Tegan, I had almost forgotten that I submitted my own piece of writing for Crybaby, to Brandon Stosuy's "Sad Happens", a beautifully-illustrated, celebratory anthology exploring sadness and the transformative power of tears. Many of the individuals featured in the book are my heroes, and it is an honor to see my writing alongside theirs.
I asked my therapist why do I cry a lot and how can I stop, especially because I cry when I’m angry not sad and she said that it is a defense-mechanism for me because I am unable to alter reality so I cry since it soothes me and I have probably done that since I was a child so whenever something doesn’t go my way, I cry to make myself feel better. I’ve been thinking about her words a lot. I wished that I cried when sad instead of bottling it up then exploding all at once at any minor inconvenience. Crying is healing but it embarrasses me. Why can babies cry and adult can’t? I wish it were more acceptable to see adults crying without labeling them weak.
Talking about nostalgia, I was only present for the Crybaby release as a fan. I missed all the other records but when I listen to your older music, it's like I was there and it gives me the same sensation you described: both a precious gift and, at times, incredibly sorrowful.
Even at 54 I still cry a lot. Only now I cry looking at photos of my mum, my cats, cartoons, books, adverts. I am incredibly nostalgic, my amateur dramatic group has recently had a couple of reunions. Some of us hadn’t seen each other since we were 20. It was like we had never been apart, some of the sweetest moments was when we toasted those of us who have sadly passed and all of them remembered my mum and how my parents house was a sanctuary for them. We had an emotional moment talking about her passing because they all used to call her mum.
patiently looking forward to the phase of my life where I cry maybe just a little bit less (I’m 28 lol), but in the mean time I’m getting a crybaby themed tattoo next month!
Can’t wait to read this article, you have always written so beautifully and so has Tegan. You’re right, nostalgia is a wonderful thing and I’ve never understood some peoples reaction to it, and when we talk about how brilliant it is.
Thank you for sharing this Sara, I’m sure I’ll love it!! 😊❤️
Thanks for the post! And thank you for reading it!
Great to hear your thoughts on crybaby too, I shared mine in Tegan’s post about crybaby. When you mentioned childhood nostalgia it struck a chord in me, I’ll be 17 next month but thanks to circumstances too hard to explain, generally speaking you couldn’t drag me back. I did have loads of happy memories too but as seems to happen to happy memories they’re marred by bad ones. Swimming pools and the smell of chlorine brought me back, even thinking about that. I used to love swimming when I was younger, we live a 5 minute walk from the beach and it’d always been a part of my life. I speak in past tense because after puberty started gender dysphoria now makes it almost impossible to swim, or rather it’s not fun when I try it. For me swimming is linked to summer which means it’s warmer and I can’t wear as many layers (if you know what I mean). I’m hoping this year Grover will help with that, he’s a Labrador and loves swimming, hopefully he can help me get back into it.
You also mentioned libraries, they weren’t at all a happy place for me. As a dyslexic they just made me feel dumb and left out. While I can read (obviously, I write these essays on here) I can’t read full length books. If I did that I wouldn’t have the capacity to do anything else while I tried. Thankfully my mum, a forever book lover and self proclaimed bookworm found audiobooks! (This was before audiobooks were really a well known thing or particularly digital yet so we had CDs. My mum had an old CD player in her room and I listened in there.
As I said, my childhood has tons of happy memories it’s just hard not to let the bad overshadow the good sometimes.
I hope Sid is going well! I saw my baby cousin (who’s his age) and wow, they are so big now, she can say some words and stomps around on two legs! They grow up so fast! (I know, but I had to say it, I never got what that meant, none of my other cousins are young enough for me to remember how quick it was.) I’m guessing it’s like when I don’t notice Grover’s had a growth sprit too though, everyone’s going ‘my god he’s so big!’ And I’m like ‘he is?’.
I had planned to make this a short one but I guess not!
