Crybaby

 
Netflix offers a mind-boggling assortment of garbage shows, many dark and twisted in nature. Basically, it's perfect for me. Except when I don't want my mind getting dragged down yet another dark corridor to some predictable end. Enter Taylor Swift's Reputation Stadium Tour! 

This show captures Swift's final performance of her Reputation tour at Dallas. Her entire tour was stadiums, in fact, which is a testament to her wide-ranging appeal and popularity. By contrast, I've only seen one performance at a stadium — the Beastie Boys in Cleveland (during their Hello Nasty tour, I believe). They played Egg Raid on Mojo, one of their early punk songs, as I recall. I don't remember much else except we were far away. 

Okay, I know Swift can make a good pop song, and traditionally I don't care for pop songs, but there's no reason I'm sitting in my recliner crying as I watch her perform. Suddenly I was alarmed. What's happened to me? 

I don't know when it happened, but it happened. I've become a crybaby. There is no pinpointing when this phenomenon started. There is only enduring it. Somehow, my emotions got so close to the surface that they routinely break the barrier and shower my days and nights with tears that come seemingly out of nowhere. Some are happy. Some are sad. But they appear now with a frequency previously unseen. 

It's true that I've been through a lot the last few years. But none of that matters as I'm taking in a pop show performance. I'm simply enjoying the show and started crying. I was looking at this crowd of people of all ages and genders and lifestyles, and I start thinking about what it would be like to have a daughter, and then the tears start coming. Waves of remorse wash over me yet again, and I'm swallowed up in it momentarily. Yes, I know, I wasted too many years. Yes, I know, I'll never have a daughter. Yes, I know, but I'm crying anyway because I'm a crybaby, and all of these things are okay. 

From that seed, my thoughts grew to encompass larger things, like how we raise our boys. We often treat them as boys until they reach a certain age (and too often treat them like them like men from infancy). Then we lock them in the man box, where they cannot escape, and if they do, they will be branded something ugly like a sissy or some other insipid word. Crying is most certainly not allowed. Men are rocks — providers and protectors. They don't need emotions (except maybe anger, revenge, and lust). Nonsense. God gave all of us emotions, and even Jesus was known to cry and to groan with emotion. 

Admittedly, emotional responses have their place. Many of mine are out of place, and I'm giving myself some leeway because of the sheer magnitude of recent events. Also, I need my emotions right now to know I'm alive, as some days I feel I'm surrounded by much deadness. As with most things in life , it's important to keep things in balance. Going to either side too much will see you leaving the road and getting lost or stuck somewhere.

So, it's okay if I need to cry. At the very least, I know I'm still alive. There are years of pent-up emotions that need to be expressed. There are a lot of things that need to be mourned. There are warnings that need to be heeded and roads that need to taken and time that needs to pass. Crying is just a part of my process. But a visible part.

 
There is cause for concern, however, because this crying is coupled with some other unusual things, like a dramatic loss of confidence and a desire to paint my nails. This leads me to believe there is something hormonal going on, as well. I take supplements that support my male hormones, so hopefully, they will rebound. Or I'll just paint my nails. 

I've written a couple of posts that I decided NOT to actually post because they were so unlike my frame of mind lately that they troubled me deeply. For days afterward, I wandered around in a daze like I'd been in a fight. Only no one but myself fought me. It was painful to read those words, and maybe I had to write them, but I most certainly didn't have to post them. I watch what I say to other people pretty closely, but oftentimes I don't give myself the same benefit. I mention this because our emotions often tell us when we've gone in the wrong direction. They are closely tied to our conscience, so it makes sense we should keep track of what they are doing. They are NOT our enemy.

I'd like to close with an example of what men are taught about their emotions. And it makes me realize maybe I've always been a cryer. When I was in middle school, our class (three classrooms) put on a play. In the play, I had one line; I was a football player who went "way back" so no one would throw him the ball. When I gave my line the first time, one of my teachers, an ex-Marine, tore into me. I crumpled on stage, crying. We all know there are different ways to talk to people. Some right and some wrong. It was the wrong way to talk to a kid who had no stage experience. He mocked and made fun of me. I was humiliated in front of my entire class, and then I felt shame because I sat down and cried right there at the edge of the stage. Afterward, the teacher came to me and said I didn't have to do the part (and made no apology), which added insult to injury. Clearly, he was not a good teacher. He was an ex-Marine who happened to be a teacher. As we were leaving the gym, a fellow student asked me if I was "pissed," and I said "sure." Because men aren't allowed to feel sad, but we can be pissed. As a side note, this was not a one-time occasion. I had this same teacher as a cross country coach later on. He called me and other runners "idiots" to our faces. These kinds of words are unnecessary and hurtful and have no place in a teaching/learning/coaching environment (and had it happened in this day and age, he may have even been fired for using those words and most certainly reprimanded). Those words are born out of frustration and impatience and hate. Needless to say, I was not a good runner in cross country, though I lettered in track. 

It's toxic masculinity to say boys can't cry. It's toxic to make boys feel shame for crying. It's toxic to say men don't have emotions except a select few. This kind of thinking makes the ex-Marine monster I had for a middle school teacher and later as a coach a person who damages kids. If we follow this line of thinking, then men can't talk to their wives or male friends about their internal struggles. If a man can't talk to his wife or friends, then who can he talk to? He'll find some other woman he can confide in, that's what he'll do, and then there are problems in his marriage. Either that, or he'll find an outlet in the types of emotions that are allowed — anger (getting in fistfights with other men, pushing his wife and kids around, yelling, silent treatment), revenge (striking back at those who hurt him passive-aggressively, with words, with infidelity, with sarcasm, with neglect), and lust — all of which have obvious consequences in his personal and profession spheres. 

Without abandoning what makes us men in a good way, I think it's upon all men right now, in this moment of reflection (MeToo, TimesUp), to reconsider what it means to be a man. I hug my son as much as possible. I want him to know men hug and show physical affection. If I had a daughter, I'd do the same, because otherwise, she's going to wonder what it feels like to feel the arms of a man, and when those hormones kick in like rocket fuel , without a man in her life who can show her physical affection, that's a dangerous combination. It's not a sign of weakness for a man to cry. Sadly, many men AND women have this belief. Crying simply shows a man is a whole person, able to feel the broad spectrum of human emotions and not just a sliver of the spectrum. I'm not saying men should be at the whim of their emotions. Most of the time I spend in the coolness of my thoughts, not emotions. But our emotions are integral to our humanity and should not always be suppressed. And I'm not saying men cannot be strong and abrasive when necessary, even yelling when needed, but these can't be the go-to means of expression. They are simply some of the tools in our toolbox and not the only ones.

Men without emotions such as empathy and compassion carry out atrocities big and small on their families and society as a whole. Emotions aren't dangerous — only to those who don't know how to use them the right way. They can be a guide that something is wrong, like any sort of pain. Or they can be a signal that something is right, that there is joy and happiness to be experienced. If we take away a person's humanity by saying they can't experience or reveal emotions we consider culturally inappropriate, we're doing our world a huge disfavor. And it's hard to believe my watching Taylor Swift brought about this discussion, but that's how my mind works. Maybe my next post will be about her wardrobe changes and how her hair gets increasingly perspiration-soaked throughout her performance. Or maybe I'll just keep those thoughts to myself.