The Last Time I Cried

           It was the dawn of March 17th. The hour hand had finally made its tantalizingly slow turn around the clock, and another tiresome week of homework and quizzes had finally given way to another blissful Saturday of rest. Normally, in celebration of the arrival of another day of salvation, I would have slept at around 2 o'clock, about an hour earlier than the average time of my slumber. But that day was no normal Saturday - it was St. Patrick's Day, and so at a little to 3 o'clock, I was laid back in my chair, staring at the ceiling through the pitch darkness and listening over and over to a song that I had been listening to since the clock turned twelve.

           During the 18 years of my life, I had listened to a multitude of songs and music. My interests in music had shifted and expanded over the years to encompass a vast range of genres from classic to rock, from folk to hiphop, from country to metal. But never until that day had I ever empathized with the lyrics of a song, so when I heard John Mayer's "St. Patrick's Day," I could not stop listening to the song over and over again.

no way November will see our goodbye

when it comes to December it's obvious why

no one wants to be alone at Christmastime

come January we're frozen inside

making new resolutions a hundred times

February won't you be my Valentine

and we'll both be safe until St. Patrick's Day

           From some time, listening to the lyrics, I had started crying. It was not a pouring kind of crying - it has been some time since I have cried with tears flowing down my cheeks in streams. Instead, during the course of the song, a tear would slow grow at the corner of my eyes and at the end of each, it would finally succumb to gravity and gradually creep down my cheeks, down my neck until it reached the neck of my shirt and was absorbed into the fabric. Having listened to the song for hours, I could distinctly feel the moistness of the clothing around my neck.

           I sat there, crying and feeling a complex mixture of feelings. I felt sad and depressed; I felt isolated and alone; I felt insecure and incomplete; I felt remorse and regret. The sensation that I had no place to rely on in my times of grief and hardship surrounded me, swallowed me, and overwhelmed me, clawing at my heart and drawing out my tears. The wall on which I could lean on when I was trying to stand up from the blows that life delivered was gone, and the fact that I had put myself in this position, that I had thrown away my happiness and meaning of life tormented and choked me into endless regrets.
           Tears entail a variety of meanings. Sometimes it is the result of sorrow and grief, sometimes of contentment, and sometimes of nothing at all. I cried for sorrow. And the truth is, the sorrow still lingers.