Lacrymosa

In my teenage and adult life I have cried a total of 3 times, and I think I am approaching my 4th.

Pain has never been a stimulus for crying, at least not since I was a child. Rolled ankles, broken fingers and toes, a broken wrist, and even a ruptured urethra didn't produce a single tear. In May 2006 I left my home and family for the first time when I went to Cincinnati to start what would become my senior research project. I was one of the first students to arrive at Xavier University, and there was hardly around. That night, I felt so alone I shed a few tears. Ironically, 3 months later, thanks to the connections I had made in Cincinnati, I would fight back tears leaving the same place that had originally induced my first feelings of loneliness.

Why do we cry? Crying is a complicated process involving both the limbic and thalamic areas of the brain, as far as I know. Emotions stimulate the production of hormones which act on cranial nerves which cause the lacrimal gland to flood the eyes with tears which expel the very hormones that set the whole process in motion. What a funny thing.

October 2007: I was just finishing up my last email to Liz and double checking my list to make sure I had packed everything I would need for the next year in Asia, when I felt the terrible choking sensation that precedes a very cathartic cry. Trevor came over minutes later to drop off some t-shirts he had got me from ET before I left. I could hardly look him in the eye, and spent less than a minute saying goodbye to him because I knew I would start crying. I had no idea I would feel that way.

In all likelihood I am set to cry for the 4th time in my adult life very soon. What a strange thing to look forward to.