where dreams go

tape 7: cry

"All men aren't painted with the same devastating crush"

boys, teens and even men, cry. for so many reasons. for so many times.

if it isn't obvious enough, crying for males indicates huge weakness. a flaw. A male is depicted to be someone who is able to control and be numb to all sorts of pain. from when we were brought up, to the media adaptation of men. crying means you are not a man. a man should be strong. a man should be reliable, a man should never succumb to his emotions and many more.

I will admit, I had cried before, alone and in front of people. Most times it was depressing, crying in front of another person. So I just cried alone. That little boy in me, that little guy who had witnessed way too much, he isn't strong like me. he never was.

So I had to be. From burying my great grandmother, from seeing my father cried on his mother's funeral, from apologizing after losing a crucial game of football, from dropping grades and disappointing so many people who had relied on me to perform and make use of my advantages, from being me, from watching my go-to sad movie lists, from reminiscing of what I could've done better, from thinking I could save people, thinking I could save me.

Like an incurable disease, my heart or should I say feeling, is so fragile when I'm alone. It might be exaggerating to say that I could feel my world crushing, losing my mind, falling into a spiral that I could never escape.

And I curse that little boy in me, for days. I wanted him to become stronger, wanted me. At days, no matter how hard it was for me to go through the day, I managed to pull it off. But I guess, men do turn to boys when they hit rock bottom.

I stopped crying since I was in lockdown. I was alone. At first it was disorienting. It was sickening. And I managed it through. I turned cold. I became a solo act. It was to the point I cried so much, my head hurts and my eyes swelled. And when my mom asks me why, allergies should suffice from her to worry about me.

I hated to be seen so vulnerable. It is as though I couldn't manage myself.

"I'm growing into an adult, why should I cry?"

2022 was probably the most I've cried my entire life. Beginning of the year, just a week from my father's birthday, his mother passed away. I have never seen my dad cried before. I heard rumors from my mom, but never had I ever seen him crying in front of me. We were outside the morgue, and my dad, asks me with shaky voice, to go in first. I didn't feel anything at first, asides from mourning. But when he stood beside her, I know, I saw him holding back his tears. Seeing my father, who I always saw as someone strong, seeing him in his lowest. After a few seconds he broke down, he started to wipe his tears and clear his voice. And we took her to the table to be cleaned. And I walked out. My heart, myself, that stupid weak little boy in me, begging to cry, and I went to the toilet immediately bawl my eyes out. I couldn't believe, my brain wouldn't allow what I had witnessed. And I wiped my overflowing tears and straight back in.

And that's when I understand that, to be that strong, to be that capable of being under intense pain, I have to endure something much, much more. So now and then, when I get to be alone, when the week was just too hard, when life kept throwing so much shit at me, I just let myself cry. Only if I can pick myself up again. Just so when another time I have to cry, I will be stronger. Because that is how I needed to be.