I’ve been thinking an unreasonable amount this week about crying. About what it means to cry. What it reveals, what it allows.
One of my horses, Saffy, holds the enviable belief that she is completely free to express whatever she thinks. Of course, I can’t fully know that this is true- all our thoughts about our equine friends are only possibilities after all- but I watch her move with her herd, experience her as we play together in the arena and around the farm and I trust her to tell me what she thinks.
‘One of the easiest, hardest and best things about Saffy’, I recently remarked, ‘is that she wears her heart on her sleeve. I know exactly what she’s thinking about something the moment that she thinks it.’
Easiest because she shows me what she needs.
Hardest because sometimes I’m not exactly sure how to meet that need.
Best because our relationship is honest. When it’s ‘right’, I know it to be true, know this is a good place from which we can proceed.
In other words, Saffy is clear on what she likes and what she doesn’t and will show that in both extroverted and expressive ways.
If Saffy were a human, I imagine she would have most excellent boundaries (and occasionally overdo it); that she would sometimes feel anxious and confused (and let you know); that she would express an anger that she doesn’t seek to hold onto.
And I imagine that Saffy would be quick to cry.
Which seems like an odd thing to say but this is why.
Crying is often part of our physical expression of need. Fragmented truths appearing as tears, doing their best to find cohesive form. I’ve noticed that my willingness and free-ness to cry as an adult corresponds with my willingness and free-ness to be honest. To reveal something about myself, in that moment, that I require.
That the times when I feel unwilling to let myself cry when the urgency of tears is present corresponds with the need to present a version of myself that I believe is required in that moment; a version that is usually at odds with the deeper parts of myself, that results in a physical pressure.
As I, myself, have become more comfortable with crying, I am proportionately comfortable with the tears of others. In fact, I welcome them. A willingness to cry to me communicates the movement from a platform of truth.
And just like with Saffy, truthful conversations are a relief. The easiest, hardest and best part of a relationship.
Crying reveals need. To need, and to express those needs, is profoundly human.
To seek to meet them the essence of connection.
