The lessons in tears

We don't talk enough about crying.

- ANNA MAE YU LAMENTILLO

Not the cinematic kind-one perfect tear sliding down a cheekbut the real, messy kind that leaves your eyes swollen and your breath unsteady. The kind that comes from frustration so deep it feels like a knot in the chest. The kind that arrives in the middle of learning something difficult, or failing at something you thought you should already understand.Studying, growing, becomingnone of it is easy. And yet we often pretend that it should be. We speak of learning as if it were a graceful climb, a steady ascent toward mastery. But the truth, at least the truth I've discovered, is that progress is jagged. It stumbles.

It circles back on itself. And sometimes it requires tears.