You Gotta Feel Something

I’m not a very emotional person. When I watch a sad movie I don’t cry and my eyes don’t water. If I’m sad about something I deal with it internally and put on a happy face. Maybe my phrasing was a bit too broad, I am emotional, but not with sadness, depression, or usually even anger. My MO is either reacting in a very mild and measured way to some event or not really reacting at all, except maybe with happiness or excitement. I don’t mean to sound callous or even a bit off, that’s just who I am. Maybe it’s just me or maybe it's the all too-common stigma around men showing emotion or maybe it’s a bit of both. I don’t really know. What I do know is that the first time I cried since middle school, and the first time I openly cried since a very young age, was a shock to me. A shock that has slowly transformed my view of expressing emotions.

This picture above was from a Gillette ad addressing toxic masculinity as a depiction of the emotionless and tough male that embodies the stigma around men showing emotion.

The First Time

It was April 22nd, 2017. It was the rowing season and I had just lost my race. As soon as I got off the water and put the boat away I rushed over to my mom’s waiting car. As she drove I quickly changed out of my rowing wear into black pants, a dark blue button down, a dark blue sport coat, and a black tie. I didn’t have any black to wear, but I needed something close. My mom and I pulled up to the low-lying red brick building with the large fire pit that never went out. I walked in alongside my mom and many others dressed in black, dark-colored outfits. As we walked in we were handed a card with a familiar face on it; the face of my friend and former teammate, Jayant Tripathi. He had not rowed with me in over a year, but it was not because we hadn’t rowed together recently that I had to think “former”. Three days earlier my friend, Jay as we called him, had suddenly passed away in his sleep from a brain aneurysm. As I stood in line to pay my respects to his family and visit the open casket, I kept staring at the picture of Jay in my hand. It began to become harder to breathe and my eyes began to sting, then I couldn’t help myself, I wept. Even when I had learned that evening of April 19th after practice that Jay had passed I did not cry, I was simply in shock. In that line, though, I couldn’t help but openly weep.

As I said, I am not a very emotional person, that’s why April 22nd was so unusual. It was the first time I had cried, openly, since a very young age. Even in private it was the first time I could remember since at least middle school. Yet it didn’t bother me to cry in front of everyone as I had believed it would. I still remember that day clearly: the funeral home, Jay’s body, talking with his parents, the memorial video, me crying, all of it. It felt freeing to express my sadness. In that moment I felt a weight being somewhat lifted off my chest, those emotions I had been holding in to deal with myself.

It Wasn't Just Once

Since that day I wept for Jay, I can remember four other times that I cried:

One was when another one of my rowing teammates passed away. I was visiting my friends down at UVA on the fifth of July when I suddenly got a text at around 9 pm. My friend Gage had gone hiking on his own and had drowned. When I heard the news I holed myself up in the bathroom for about 10 minutes until I could compose myself. 

The second was when I heard the news that a very close family member had developed cancer. I wasn’t even home to process this news, I was in Spain sitting in my room alone in my host mom’s apartment when my dad called. As he told me I began to choke up, but even then I did not cry until I had hung up and I laid back on my bed and sobbed.

The third I will be vague on as it involves a very close friend and their family, but it was a family I had grown up with most of my life. When I learned the news that people I had grown extremely close to might no longer be there I cried.

The fourth and most recent time was when I learned I would be sent home two months early from my study abroad program in Sevilla, Spain because of coronavirus. Even as they told us the news in person, I put on a brave face and tried to keep my friend’s spirits up, but when I got back to my room that night I couldn’t help but cry.

Since these five times I have talked to my friends about these moments, often at random as they happen to come up in conversation, but I have gotten more comfortable sharing. A few years ago, I would be unlikely to have shared any of these stories. Now I am writing about them to share on LinkedIn. I am not sharing these stories to depress anyone, get sympathy points, or be preachy. For me this is about slowly feeling more comfortable discussing my emotions and not just dealing with them on my own and sharing my story to hopefully help others do the same.

What Does This All Mean?

As I thought of topics for this week I felt I had to write this article; for myself and for everyone reading this who hesitates to get emotional or talk about emotion. I’m not trying to say that everyone should just start crying in public or telling everyone about all of their deepest feelings, but sharing and expressing is therapeutic. There may even be times someone you know has gone through something similar and sharing may help you both. It does not matter if you are very emotional, not emotional, share a lot, or share very little. What matters is that we all know that everyone feels and has their own way of expressing their emotions. There is no “solution” to dealing with emotions, but I hope to inspire some of those who may be afraid to unbottle their feelings.