I've discovered why I don't cry much anymore, and it's not the reason I thought it was.
I thought that maybe I'd grown stronger over the past couple of years, or that perhaps there were fewer things to cry about now than there were before, or even that I was too distracted by other stuff to cry much.
But it's not true.
I rarely cry now because I'm rarely in twilight. At my house (read: "my parents' house") there's always an abundance of light. When I wake up in the morning (at an admittedly late 7:40 or so) there's already sunshine streaming through the windows. However, I've lived here long enough to know that even if I got up earlier (say, at 5:30, heaven forbid), there would already be people up and doing busy things, who have gotten up long before me and left a trail of upturned light switches in their wake from which an astute tracker could trace their steps from their bedroom to the kitchen.
At night, things are the same. As soon as dusk starts to settle in, (earlier on cloudy days like today), some family member or another goes through the house and shuts blinds and turns on lights, moving the house in one instant from the bright garishness of daylight to the bright garishness of well-lit evenings.
I remember that when I lived away from home I was often the only one home during the twilight hours. Either I would (rarely) get up early to (rarely) go walking, or I would sit in the early evening, watching the daylight mix with night, turning the sky a rich bluish-grey, filling me with wonder.
Forgive me. I know this is cheesy and clumsily said, but as I've tried to describe before, there's something in me that loves to pause at things, that likes to take significance from insignificant events. It may be a failing, but there's something in me that loves dark things, or transitions, or...I don't even know how to describe it. I can feel it here, burning in my chest as I type, and I can't put a name to it. I look out our library window and see the way the clouds hide the city lights below from the faintly glowing evening sky, and this thing that's in me longs for something I can't say, because I don't have the words.
I think that if I were a time of day, I would be twilight...(or at least I would want to be twilight. I'd probably end up being some boring time, like 3am, when nothing happens.)
But I've digressed, rather more than usual. I guess my point is that I miss twilight. And while crying is mostly an indicator that you're sad, still, I miss doing it. I miss connecting with my emotions like that--letting them out, when there's only a little light, and no-one else around, when the world is silent, and it's just you and your tears, and your pain, all confronting each other...and being resolved in some way that my current pains are not being resolved now.
It's strange that I could miss times like this when I used to hurt so much, but I think I really miss the quiet that comes after the twilight weeping. It's a quiet in which God resides. And I miss that terribly.
10 comments:
You don't strike me as a 3am type, though it's not as boring a time as some would have us believe. You've probably noticed that anyone who's up at that hour tends to be giggling wildly over jokes that aren't that funny. You do have a big fun streak in you, but not that kind of fun.
You seem more like a 7pm, the time when you'd be talking over dinner, or getting together with friends or family to watch "Music Man" for the umpteenth time. Or maybe a Strong Bad cartoon. Yeah . . .
Twilight is a lovely time to cry. Much better than say...bathrooms which is where most of my crying takes place. It started in 10th grade during an orchestra field trip. Four girls to a room meant the bathroom was the only "safe" place my friend could tell me about her new SENIOR boyfriend!!! SHOCK! I didn't cry here..but it made me less afraid of bathrooms. Most of the crying on my mission happened in bathrooms at church... the only place my companion didn't follow me to. Campus Plaza...yeah six girls, one apt. In China I didn't cry in my bathroom...of course the whole country sort of felt like a bathroom. At least whoever did their business in my hallway (TWICE!!!)thought so. So maybe its not bathrooms, maybe its just a place where we feel protected...either by a lock on the door or the darkness of twilight.
You gals are so good to me. And wise. And awesome. Thanks for taking the time to comment on my sad, semi-depressing posts as well as my happy humorous posts. Love you both.
I don't do much crying, but driving at night in the rain always makes me feel melancholic. It reminds me of a rainy night in Guatemala towards the end of my mission. We were on a bus making its way down the green hills surrounding Guatemala City. I was reflecting on what I had experienced in Guatemala, and I felt a definite sense of loss, a "nameless sadness". I still feel that way when it rains at night.
We love you, too, Ms. McGee.
Christian, was the sense of loss about things that happened, things that didn't happen, or things you would miss when you left?
3 a.m. is definitely not boring. Hey, if it's good enough for Matchbox 20 to name a song after it, it can't be that bad. But I agree with Kim, you would be 7 p.m. As for the rest of you, this is just the way I see you, but Christian would be an afternoon time, one that's bright and full of laughter, maybe 3 p.m., Pam would be 5 p.m.--that just feels like a wise time of day to me, but also one with spirit, and Kim would be some time that could be either glamorous or homey, depending on where you are, like 9 p.m.
Beth, the inexplicable longing you described feeling at twilight reminds me of how I feel whenever I hear Uilleann pipes. I've never been able to describe it as anything other than homesickness--a sort of longing in my bones to go back to where my ancestors came from, but maybe it's a homesickness for something even more eternal than that.
You flatter me, Becca. Congrats on your engagement.
5 pm a wise time of day???? Maybe its just because I usually get off work at 4:30 and I'm still only half way home at 5...but my brain always feels like mush sloshing around in my scull about that time. And if I'm still at work?...its the same...because then I've been there too long. Mush mush mush. Ahhh...if only I were wise....
But moving on - I like the "nameless sadness," most of the time. Sometimes its not so nameless and then its just sad.
I'm glad that driving in the rain makes you feel sad Christian, not because I want you to be sad, but just because its better than being scared stupid, thinking about escaped-convicts with hooks for hands, slashing your car as you drive by and suddenly popping up in your back seat yelling, "Ahhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!"
You know, I never thought about it before, but I think we all have our own melancholy times, or places--points in our lives where, for some reason, we feel sadness. Not necessarily a despondent sadness, but something that helps us to be even more a whole person than we were before.
Or, maybe it just makes us neurotic. But, if that's the case, then let's all be neurotic together. Come on, say it with me: "Awwwwwwww........" Too sweet. No, really. I feel sick.
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