New Year’s resolution: Cry more

By Soncirey Mitchell
Reader Staff

It’s been far too long since I’ve had a good, cathartic cry — one that lets the emotion wash over me so I can process the pain and move forward. Don’t get me wrong, there have been some tears here and there in the past few months; but, every day, it seems like our collective grief builds up behind my eyes and just won’t drain.

It reminds me of getting stung by a wasp as a child. I sobbed for so long that the tears just stopped coming, leaving behind the dull ache of the venom and an overwhelming fatigue.

I cried so much for years it’s practically what I was known for in high school. I’d cry when I saw a dog tied to a post awaiting its owner. I’d cry thinking about my childhood friend who moved away 10 years prior. I’d even cry when I saw a crushed milk carton or cracker box in the store because people kept pushing it aside to grab the pristine version behind it. Then I’d buy the smashed one even if I didn’t want it so it would go to a good home and know it was loved.

(OK, I still do that last one, just without the tears.)

As embarrassing as it was to have people say, “Sonci’s crying again,” and awkwardly pat my back or avoid eye contact, it’s so much worse to feel this invisible sadness like an old injury that I’ve learned to ignore.

The thing is, everything changed in 2016 — slowly at first, so most people could pretend not to notice. It was the first presidential election in which I was old enough to understand what was happening, and I had the sweet, naive, hopeful belief that I was going to finish the final leg of adolescence under our first female president.

We all know how that turned out.

From that point on, it was like a tidal wave of sexual assault stories, human rights violations, police brutality and death until it seemed like I couldn’t get through the day without hearing about at least three tragedies. Eventually, my body couldn’t keep up with the bad news. The well ran dry and I was left with a cold, persistent headache.

Crying is the first skill we learn when we exit the womb, and it seems I’ve forgotten how it’s done. So, for my 2025 New Year’s resolution, I’m going to relearn how to cry.

We like to think that the New Year is a fresh start, giving us the opportunity to leave behind past mistakes and grief. It’s a romantic notion, but we’re still dragging the weight of decades of callousness, selfishness and shame into 2025. Dressing it up in a party hat doesn’t change that, though it might make it easier to normalize. 

Our issues took years to create, and they will take countless more to dismantle, but caring is the first step. In the face of hatred, despair and an incoming president who would like nothing more than to strip the vast majority of humanity of its rights, the Earth of its resources and the American people of their souls, nothing can be more important than unflinching empathy.

I relish the idea of a bleeding heart. Why not care too deeply or feel too much? We can’t let the saturation of sadness make us so numb that we convince ourselves this is the way the world is, has always been and always will be. In 2025, we need to embrace the pain so that we can work through it to a New Year that’s actually worth celebrating.

Happy New Year to you all. Let’s cry together.