Tears

I cried today.

The tears began as I wrote about my mother. They showed up unannounced, and I had to push them back because I was in public. Imagine that, I could finally cry but I had to hold back.

So I wrote and turned my head to cry, knowing that I was more alone in this busy cafe than I would have been at home. Then I drove to work and cried freely during the long drive. The music played loudly, and I cried - in anger, in sadness and in confusion.

During EMDR, the lines from a popular song kept going through my head: "I cant' look out the window, I can't look at this place..."  (from "Stars", Grace Potter). The "window" was the train window, and "this place" was the collection of shocking images that I was seeing on that ride.

I played that song during my drive and cried in anger. How could he? There is no describing that anger, so I banged my fists and let the tears come, and I sang and cried. The anger turned to sadness and then to confusion.

The confusion was the worst. It is just a feeling of helplessness for not understanding. I could not understand why or how he could engage in such brutal behavior. The more I searched for an explanation, the less I saw one, because there isn't one...but a child does not know this, so I kept asking why and no one had an answer. I cried at the futility of my search.

The pain was visceral, the sadness wrenching.

The tears were painful, but I felt human.