mommy

So there's something interesting I've learned about my mom. It involves crying, which is a highly debated, and highly fought about, activity in my family. We split down the middle in the amount we all cry, too, which is fairly interesting, as we think about the pathogenesis of the behavior that is shedding tears. My dad never cries. In fact, the first time I heard his voice falter I thought I was going to die (incidentally he was dropping me off at college so I very well could have). I've seen him peri-weeping twice. So, practically never. My older sister never cries. I mean, she cries more easily than my father. I suppose. But I've seen her cry less than 5 times. So I very much doubt it happens. She whines a lot though, in a voice that makes you want to punch holes into walls that don't even belong to you, so maybe that helps.

I cry a lot. Except I don't. Not really. Not in comparison to normal people. When I was younger, that was probably due to the fact that I was too depressed to cry. Now I just actually don't care, or I'm really good at getting to a mental state that lacks any strong feeling about anything. I can make myself cry. My thoughts are dark enough to elicit crying pretty quickly. But I keep them suppressed as much as possible. My little sister cries all the time, or probably as much as a normal person. She cries when she's nervous, she cries when she's tired, she cries when she's upset (which I suppose is when you're supposed to cry). This used to bother me, because it seems like a sign of weakness, I realized, to cry. The first time my little sister cried about something I thought was silly, I actually got very upset at her and I realized it was because I couldn't imagine anyone taking her seriously... that this trait of hers was going to get her in trouble in the future and I ought to correct the behavior. But I don't think crying works that way--I think the amount you cry is kind of programmed into you at a young age. Which is why my mom, who cries all the time, will probably never stop crying more than the rest of us. Because she cries the most.

But here's the thing, and it's a subtle detail, but it's a detail that has made my love for my mom even stronger: whenever I start crying, she immediately stops.

And I remember the things that make my mom stop crying. Being funnier than usual. Smiling more. Talking more quietly. Whatever. As I got older, I realized that when my mom was crying over my dad, I could just start insulting him, and that usually got her to stop, because she'd feel compelled to tell me all the good things about my dad. I didn't like this method so much, not just because it required me to insult my father, whom I suppose I also love, but to become angry enough to say terrible things about him required me to become much more emotional than I was comfortable with.

Regardless, I like this final method better: just start crying. For most of my adolescence, I thought of my mom as painfully selfish. I still don't know why, actually. But I thought she didn't care about us. Or rather, specifically, she didn't care about me. Now I realize my mom possesses a quality that I also want to possess as a mother. When she recognizes that one of us is upset, she forgets herself almost entirely and focuses on us. I don't even know if I'll be able to do that much.

Oh god. I'm about to start crying right now. I should call my mom...