“A child can ask questions that a wise man cannot answer.” – unknown
“Mama, why don’t grown-ups cry?” my daughter asked when she was three. There are a lot of possible answers to that question – we do but it’s more often that they leak out of us unexpectedly, or that not as much shocks us because we have experienced more, or that we have more ways to communicate our feelings than young children. But it wasn’t until I was reading something last week that I found my answer.
The passage was a simple meditation on giving air to our wounds. And even though I’d read it before, somehow the light of life hit it just right this time so that when I read it again, I heard it as it related to me for the first time. “Oh, I’m wounded” I thought in surprise.
Twelve years again when my business partner sat me down to lunch to tell me of my husband’s infidelities, it was a clear enough owie. But as the years passed and we divorced, I reshaped my life and my work and then went on to have kids as a single parent, I could easily tell you that is far in the past in a manner and tone that is believable. And in many ways it is. I’ve owned my own part in the failure of our marriage, forgiven him for his and my two darling kids are proof that things worked out the way they were supposed to.
But the wound, I discovered, is in how I see myself. My ex-husband thought I was too independent. At first couldn’t even fathom that could be a deficit. From an early age as the youngest of three children in a family of big achievers, being independent meant I could keep up, being independent was a greatly praised trait and being independent became one of the pillars of who I was proud to be. Then came along my marriage and my ex who could pronounce the word with a particular emphasis and bite that hurt. In-de-PEN-dent.
But what struck me last week as I read that meditation was that I’ve allowed his criticism of a personal characteristic of which I am so proud to undercut my belief that I’m lovable as a partner. My ex-husband’s fear that he was unlovable created a belief in me that I was unlovable and I have never healed that wound. And saying that is hard so I imagine it’s taken me all these years to discover that because I wasn’t ready to air the wound. So here’s my new answer to my daughter’s question: grown-ups don’t cry because we don’t know we are hurt. Grown-ups bury things deep so that they can keep being productive, optimistic and claim some measure of success. Grown-ups need to listen to the advice they give kids when they get hurt: “Be brave and let us see the wound.” Because when we are vulnerable about the way we are wounded and have wounded others, we have a chance to heal it and inspire others to do the same.
