being close to water

why it's okay to cry on your birthday

Do not cry. Squeezing my eyes shut, I inhaled deeply. I was in an office. I could not cry.

They were happy tears, but that was irrelevant. Emotion in the workplace was weakness. I didn’t want to feel so much. I always wanted to not feel so much. 

My colleague described this tendency to feel so easily as “being close to water.”

I agreed, I was definitely close to water. In a second, I could be underwater. I cry easily. I laugh easily. My emotions live very close to the surface and my face reveals all of them. 

I have always been this way– a particular person.

I have feelings about everything: foods, colors, lighting, sounds, numbers, ambiance, a person’s vibes. If I’m speaking kindly about myself, I’d call it sensitive or intuitive. But I’ve also named it fickle, overly-emotional, picky.  

I am often overwhelmed by how strongly I feel things, happy or sad. I’ve never felt indifference towards anything.

Birthdays are hard, because well, they are birthdays.

A typical birthday celebration puts all the things I have feelings about into one big stew: change, gifts, attention, foods, colors, expectations. All of these things with a glaring spotlight on you as you receive them, graciously and gracefully. Or one would hope you would. 

Being close to water is not a particularly helpful asset on birthdays. These people who love you dearly have done wonderful things for you and you can’t stop crying, nor can you explain why you are crying. 

I always cry on my birthday. On most holidays actually. My mom can count on one hand the birthdays that I didn’t cry. I think there have been two. 

Knowing this tendency to feel so much, not just on birthdays but everyday, I did what I could to get as far from water as I could. 

If my sensitivity was weakness, then numbness would make me strong. I used busyness to stop feeling. I whirled and twired in a cyclone of chaos to keep me on land, miles from the water.

The unparalleled Marlee Grace coined the term “tornado person,” which I deeply resonate with. There is no more accurate term to describe how I lived the last eight years of my life. 

I prided myself on being a tornado person. “I run lean,” I’d joke. “No time wasted.” 

I overplanned and overcommitted, sprinting through my life. Late for everything, present at nothing. About to leave, on my way, just 5 mins away, actually so sorry I can’t make it. I was frantic and frazzled and completely unsure how to slow down without falling apart. 

But it was better than being close to water, I told myself. 

For years I lived like that. Staying on the surface, I ripped up my life as a tornado person. Until I couldn’t any longer. 

Eventually, my tornado turned in on myself and tore down everything. In the course of one year I quit the big Wall Street job, the jam-packed social life in New York, the alcohol-laden happy hours, the urgency to present and perform a perfect life. I could not keep up the speed and intensity of my life, so I stopped. 

Then I moved to Spain. There the wind drained out of the tornado completely. There was no way to keep going without feeling. 

Everyone felt. Everyone moved slowly. No one cared what I did or how much of it I did. They cared who I was and how I felt and how we made each other feel. 

I’ll never forget that first dinner I went to. After eating, I jumped up to clear the table. My friends pulled me back into my chair and explained it was time for “sobremesa”. 

We sat around the table for hours more as the candles burned all the way down. No one moved an inch. We laughed and cried, then laughed until we cried, and cried until we laughed.  

Now I live physically close to water, and I see the waves renew themselves. And how it renews me. I notice the way water puts me at ease. I make an effort to walk to the beach every day. I see the way the beaches fill with people day in and day out, revealing our tendency as humans to gravitate towards water.

I knew that I would live physically close to water, but I didn’t realize how I’d learn to live emotionally close too. I saw how people I admired felt their feelings and didn’t resent them in themselves. These people were strong and brilliant and interesting and whole. They felt everything. 

As I continue to draw near to water, I am grateful for the tornado person who brought me here. This last year has been one of destruction. It needed to be that way so I could start anew. In knowing the chaos, I more wholly appreciate the space that the tornado created and the silence that remained when the roaring stopped. 

As I look to the next year, I am excited for creation to rush into the space that destruction has cleared. I pray for renewal. I pray for peace. I pray I can stay close to water. 

It turns out that the water I feared is where the good things are. The love. The joy. The hope. It’s waiting for me to wade in. It needed me to go deeper, into depths I had never previously dared go. 

Today is my birthday and I’m sure I’ll cry today. How could I not? 

My boyfriend is flying across the world to see me and meet my parents and friends. A few people I love are gathering for dinner (water-themed, of course!) I’m healthy and whole, a year older. There is so much good these days, I could burst into tears just thinking about it.

But if I cry, I’ll taste my own saltiness and be reminded of my true nature. 

It’s clear to me now that I’d much rather be tossed in the waves than stand at the shore. I thank God for the tornado that carried me here. Luckily, it destroyed that which was no longer serving my life without destroying me completely. 

I’m not afraid of feeling anymore. 

This journey away and back has given me a home within myself. Even if I’m not physically near the ocean, I will always be connected.

There is, and always has been, a boundless sea within me. All I needed was the courage to wade in.