Love & Release: The Cry Log

I’ve been crying all up and down the East Coast ever since I moved here. I cried in the walk-in freezer at the 40th Street Ben & Jerry’s, under the red statue on Penn’s campus, walking down 52nd Street, water ice in hand. I cried in the halls of MIT and the accessible bathrooms of UMass Amherst. The nachos at Chili’s, too. I cried into the apple cinnamon pancakes and whipped cream at Bluebonnet Diner. The pancakes were really nice, but that was not why I was crying. I cried into the hot ‘n sour soup at Teapot and inside the cramped yellow restroom at India House by the State Street Fruit Store. I cried, too, over the salmon salad at Judie’s. Into a WaWa hoagie, too.

Despite the regularity of my public sobs, I still never know what to do except for shuffling off to the restroom for tissues mid-cry. I haven’t sobbed in restaurants since the pandemic began because I no longer eat inside for Covid safety reasons. But I recall that wait staff never knew what to do with me either, other than refilling my water. I’d always try to take a breath and hold the cup firmly. I like to feel the condensation and paint with my thumb on the glass. It grounds me.

I didn’t know for sure that I was a notorious crier until my partner asked me how many restaurants I’d made mine. How many times have I cried over food in public? I said seven. They said that’s above average. I asked friends for their cry-counts. Most said none… or two. Comparatively, I guess seven is a lot. Coming to terms with my weepy nature has been a challenge, some days more than others. I mean, crying in public can be extremely uncomfortable! People stare or do nothing, and it’s never right. It won’t ever feel as safe as being in the comfort of my own bed (and even then, it can be terrifying).

Still, I’ve come to learn that for me, crying is a way of expressing unrest, disbelief or as a release of pressure. Only recently have I started to cry from joy, and while it is vulnerable and uncomfortable, that embodiment is miraculous. For some time, though, I resisted this truth about myself. I wanted to put distance between myself and stereotypes of women of color as being unable to handle their emotions. I thought that crying meant I was volatile and unstable. I considered bursting into tears to be a weakness, to be something embarrassing and unwanted. And people told me this, too, saying I needed to grow a thicker skin because I was “too sensitive” and thus “illogical.”

Only in the past few years have I begun the process of unlearning those connotations. It is still a constant negotiation of shame and relief, but crying in this way forces me to confront my emotions and gut reactions right off the bat.

This intentional shift of perspective pushed me to create something life-affirming! I call it a Cry Log. I did not come up with this concept. I stumbled upon it on TikTok thanks to the Bullet journal keepers who have extensive and gorgeous spreads tracking anything they think is worth tracking in their lives. This year, I felt a need to treat my cries as valuable information, and so my cry log was born.

Since January 1, 2024, I’ve been keeping track of my cries in minute detail, cataloging the emotions I felt during the cry and how I feel afterward under the heading: “Post-Cry Clarity,” along with a “Severity Rating” and “Relief Rating.” The “Severity Rating” starts at 1 (when a brief tear or two falls down) to 5 (when I can’t catch my breath, can’t calm myself down, and am having full-body sobs), while the “Relief Rating” starts at 1 (not very relieving) to 5 (deep catharsis! ). This kind of cataloging system came very naturally to me. As a neurodivergent person who has always loved to make lists, this felt like one way to honor my crybaby tendencies and give myself even more focused attention.

Since starting this cry log, I have averaged 12 cries a month. According to a 2021 Harvard blog post called “Is Crying Good for You” by Leo Newhouse, the average American woman cries 3.5 times a month, whereas the average American man cries 1.9 times a month. I am happy to report that I am neither of those genders and, at the same time, well above average with my cry count. I take this, at this moment, as a badge of honor, though I’m trying to leave room to feel more emotions about it later because if a feeling will do anything, it’s going to change.

Of all of the feelings I’ve noticed through my cries, I’ve felt upset most often, experiencing it over 20 times, as noted in my cry log. I also have an emotion label called “????” for when I’m crying, but I truly have no idea why. This label reminds me that it is okay not to know what’s going on. Sometimes, I just need to feel it. This is specifically a struggle for me because intellectualizing my experiences is a coping mechanism for me, and it makes me feel like if I can understand it, I can control it. This is not working for me, and for now, I can’t stop doing it. At least, I’m taking the first step toward noticing it!

If I’m being honest, I’ve got to admit that while this cry log is exciting for me because I am actively working to shift my relationship to crying, I’ve had moods where I want nothing to do with it. I’ve had moods where this log and having emotions, in general, is so cringey for me that it makes me want to run away from myself. For a few weeks this month, I was crying multiple times every day, and I was exhausted. Reporting my cries into the cry log felt like a chore that I was not invigorated by anymore. When I noticed these feelings, I wrote a note in my log to this effect and gave myself space to let myself cry because I needed to, without the pressure of documenting it. I am trying my best to remind myself that my cry log and other tools like mood trackers and talk therapy are here when we need them for as long as they’re helpful, and we can put them down (or pick them back up) whenever the mood strikes.

That right there is at the root of what this project is about for me. Even if I don’t write in my cry log ever again, it has shown me how to be gentle with myself in a world that tries to beat the softness out of everyone, especially multiply marginalized people like myself, to keep systems of oppression in power. As dramatic as that may sound, it rings true for me. Crying, as a way of taking up space in a society that wants people to remain small, is a revolutionary act of self-love, and I am so honored to tap into it in this way.