Anyway, I’ll have to check out that book you mentioned. (Was it a book? I think it was?)
Sara 😭 the portion about being a parent, the joy and sorrow of experiencing things anew with my child, I feel this deeply. The library, local parks and hiking trails, day trips around the Seattle area where I grew up; all of these are experiences I love remembering from my childhood, and re-experiencing now with Rosie. A new layer of sorrow has been added now, since my mom died in August. It’s also one of the reasons I have a persistent urge to take her to concerts, over this last year it’s been T&S shows. Both my parents took me to many concerts over my childhood and young adult life, so it is a comfort now to make these memories with my kid.
I’m taking a language course at the local uni that I previously studied at nearly 10 years ago. It is wild to meet and study alongside the new generation of students, some nearly 16 years younger than me. I get nostalgic thinking how it was for me then, how I navigated life then. At the same time I am also laughing at how my now older spirit still awakens a bit of that young part, reminds me that we aren’t too far away from our ‘different-timeline-selves’. Nostalgia helps us reunite those memories once in a while, for good and for better hopefully. But true, nostalgia hits the sad strings that someone finds ‘the aches’ in all of us. I’m one of the oldies of the class but I love the juxtaposition. Plus I find myself wondering how life will be for my hooligan baby toddler - hopefully good nostalgia will come for him if he wants to do uni studies in his future. Pour one out for the nostalgic souls 🫶💯
I’m like you Sara very nostalgic and can cry easily .sometimes I feel embarrassed to cry but I find it as a release in some way and no one should be ashamed of crying
I once told my doctor that I feel so sad and lonely and I ended up crying in front of him and he was very sympathetic and even now I have sadness in my life knowing that I am sad and lonely
I asked my therapist why do I cry a lot and how can I stop, especially because I cry when I’m angry not sad and she said that it is a defense-mechanism for me because I am unable to alter reality so I cry since it soothes me and I have probably done that since I was a child so whenever something doesn’t go my way, I cry to make myself feel better. I’ve been thinking about her words a lot. I wished that I cried when sad instead of bottling it up then exploding all at once at any minor inconvenience. Crying is healing but it embarrasses me. Why can babies cry and adult can’t? I wish it were more acceptable to see adults crying without labeling them weak.
Talking about nostalgia, I was only present for the Crybaby release as a fan. I missed all the other records but when I listen to your older music, it's like I was there and it gives me the same sensation you described: both a precious gift and, at times, incredibly sorrowful.
Sara , I’m the same way nostalgia is what always brings tears
I love to remember the beautiful times from my past
My son’s birthday i always go back to the drive to the hospital
And in my mind relive the most amazing day of my life
And seeing my granddaughter celebrate her birthday.
I enjoy Substack it is something I look forward to it makes me feel so good
I am still hoping you get a season 2 of High School
And crossing my fingers on that Tegan and Sara Cruise y’all mentioned a while back
I can’t wait to hear and or read any music or books y’all put out
🤟🏼🤟🏼🤟🏼🤟🏼
I still cry at my age
Even at 54 I still cry a lot. Only now I cry looking at photos of my mum, my cats, cartoons, books, adverts. I am incredibly nostalgic, my amateur dramatic group has recently had a couple of reunions. Some of us hadn’t seen each other since we were 20. It was like we had never been apart, some of the sweetest moments was when we toasted those of us who have sadly passed and all of them remembered my mum and how my parents house was a sanctuary for them. We had an emotional moment talking about her passing because they all used to call her mum.
patiently looking forward to the phase of my life where I cry maybe just a little bit less (I’m 28 lol), but in the mean time I’m getting a crybaby themed tattoo next month!
Now I’m tryin to forget you?
Can’t wait to read this article, you have always written so beautifully and so has Tegan. You’re right, nostalgia is a wonderful thing and I’ve never understood some peoples reaction to it, and when we talk about how brilliant it is.
