November 15

”Even if our tears are for ourselves, for our ache of loneliness, for our pain of loss, they are…sacred, for they are tears of our love.” Jack Stern Jr.

Crying was not something I did during my active addiction, not at least without an ulterior motive. Rarely was it a genuine display of emotion and that is something hard to admit after more than 2 decades of having behaved that way. I guess it should have come as no surprise that while I was getting in touch with my emotions for real during my early recovery that I was unable to readily control my first outbursts of tears. I had forgotten how to cry. Those first attempts were physically painful, as the sadness was real, but the crying was forced, trying to squeeze water from the desert of feelings I had created. Slowly over the months that followed, my body recalled the way to cry. It is amazing to think how much I damaged myself by denying such normal acts to take place. I have had many reasons to cry, there are many events that I simply never dealt with properly during those lost years. And many of my first tears were for myself, for the love that had been locked away in order to allow my addict to reign supreme. Slowly, the tears are washing away the aches of the past, cleansing my soul for the present.

Affirmation Tears are a healthy expression of sadness, pain, and loss, but also of joy and happiness. They are a powerful act to close chapters of our lives and to open new ones.