Crying: Trying to Make Connection

 

โ€œHer throat felt thick inside; it was the lump that forms when it might help to cry but tears donโ€™t come.โ€ย  ย  ย  Amy Kenyon, author of Ford Road

Iโ€™ve been wanting to cry for days now. Not because of anything specific, just general malaise from following the prickly path of my life as a writer: feeling stuck in my next project, seeing just a trickle of monetary results from my first book, two years out. Feeling like itโ€™s all too much. I tried to cry, believing it would open clogged channels and relieve stress.

This morning, I prepared for the day, slathering moisturizer with sunscreen on my face, knowing I would walk with Barbara in the bright Florida morning. โ€œWalking will loosen my stiff joints,โ€ she hoped.

โ€œI definitely agree,โ€ I replied, even though I was concentrating on my right eye, which was beginning to ache. Why was that? Apparently, the lotion Iโ€™d put on my face had oozed into my eye as the heat and humidity increased on our walk.

Later, when I sat down in my writing studio, the irritation worsened. Trotting to the bathroom, I reasoned, Okay, Iโ€™ll press a wet washcloth to my eyelid. But the pain worsened. Then, I dropped some Genteal eye solution onto my cornea. It didnโ€™t help much. More eye drops, a soaped up-washcloth. Then, I turned my face under the faucet and let the flow irrigate my eye. That helped a little, but then my nose started to run.

Finally, I began to cry, clearing out sinuses and all the emotion stuck behind my eyes and lodged in my heart. My crying session over, I felt cleansed and ready to sit once again in my writing chair. Fingers poised over the keyboard, I would find a way forward.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God fo all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.ย  ย  ย  ย  ย ~ II Corinthians 1:3-4, New International Version

Can you relate to these feelings?ย  To this story?