Tears redux

There are times in a woman's life when she inexplicably cries for days on end. And by "a woman's" I mean "mine." The past few days have been like that for me. It all started with Marley and Me and has been going strong ever since. Just flowing, constant tears. In the car. At my desk at work. While sitting on the couch. While scrambling eggs. You name it.

One of the many strange things about keeping a journal online for nearly ten years now (what?) is the easy access to your emotional archives. Even stranger is when you notice patterns from year to year. And still even stranger is when you think back to another crying jag and realize it was happening two years ago, exactly, to the day.

Maybe it's The Book Thief. I suspected two years ago that it was the culprit of the beginning of the tears, and lo and behold, I am smack in the middle of it again. I don't think that's solely it, though.

Here are some strategies I am going to employ, starting tonight, to stop these tears from flowing:

(1) Cease and desist, immediately, listening to The Last Five Years on repeat. Stop pretending you can hear Norbert Leo Butz sing these heartbreaking songs and hold it together even on a good day, especially when the violin kicks in at about 3:40 in this clip. Turn your back on this devastating musical for a while and instead watch him as the emcee in Cabaret.

(2) Look forward all day to going on a swim because you can't cry underwater and then do not freak out when the pool is closed because it's thundering for the first time in weeks. Be happy because your grass is dying and all of the plants and farmers need the rain desperately. Come home and pop in Jillian Michaels instead and don't start crying when she says "Just a couple more!" during the squats/bicep curls and you know it's an evil lie because it's really eight more. Just suck it up and feel strong.

(3) Whip up an everything left in the kitchen dinner of quinoa topped with farmer's market zucchini, frozen peas, almond slivers, and about a million cloves of fresh garlic with garam masala and olive oil. Eat it.

(4) Have some plain yogurt with blueberries and banana slices drizzled with a little agave nectar for dessert.

(5) Watch your cat lick her paw and wash her nose with it because this is cute no matter how many times you see her do it.

(6) Read David Sedaris, any David Sedaris.

Or maybe I should stop trying to stop the tears. Maybe the tears are a healthy thing. Maybe they are a delayed reaction to major life changes, to actions of others and actions of my own that I have not dealt with even though I totally thought I had. It is very strange how you can coast along feeling perfectly at peace about something and then you get shaken up and bam. Tears.

Many kind readers out there have left comments I haven't published over the past several months wondering about my relationship status. Though it was obvious in this space that I was with the same person for a long time, I never felt right about posting too much here about the relationship and thus haven't felt right about posting about its end. But there it is, and I will leave it at this: even if it's for the most reasonable reasons in the world, and even if you square your shoulders and know it's for the best, and even if you part friends and part with love (which, let's face it, is a miracle never experienced by the likes of me until this time around), breaking up with someone you love sucks a whole lot.

Maybe this teary interlude is due to hormones. Maybe it's extended bike rides and swims when I can't avoid the quiet space in my head. Maybe it's the busy season at work screeching to an abrupt stop. Maybe it's heat so swelteringly oppressive that it's impossible to keep up defenses against it. Maybe it's a million different things. And maybe six months or so is a sensible amount of time in which to have stopped crying. Or maybe, if you're me, it's when you really get started.

And maybe it will stop when I see my sister soon. And maybe all I need to do is go see The Hangover and laugh and think about how much I enjoy Andy Bernard in general and when my little brother does that thing with his hand, like marking the notes in the air, while singing when imitating Andy Bernard doing his musical notes from Here Comes Treble. Maybe all I need to do is think about how happy my older brother is right now and how blessed I am to have parents who just celebrated their fortieth wedding anniversary and about friends who are having their own happy milestones. Maybe I should think about how much fun it was to get gelato with my girlfriend yesterday and her precious girls I love so much. Maybe I just need to remember that I've tried to be as honest as I can with myself and everyone else during this emotional madness, even when it's been hard, and that's something.

In Say Anything, Lloyd Dobler says, "The rain on my car is a baptism." ("The new me, Ice Man, Power Lloyd, my assault on the world begins now.") And not to be all metaphorically barfy, but maybe this much-needed rain tonight and these sudden tears are a baptism. Rebirth, starting anew, and all that jazz. On that note, what better song is there to listen to right now as the rain pours and the thunder and lightning pound the sky than Patty Griffin's "Rain"? I sure can't think of one.