Since this is the last column of the year that I am writing, I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to revisit my year from the angle of important realizations. I who have run everywhere, this exercise of slowness is welcome.
I believe 2022 is the year I’ve devoured the most self-help books in my life. The reason: to put an end to the pathogenic cycles in my life which are an obstacle to my evolution. At one point, the fatigue of repeated concussions weighs heavily on morale. I was lucky to finally have a psychotherapist who helped me on my journey to get rid of past traumas. To undertake this path is to undertake an odyssey.
This year was also an opportunity for me to face my tears, to understand that they are not my enemies, but rather teachers. I finally accepted that my main language is tear.
But how to become friends with these tears? This is a question I have asked myself for a long time. Before, I feared them. It must be said that in my youth, I was often told, when I hurt myself or when I was sad, that it was not serious, that I had to stop crying as soon as possible. Now, I sometimes give myself five or ten minutes in a day, consciously choose a time to cry in order to then attend to other occupations. Why choose a specific time? Because many of my tears have been waiting for years. I also understood why the tears fall. It’s not a matter of gravity. They fall so they can soothe our burning hearts. Crying makes me more alive, closer to my emotions, I would even dare to say, stronger.
When I feel an inflection in my diaphragm indicating a change in barometric pressure in my heart, I let go, I raise my hands in the air, I surrender to the sovereign tear traveling over my skin, pointing out the exact spot of my wound, the precise place where to give love. My tears teach me to be more resilient. When your eyes are blurred because you hold back tears, you no longer see anything. Let our tears go so we can see more clearly, let our lawns grow greener and our flowers bloom.
I come from this childhood where I rarely let people around me know when I was in pain. Once a balloon broke one of my fingers and I didn’t say anything, not even to my best friend. This time, I let the breakage take over my attention, and then I let my nausea take me to my uncle’s for the afternoon. I was just pretending to be sick to my stomach. I’ve learned this year to be grateful for how the event went because now my broken finger, which fixed itself as best it could, constantly reminds me to name things.
Before, I apologized for crying. This year, I embraced my tears. I understood that our body knows how to take care of us. Above all, it has the perfect mechanisms to react to all kinds of situations.
Tears don’t just taste salty. It tastes of freedom. I believe that allowing yourself tears is like saying a huge “I love you”.
Giving each other love is another thing that I have finally integrated into my daily life. It’s a more complicated process when you’re an assault survivor. I discovered that love is an inexhaustible source once you have found your own source. The love that we finally feel for ourselves, for our existence and our value has the ability to move these mountains erected within us in the tectonics of our wounds.
2023 is upon us and I wish us to always be able to say when things are not going well, not to be ashamed of it, but above all to celebrate these tears, proofs of life who only want to dialogue in order to teach us to listen to each other more .