Automatic Tears
I can’t speak for the fairer gender, but a guy goes through a mental checklist before letting himself cry. The guy does not reveal this checklist, under almost any circumstances, as it may label him as untrue. The checklist is long but it goes something like this: Am I alone? Is there a camera present? Are judgmental people of any kind present? Is it dark out? What are the context of these tears I may or may not cry? Could I potentially downgrade from full-blown waterworks to more of a “teary eyed” reaction? And that list goes on, like I said… and at the bottom of the list it says “All clear? Ok, cry.” I found a way to circumvent that, or to be more precise, Ian did.
“Bye bye, Daddy.”
High-pitched, but not fast; he was sincere, but not sad. Without any kind of warning, his first real use of “daddy” along with his farewell skipped the whole list above and hit the bottom line. If Melissa told me that she had to duck out of the way of actual projectile tears squirting from the ducts in my eyes, I wouldn’t be surprised. It was as immediate as it was automatic on my part. These little milestones are traveling at us all at a million miles per hour…