Mapping My Tears

I wasn’t sure how to approach this challenge—so many thoughts crowd my mind about internal life, psychology, and personality.

As a man who was born in 1980 (January 28th, to be precise), and who has seen the very slight societal changes in attitudes to how men should behave towards their emotions and feelings, I know there have been changes since before I was born. Though still more could be done.

Before we dig in, I realised the struggle I’m tracing here—between expectation and feeling—is one I’ve wrestled with before, captured in a poem I wrote...

Aggro-Delusio-Hubris

'Poem. Not about boxing.'

Ever choked on your words

like vomit stuck in your

esophagus

as the bile rises

you feel trapped

locked in the battle

to speak your mind

—

without filter

like the heavy-tar

cigarettes

your idols

of the 30s and 40s

smoked in chains

—

“You see, kid

you’ll go far

if you know your

place, position

role, the one

assigned to you at birth”

—

the mentality

that mentally

—

rips you a new one

—

if you have

felt the sting

of your graven words

of criticism

but the incision

feels misplaced

from your

place, position

role

all the more

for you to

—

speak up

—

“You see, kid

son, sport, squirt

no one will take you seriously”

—

like a crack at the jewels

between your legs

in this life or any after it

if you don’t spit it out

—

like the gum guard

after you socked the

hustling pugilist

dancing warrior

the champ, the big man

big man big man

with his fists raised

in the eighth round

—

Violence

it begets

Violence

—

tough love, man up

boy down, ass up

head down

we push and shove

teach resilience

clothed in

aggro — delusio — hubris

and then we cry

when the youth

attack

—

the little old lady,

you know the one,

with the little old cat,

who wouldn’t hurt a fly.

While I wouldn't say that my dad particularly expected me to be a violent or aggressive person, it never felt like he really accepted or encouraged me to share my emotions, especially sadness, which might lead to me crying. His attitude laid out a specific roadmap for me to follow - to become a ‘real man’: to swallow his emotions, or to wield his fists and voice in rage. Tears—the free flow of feeling—were never the prescribed path.

His father had been harsh, too, and probably his grandfather before him as well. It was a generational phenomenon that persisted through my childhood, from 1985 to my teenage years in the late ’90s. Although towards the tail end of my childhood, there was a shift in thinking, a loosening of old rules that began to redraw the map of what it meant to feel and be a man.

Through reading and experiencing the effects of bottling emotions, I realised this was not the path I wanted to follow, so I began redrawing the map of my own emotional life. That is why I have always been open and honest about how easy I find it to cry.

I have always genuinely believed that crying was not a sign of weakness, but more of a strength.

My wife, my children, and other people in my life have seen me cry, and I wear the badge of "crier" with pride. I still struggle with emotions—especially grief. A perfect example—and a sign I still need to work on—occurred about a year after my late, great Nonna Filomena Cafolla passed away, when I said, "I don't know why I feel so terrible; it's been a year now." I told my wife, confident I had dealt with it effectively.

Then came the gut punch—hard to take, but necessary to hear:

"You didn't grieve properly. You cried the day you heard and then never again."

Ouch. Thanks, Ruth. Despite my sarcasm, I am genuinely grateful for her observation—it has stuck with me.

So, while I encourage others to cry and feel, I still falter. I am still unpacking several generations of toxic masculinity, continuing to chart the map of my emotional life—one step, one feeling, at a time.

And so, the map of my emotions continues to unfold, each tear a landmark, each struggle a path I am still learning to navigate.

*

Thanks for reading!

Author's Notes: I wasn't sure I was even going to enter the Maps of the Self challenge that was launched this week, but here we are.

The poem above was originally published on Medium through the Scrittura publication on Jun 3, 2025. You can find it by following the link.

Here are other things: