Here, Let Me Explain….

I think I have not explained myself so well. Or perhaps I simply did not manage to get what was in my head into the words I posted here.

I don’t consider this term to be derogatory when I use it. I don’t apply those negative connotation and insinuations to it, or to most things for that matter. I think of it more as reclamation, much like the pink triangle and the terms ‘fag’ and ‘queer’.

I enjoy using language in this sense to offer a positive, or at least embraced, view of the terminology otherwise seen as slanderous. Perhaps it is the challenge of finding the good amongst the bad. I understand that this fact may cause difficulty with how well understood I am by others. I have been putting some time towards this issue. Mostly, it would seem folks just need to know me better to get it.

Thus this post…

I am a cry-baby.

All my life to date, my emotions have hung out just below my skin, wanting for opportunity to arise. I have always been conscious of the negative connotations of this in a man (although I don’t recall which event taught me that lesson…). I also understand the importance and real strength of this ability, so I only ever concealed the easy access to my tear ducts as opposed to repressing it outright.

Over the years in college, I managed to learn to block it while in large groups. Or maybe a developing empathy worked to prevent the tears when the majority of folks surrounding me weren’t so emotionally upset. Either way, I mostly cries by myself, whenever I needed to heal. It is a nice ability and I have ben grateful for it.

Then the lump. The ugly orange-sized cancerous lump of lymphatic tissue…

As a metaphor to depict how the change feels inside me, I like to say that the toxicity and sensory overload of the treatment experience burned out those shields I learned to establish in college. Doesn’t matter so much how to explain it. That imagery fits well enough to do the job.

Now, don’t drop that hat, or I’ll cry! Honestly.

Some of the otherwise, or outwardly, bizarre or unexpected moments drum them tears up and out of me. Even t.v. shows like Roseanne and the Simpson’s do it when the episode hits the ‘moralistic’ undertone.

I pretty much walked away from news shows entirely.

It flows and I am thankful. I am grateful. I am feeling better already. For the most part, I don’t even care who sees it happen. I do however, still block it at work as much as possible, for conveniences and to avoid lengthy conversations about difficult topics with folks I may never see again. The memorial pages always break through anyway. But they have that power. It just plain ol’ sucks that a school yearbook gets dedicated to a child that only lived to 11 years old due to strange, violent forms of cancer. Come on… how am I not suppose to fall apart to that one?

I am a cry-baby. I embrace my inner cry-baby. I am empowered by my inner cry-baby. And if I hear you snicker or see you point, I will beat the piss out of you until you cry like a freakin’ baby!