Tears

[poliphilo]

 I was seven or eight.

My mother asked me what I wanted for my birthday.

"A mirror" I said.

How very grown-up of me.

I never told her why I wanted it. Wild horses wouldn't have dragged it out of me.

I wanted it so I could check my face after I had been crying so I wouldn't present myself in public with any of the tell-tale signs.

I must have been weeping a lot for this to be an issue.

And in the world I grew up in human beings of the masculine gender didn't cry. Check any British war film of the era and see if Jack Hawkins or Michael Redgrave or Little Johnny Mills ever showed any outward sign of emotional fragility.

Not done, old boy.

I don't weep now. Somewhere along the way- with the help of that mirror, I schooled myself out of the ability.

I can often feel the tears behind my eyes, burning, burning- but I never let them out...

Comments

[cmcmck]

I do sometimes and did back then.

At least now I am 'allowed'...........

[poliphilo]

Yes, it's one of the advantages you gals have...

[mtbc]

I could cry as a kid but, sometime after puberty, although I sometimes wanted to cry, and wished I could, I'd somehow lost the ability. A friend reported that the same was true for them but, later in life, once she was on the hormones for now-her gender-affirmation surgery, she regained the ability to cry. So, at least for some of us, it might also be related to endocrine changes.

Hope the mirror helped.

[cmcmck]

I'm convinced it's so because I regained the ability to cry once I started on oestrogen and testosterone blockers in my late teens.

[flemmings]

Yup, it's the hormones alright. My ability to cry disappeared with menopause. Raging hormones rage, but they do provide the consolation of tears.

[poliphilo]

The mirror helped with the no-crying project but now I rather wish it hadn't.