The Crying Game

When I was a teenager, I knew a girl who couldn't cry. And as we all know, teenage girls spend half their time crying, and the other half writing about it in their diaries. At least that's the way it went in the Olden Days.

It's humbling to realize The Sixties are now considered the Olden Days. And as we all know, there was alot to cry about in The Sixties. So this girl I knew, her name was Bonnie, stood out like a sore thumb. And if she'd had a sore thumb, she wouldn't have shed any tears over it. Apparently she didn't have any tear ducts. Is that possible? At least that's the story she told.

I first learned about Bonnie when her boyfriend broke up with her. I spotted her at a kegger out at Side Lake and staggered over to offer my shoulder to cry on. Not. She stood there all dry-eyed and bushy-tailed, nary a teardrop in sight. At first I thought she might be a saint or something and was about to ask if she preferred a marble or bronze pedestal. But then she admitted to being ductless, and I was speechless. I was speechless anyway, it being a kegger and all. But still. I'd never met a girl with a broken heart whose face wasn't all puffed up like a pasty.

Raise your hand if you know what a pasty is. And that's a short "a," Bubba.

When my boyfriend told me he had a sprained ankle from track practice then went to a party two towns over and danced with a girl with six-inch bangs, I had my first heart attack. Heart break, heart attack, what's the difference. At sixteen, it's the same thing. This happened in April. I didn't stop crying until September. Ten years later.

Except for the tear duct thing, Bonnie and I had a lot in common. We both had broken hearts, we both had blue eyes, we both had the same last name. A name as common as dirt. We weren't related, though. My dad's dad just made up a new last name when he came through immigration, and that was that.

All this time I could've been someone else.

After I knew about Bonnie, I'd find myself staring at her in Study Hall, across the cafeteria, at a hockey game. I couldn't imagine what it would be like not to be able to cry. I wondered...with no outlet, did all those emotions just keep piling up inside, like snowbanks, or your aunt's mincemeat pies? Would you eventually get fat? grow a tumor? become a Mary Kay distributor? Or are tear ducts a dispensible part of one's anatomy, like tonsils or an appendix.

Her tearless state made Bonnie somewhat of a freak. At first I'd been intrigued, but after awhile I started avoiding her. There was something unnatural about such composure, something...zombie-like. I felt bad about dropping her, but I couldn't help myself. Our friendship had run its course. No use crying over spilt milk.

The last I heard, Bonnie was living somewhere Out West. In which state, I don't know. Myself, I remain in a state of flux. Hovering somewhere between the depths of despair and auto-delusional bliss. Sometimes it feels like I spend half my time trying not to cry, and the other half writing about it in this blog. It's the New Olden Days all over again.