Did you cry?

As an adult, most people associate crying with happiness or sadness.  Not with physical pain. 

We think of children crying when they are hurt. Aren't we all hurt when we cry?

We associate crying with hurt and pain.  But at some point in our lives, we are told to quit crying when we are hurt. 

Most of us think about not crying and physical pain. Emotional pain, it seems to be accepted to cry - that is if you are female and under the age of 10. 

"Stop crying - you aren't a baby"

"Only girls cry"

Part of me gets in.  No one likes whiny kids/people whom "cry" to get their way. We know plenty of them.

But sometimes, it feels good to cry.  Cry in the good way.

Crying at Fred Claus.  Or an episode of Modern Family. Like people get you. You aren't all alone.

However, during the transition from crying when you fall to crying at Olympic commercials, there are those transitional crying years.

When you hurt from sadness.  You cry then too.

Then as a society we are once again told to not cry. It shows weakness.

A friend of mine cut her leg open on a rock - it was pretty big gash (no, this wasn't me).  I saw her a few weeks later.  The cut was healing, but I was like "what the hell did you do?".  She explained what happened.  She was at an exercise class in the park.  They were "rock hopping".  OUCH!!

She's telling me this story, after I asked her about the cut.  OMG.  OUCH! was my reply.  She said, "It's funny, Sawyer (her son whom is 13) asked "Did you cry?"

It stuck out to her.

Several years ago, right after my surfing accident, I was telling my youngest son the story. The first question he asked:  "Did you cry?"

He was 12.

I had never thought about it.  But, it stuck with me. Moms don't cry. If you think about it, when you were a kid and you witnessed an adult crying, you didn't know what to do. 

Grown-ups don't cry.  

But maybe there is something to this. We do learn to outgrow crying at physical pain. We learn to cry when we really hurt.