When I was a little girl, I remember playing softball and sliding into home plate for the first time. I was so young no one had really taught me how to do it properly yet so I’m sure it looked a little silly and I also managed to scrape up my knee in the process. So, not only did I look stupid and hurt myself, but I was also tagged out. Feeling defeated, I stood up and walked back to the dugout, tears beginning to pool in my eyes. Then, as my mom came over to clean up my bloody knee, she said to me “Save your tears for the car ride home”.Â
I definitely wasn’t the only kid who was told this, butI really took it to heart. You would never catch me crying in public as a kid and if you did, there was something seriously wrong. I even took great pride in this as I got older, that I didn’t cry like those other kids when I was in pain or something didn’t go my way was a real accomplishment for me.Â
Over the summer, I went and saw Barbie, like almost every other woman in the country. Obviously, the whole movie caused me to have all kinds of realizations about myself, but there was one quote that really stuck with me. There is a moment towards the beginning of the movie where Lawyer Barbie says, “This makes me emotional and I’m expressing it. I have no difficulty holding both logic and emotion at the same time, and it does not diminish my powers. It expands them.”
Ever since, I have decided to tell myself I am allowed to have emotions and they are completely valid, and it does not make me weak.Â
Now, I cry all the time! Here are just a few of what I would once consider stupid reasons I cried recently.
*Warning: way too many of these involve Taylor Swift*
- The scene in Toy Story 2 where Jessie gets abandoned by her old ownerÂ
- The songs Marjorie and The Best Day by Taylor Swift
- The ending of Barbie
- The release of Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)
- I saw a really cute dog video on Instagram
- I saw a really cute baby video on Instagram
- The entirety of seeing The Eras Tour live
- Watching the announcement of 1989 (Taylor’s Version) on a TikTok livestream at 2 in the morning
- Listening to the album Preacher’s Daughter by Ethel Cain for the first timeÂ
- Missing my college friends over midterm break
- Missing my family and my dog while at school
- Realizing some of my friends are graduating soon
- Reading the book, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
- Getting a really pretty copy of Little Women for my birthday