My Crying Game

Sad Happens: A Celebration of Tears is out today

Morning. Below you’ll find my mini-essay from Sad Happens: A Celebration of Tears, which is out today.

The book hosts a pile of great writers and artists inside, including Jia Tolentino, Hua Hsu, Nabil Ayers, Phoebe Bridgers, Elieen Myles, Mike Birbiglia, and many more. Thanks to editor Brandon Stosuy for including me 🖤

---

I read the book about crying from 2019. I found it moving, but didn’t see myself inside. 

I made my son cry last week. Made my wife cry recently. My therapist cried not long ago when I asked if she thought I was making progress. I’m certainly better at making people cry than crying for myself. I’m not proud of that, but at some point the balance sheet can’t be denied.

Malory cries easily. It can be something beautiful, or podcasts, a memory; not always me.

When my mom came down to Bloomington to tell me the news—cancer—she cried and half-wailed: O! My sweet baby boy!

I was dry as a bone, I’m afraid to say, thinking: Who?

It’s been more than a decade, but I’m still waiting to cry. Since she passed, I’ve welled up or straight up bawled countless times over other things. Mostly songs, sometimes commercials. There’s that Big Thief performance on Colbert. That one gets me every time.

-AV
from Sad Happens: A Celebration of Tears, available now