Thank you for sharing this Sara, I’m sure I’ll love it!! 😊❤️
Hey Sara,
Thanks for the post! And thank you for reading it!
Great to hear your thoughts on crybaby too, I shared mine in Tegan’s post about crybaby. When you mentioned childhood nostalgia it struck a chord in me, I’ll be 17 next month but thanks to circumstances too hard to explain, generally speaking you couldn’t drag me back. I did have loads of happy memories too but as seems to happen to happy memories they’re marred by bad ones. Swimming pools and the smell of chlorine brought me back, even thinking about that. I used to love swimming when I was younger, we live a 5 minute walk from the beach and it’d always been a part of my life. I speak in past tense because after puberty started gender dysphoria now makes it almost impossible to swim, or rather it’s not fun when I try it. For me swimming is linked to summer which means it’s warmer and I can’t wear as many layers (if you know what I mean). I’m hoping this year Grover will help with that, he’s a Labrador and loves swimming, hopefully he can help me get back into it.
You also mentioned libraries, they weren’t at all a happy place for me. As a dyslexic they just made me feel dumb and left out. While I can read (obviously, I write these essays on here) I can’t read full length books. If I did that I wouldn’t have the capacity to do anything else while I tried. Thankfully my mum, a forever book lover and self proclaimed bookworm found audiobooks! (This was before audiobooks were really a well known thing or particularly digital yet so we had CDs. My mum had an old CD player in her room and I listened in there.
As I said, my childhood has tons of happy memories it’s just hard not to let the bad overshadow the good sometimes.
I hope Sid is going well! I saw my baby cousin (who’s his age) and wow, they are so big now, she can say some words and stomps around on two legs! They grow up so fast! (I know, but I had to say it, I never got what that meant, none of my other cousins are young enough for me to remember how quick it was.) I’m guessing it’s like when I don’t notice Grover’s had a growth sprit too though, everyone’s going ‘my god he’s so big!’ And I’m like ‘he is?’.
I had planned to make this a short one but I guess not!
Anyway, I’ll have to check out that book you mentioned. (Was it a book? I think it was?)
So excited for the t-shirt zoom!!!
Phoenix, he/they/it, 16, Australia
Sara 😭 the portion about being a parent, the joy and sorrow of experiencing things anew with my child, I feel this deeply. The library, local parks and hiking trails, day trips around the Seattle area where I grew up; all of these are experiences I love remembering from my childhood, and re-experiencing now with Rosie. A new layer of sorrow has been added now, since my mom died in August. It’s also one of the reasons I have a persistent urge to take her to concerts, over this last year it’s been T&S shows. Both my parents took me to many concerts over my childhood and young adult life, so it is a comfort now to make these memories with my kid.
I’m taking a language course at the local uni that I previously studied at nearly 10 years ago. It is wild to meet and study alongside the new generation of students, some nearly 16 years younger than me. I get nostalgic thinking how it was for me then, how I navigated life then. At the same time I am also laughing at how my now older spirit still awakens a bit of that young part, reminds me that we aren’t too far away from our ‘different-timeline-selves’. Nostalgia helps us reunite those memories once in a while, for good and for better hopefully. But true, nostalgia hits the sad strings that someone finds ‘the aches’ in all of us. I’m one of the oldies of the class but I love the juxtaposition. Plus I find myself wondering how life will be for my hooligan baby toddler - hopefully good nostalgia will come for him if he wants to do uni studies in his future. Pour one out for the nostalgic souls 🫶💯
I’m like you Sara very nostalgic and can cry easily .sometimes I feel embarrassed to cry but I find it as a release in some way and no one should be ashamed of crying
Yes sad happiness it’s happening all the time for me 😢
I cry listening to some of your sad songs
Thank you Sara ❤️
I once told my doctor that I feel so sad and lonely and I ended up crying in front of him and he was very sympathetic and even now I have sadness in my life knowing that I am sad and lonely