it. I haven't been to mass in a long time, partly because I have a toddler and taking him to church is difficult, but also because I don't think I could handle the hymns. I'm afraid to go to Christmas services; the music might destroy me.
"Your defenses are down," Rob says. And I can see him thinking about my health challenges, the stress of moving, the holiday chaos.
I see where he's coming from, but saying that my "defenses are down" suggests a place of weakness. I don't feel weak at all. Just susceptible. And oddly, I don't actually mind feeling this way. While it's completely embarrassing to cry just talking about Glenn Close in a PSA, part of me really cherishes this sensitivity. For one thing, it means that the things I love and care about, I really care about. I'm not quite that happy-drunk friend who tries to make out with you after two-and-a-half glasses of wine, but I'm almost there. And I really do love you, man!
Yes, all right, so I get my heart broken half a dozen times a week, often belatedly or over "nothing." But I think it might actually be good for me. Art is more meaningful, life seems more hopeful, and my little boy has never looked more beautiful.
Now, does anyone have a handkerchief I can borrow?
