My Mother Once Said

My mother once said “tears soften the hard ground.” I don’t know where she heard that or if she was the first. But what I do know is that she was right. At the time I was crying and angry that I was in fact crying but she said to me, your tears are not a weakness. I didn’t know what she meant then. Many tears later though I get it now.

I sit on my bed each morning and more often than not, I cry. I cry because what I am reading is a devastatingly beautiful truth. I cry because I feel known amongst the pages of written beauty. I cry because I am known.

Weeping each morning didn’t start out feeling beautiful and right though. It felt petty and savage; it felt wrong. But oh so slowly it became a release. Something to look forward to, something to be valued. Because I was free, free to cry and scream and be. Those moments in the morning full of tears and a speaking heart, they are unlike any other. 

I thought to myself that first fateful morning, this may just change my life. And I was more right than I thought possible. I am forever a new creature for all the tears I let fall. They did in fact break up and soften the ground. The hard ground of my heart.

These days I am very quick to cry and quick to smile, quick to laugh. The dam was let lose but it has become but a simple flowing river. Not bursting at the seems waiting to explode but a river free to flow and be. 

This life never promised to make any sense. And so its never worked for me to attempt to hold it to a promise that was never made. But this life did say it would be an adventure, and a beautiful one if we only stopped to take a look. If only we stopped long enough to feel.