Please, Stop Apologizing When You Cry

 

Just stop. Please.

Well, no, it’s not a request. I demand, like the way Miranda Priestly does, that you stop apologizing when you cry.

But that’s not all.

During a not-so-successful-endeavor, things-failed-miserably-though-I-gave-it-my-all-moment in my life, I cried. Pathetically. It was a cry I couldn’t control, a cry I definitely didn’t see coming, and a cry that I believe constitutes as full-on, ugly crying. It was, as what I said, pathetically pathetic, or probably the pathetically most pathetic of all things pathetic. I cried in front of a handful of people and later on, in front of my friends. Because it didn’t just stung, it hurt.

So what do we do when we’re hurt? We cry. Come on, guys and gals, you do. We do. Even the cold, unapologetic Priestly did in the movie. Well, not everyone will say so, but I’m willing to bet my all-encompassing love for Oreos and quite obviously, The Devil Wears Prada that 99.9% of humans do when they’re hurt. And when I say hurt, it’s not just the usual I-scraped-my-knees ouch, it borderlines on what’s beyond the physical.

After slightly pulling my feebly self together that day, I went home and re-evaluated everything. I texted my friends, the ones who were there with me throughout my crying session. Guess what? I apologized. I freaking apologized. I apologized for crying and for feeling the way I felt. I thought it was usual, common, acceptable, and necessary to say sorry because you’re hurt, when really, it’s not.

It’s not wrong to feel hurt, rejected, abandoned, lost, dejected, sad, or depressed. It’s not wrong that you felt those things in the first place. It’s not wrong to translate those feelings to the continuous waterfall that’s streaming down your face.

It’s not wrong to cry because it was your only way of release. It’s not wrong to feel feelings, so there is – and there will never be – a reason to apologize.

You’re not making a fool out of yourself by crying. You’re not weak just because you cried or you’re crying. You’re human, not a robot meant to accept commands with a click of a button. You’re human, and crying makes you so.

Not too long ago, a friend of mine cried. She was frustrated with things, not your typical should-we-eat-out-or-stay-in kind of frustration; it was something that escalated from a series of rocky events that led to such frustrating frustration. Then after calming herself down, she told us that she was sorry and that she just feels she has to do so after she cried.

It irked me. To my skin down to my core. It freaking annoyed me. Hell, it infuriated me. Since when did the world has become so topsy-turvy and shaken that people deem it necessary to apologize after crying because they felt hurt? I don’t really know when, but it has to stop.

You are entitled to your emotions. You are entitled to them the way you should eat and brush your teeth thrice a day. You are entitled to cry.

So don’t you dare apologize.