Learning to Cry Again: Reconnecting with my Emotional Inner Child in my 40s

I was an emotional child. I know that most kids wear their emotions on their sleave, but I was particularly animated, when it came to my feelings.

I was kind of kid who would cry over a Benji movie, or hide away in closets with a music box that played the them song from "Love Story" just to make myself weep, and I'd dissolve into sobs when my mother practiced her piano skills, to the point where she'd have to stop her practice to console me.

My parents discovered early on that I was a fussy baby, the kind that wouldn’t settle unless there was movement, a rhythm to life that soothed me. My dad had to wake up at 3 a.m. and drive me through the trailer park just to lull me back to sleep. Was it the attention I craved? I don't know. Maybe it was the hum of the car, the forward momentum, the security of being strapped into my baby seat—whatever it was, it worked.

Needless to say, very early on, crying was a viable expression. Some would say it is our first expression. The doctor slaps us on the butt and we wake up in our new reality wailing.

But as I got older, that deep emotional core I had as a child was too much of a vulnerability. It hardened. It dried up. It lost it's weight and became a husk. By the time I was a teenager, I had built a shell around this core that was so thick I barely felt anything at all.

When I hit my teens, I buried my emotions under punk rock, studs, spikes, metal and leather – and a carefully curated image of defiance. I fell into the Greater Cincinnati punk scene, surrounding myself with a raw, aggressive world of music and rebellion.

Bands like Filth, Blatz, Crass, and The Exploited weren’t just soundtracks; they were my armor. Their transgressive energy matched the rage and confusion brewing inside me. But somewhere along the way, I misinterpreted the message. Instead of using that music as an outlet of emotion, I wore it as padding – paadding that didn't fit. I wore anger like a second skin. I abandoned vulnerability and replaced it with cynicism. I was tough. Unshakable. I convinced myself that emotions were for the weak, and I refused to be weak.

But that little kid who used to cry in the closet with a cranked-up music box from the 70s? He never really left. He just got buried under years of practiced indifference. I was attempting to curate an existance that didn't fit me. I had picked out a persona from a list without reading the directions and I was trying to BECOME that person.

This emotional drought lasted well into my 30s. I walked through life detached, numb to both pain and joy. I had great friends, sure, but even they only knew the version of me that I had carefully constructed—the one who didn’t flinch, didn’t cry, didn’t need anything from anyone.

And then, somewhere in my late 30s, something shifted.

I started writing more, reading more. I got into therapy. My partner Amanda, whose warmth and love was always on display, finally cracked something open in me.

At first, it was little things—a passage in a book that made my throat tighten, a scene in a movie that watered my eyes, a song that stirred something I couldn’t quite suppress. And then one day, I found myself crying over my own writing. I was reading an emotional passage aloud to Amanda, and my voice broke. My eyes welled up. I had to stop, had to breathe through it, had to let it happen.

The same thing happened in therapy—I’d read something I had written, and before I could stop myself, tears would come.

And then it wasn’t just writing. It was sentimental commercials. It was the way my pets curled up beside me after a long day. It was seeing Amanda laugh so hard she had to wipe away tears. It was small, seemingly insignificant moments that cracked me wide open. And I let it happen. I let myself feel.

For the first time in decades, I reconnected with that little boy—the one who hid in the closet with a music box, overwhelmed by the simple, aching beauty of sound. But now, I didn’t have to hide. I didn’t have to wind up a music box in secret just to give myself permission to feel something. Now, I let it wash over me. I embrace it.

I spent years trying to erase my emotions, to rewrite myself as someone invulnerable. But what I’ve learned—what I’m still learning—is that my emotions were never the enemy. They were never a weakness. They were a part of me, waiting patiently for the moment I was ready to return to them.

And now, in my 40s, I am ready.

I cry freely. I write openly. I let myself feel deeply.

And for the first time in my life, I am whole.