Tears or Fears?

I’m sitting here at a youth sporting event with my eldest child, who would just to soon go fishing or sit and play Fortnite van compete with his peer group. I suppose that’s probably a good thing; he’ll never die of a heart attack, or lose sleep over not getting a job or promotion.

Meanwhile, about 25 feet from me, I’ve been listening to a parent trying to console her child, who has been uncontrollably crying for the last 15 minutes. Evidently, the race did not go his way, and his emotions have gotten the best of him.

All of nine or 10 years old, no one is batting an eye at him. After all, seeing a child crying is not international news.

But in the long morning of a swim meet, there is plenty of time to be contemplative. And I got to thinking, how come you don’t see adults crying? Just walking down the street, sobbing uncontrollably, or screaming in anguish? Certainly, adults have events that occur in their daily lives that would prompt an emotional response, but for the most part, you don’t see them just let go and unload in a hail of wail.

Instead, they tend to bottle up those emotions, stuff them down, hide them behind a professional stern face, maintaining decorum, ensuring professional candor at all times. Then they go home, and drink heavily, or dope up on psychotropics, or beat their spouse. They spend money they don’t have on shit they don’t need, then have the audacity to waste an hour on a Sunday morning in a house of worship, as if the answers to what is ailing them will somehow be found while sitting on a cold wooden pew, Surrounded by people of equal or greater hypocrisy, listening to an individual who at one point in his life, thought that elective permanent celibacy was a good idea.

The child that I am watching unravel, is now lying on the cold concrete pool deck, wailing. His mom has given up on trying to assuage his pain, instead electing to just let it run its course. Another nosy mom just walked by, and looked all the way down her nose at the kid. Keep walking lady, you don’t know the whole story, and neither do I.

Because the way I see it, maybe the world would be a better place if kids of all ages, every now and then, just stopped giving a shit about what other people thought, and let it all out. Just openly cry and scream during an insurance seminar… blubber without apology in the middle of a business dinner. Overtly express your disappointment with the meal at your aunts house on Thanksgiving dinner. Chances are, society and her rules would ensure that you no longer need to attend those things after that. And that, too, is a good thing. Maybe the best of things.

In the meantime, I’m going to keep crying in movies, and at car commercials, and laughing out loud when I see something funny. I’m going to raise hell when the flames need stoking, and make funny when a friend needs joking.

An episode of The Simpsons encouraged us, “I do what I feel like.” Maybe the answer to everything is just to be like boy.

Even if he is throwing a major shit kicker tantrum in full view of 1000 people, on a beautiful Sunday morning at a youth swim meet.