Dear readers,

As a child I was a crier. 

Many of you can probably understand that I found this quite embarrassing. It was how my body dealt with anxiety, frustration, anger, sadness, you name it. However it never failed to get stares and the pestering, “Are you okay?” questions from my peers and teachers. 

Whenever I felt the water works coming I would get up as discreetly as possible to go to the bathroom sign-out sheet and get out to the hallway so I could save some face. I felt weak crying. Whether I was fighting with a friend or just in the dumps, crying made me feel powerless — I couldn’t control my emotions. 

I don’t know if age had hardened me or if middle school was just an incredibly neutral time for me, but crying ceased to be my response to stressors. I floated along fairly contentedly from middle school to ninth grade to tenth grade with dry eyes and a cool head. 

Then junior year hit. 

School was harder, friendships were harder, and my body returned to its old favorite. Up until this point I had skeptically watched upperclassmen in my other classes either cry or talk about crying a couple times a week. With my crying days long behind me (or so I thought) I figured these people were being overdramatic, or else they had never learned to control their emotions. 

I was wrong.

One day, while sitting in French bantering with a table-mate, I began to laugh at one of his comedic quips. I suppose, looking back, that I was stressed and ready to blow that day, but when I eventually started crying from laughing so hard and then genuinely just crying, it came as a shock to everyone, including me. 

This time there was no running to the sign-out sheet to save face. Of course I was embarrassed — I still got, “Are you okay?” from half the class — but sitting in that desk with tears streaming down my face I realized I was okay. Whatever pent up stress had set me off in the first place was dissolved by those tears, and besides, now I had a funny anecdote to share.