It takes ten thousand hours to become a master at something.
If that is so then I’m a master at crying, though it feels I’ve been crying for ten thousand years.
Just when I think there couldn’t possibly be more tears, they begin pouring out of me without effort. I even wake up as if my eyes have sprung a leak in the middle of the night.
Sometimes I try to stop them, but they prove too powerful – a storm no one can weather.
Sometimes I wish my eyes could go through a drought for a while, let the clouds break and the sun come shining through.
But then I remember that even with the thickest of clouds, up above the sun still keeps on shining. Thus like the sun, my spirit too keeps on shining.
Non-stop rain can lead to flooding and can bring unbearable devastation, but without rain, we also cannot live. Perhaps I can build a dam for all my tears and use them for renewable energy. Build canals to let them flow to others who need my tears more than me. I don’t think tears are meant to be on their own. They’re meant to be shared, poured over seeds which will one day grow and blossom. And you think, did my tears do that? Oh, how wonderful!
But if I am a master of tears, then surely I have a doctorate in laugher. For whenever a storm passes, laughter erupts forth from the earth, growing with such speed and strength as if it’s going to embrace the sun, a giant marvelous stalk. Thus if tears mean a larger, stronger crop of laughter, then I will gladly reap that harvest.
by 