When I was a little kid, I was a crybaby. I skipped 2 grades, so I was naturally younger and less in control than the other kids. In eighth grade, I cheated on a spelling test and got caught and ended up hyperventilating and curled up under a desk for a long time.

I stopped crying then, and I didn't really cry again until my marriage was ending. At my mom's funeral, I shed precisely one tear.

I stopped crying in 1979, and I started again in 2004.

twenty five years.

It took me a long, long time to get back to a place where I can cry. I take great pride in my tears. I fought hard for those feelings. It took me a lot of work and long time to get to the point that I can cry. I love my tears, I love that I can feel things that way again.

That why I say I'm really a happy person. Yes, sometimes I get sad and lonely and depressed, but I'm ecstatic about the fact that I can cry and be sad and lonely and depressed, happy about the fact that I can live and love and feel. So, yes, I cry, and I get sad, but I have not a single suicidal bone in my body, and my sadness is happier than what most people call happy.

I love this beautiful world with all the joy and pain and color and darkness and I want to live as long as I can and drink up as much as I can. Hurting isn't nice, but it's so much better than what most people seem to be left with.

Dear reader, I don't know if you cry. I hope you can. If you can, don't let it go, and if you can't, get it back. It's worth it.

I don't know what that makes me. Go ahead and call me a pussy. Fuck you.

I don't care what anyone else thinks, I like it.