Sometimes the tears feel heavy. When I’m at the bottom of a wave of grief and the tears are rolling down my face, I feel like they weigh me down. Holding me in place while I am forced to embrace the ride while waiting for it to pass. The heat coming from them feels like little scalding rivers running down my face, leaving scars that only I can see when I look in the mirror. These tears are different, these are my grief tears. They are filled with all the emotion and pain coursing through my body using my eyes as a way to exit. Those tears are the voice that belongs to the silent scream that echoes in my head. When my body feels too heavy inside, those feelings must find a way out to make room for new grief to move through, that’s when the heavy tears are shed. It feels like they will never end, like a faucet that has been turned on providing them the liquid to fuel them on their journey out of my body. I both love and hate these tears. They remind me that I am human and my ability to feel is a gift, because how terrible would it be to feel nothing at all?  Sometimes they are cleansing and after they pass I feel a little bit lighter and am back on the crest of the wave, feeling ready to take on the next bottom. When they aren’t having a cleansing effect they are also a terrible reminder that in this moment I am in pain, so much pain internally that it’s being expressed through these heavy, hot tears. That’s where it’s hard, that’s where I can’t see the other side for being blinded by my own emotions. That’s where I try to hold on and remind myself that it will pass and that it will get better and that I can survive this. My self pep talk doesn’t always work, I’m only human after all, but it doesn’t stop me from trying because that’s when I need myself the most. I know that allowing these tears to freely leave me is also working at chipping away at the big, ominous grief block that resides within me. These tears are symbolic of what was, and what has passed. They are every feeling associated with every memory wrapped around the source of this pain. They are love, because if there was no love there would be no grieving and no sadness. They are a silent black and white motion picture that plays in the forefront of my mind, because who needs sound when you can so clearly see the abundance of love, and you can feel it just by watching.

Eventually I will work my way through it, but not today. Today I’m going to let the tears fall and let them run down my face. You see, today I am strong enough to want to feel it all but dont ask me about tomorrow yet. This is a process, one day at a time, a moment at a time, or whatever I can handle at a time. It’s up to me, me and my big heavy tears and I want to go slow so I can feel it all. All the weight of it, I want to examine it all and try to enjoy the process. And when it feels like the tears won’t stop, like the weight of them is going to cause me to drown at the bottom of that wave, I reach out for a hand. We were never meant to go through this life alone and it’s okay to not be okay, and sometimes I am not okay and I need someone to throw me a life raft. Just a little tug to help me keep my head above water and remind me that I’m not drowning and that my feelings are valid and it’s okay, it’s going to be okay. So now this is the place where I choose to believe those words and that there is more to this grief, more to these waves that I must ride and more to these heavy tears than the present moment.