If you’re a person, an honest person, a really honest person, than you will admit that you have, at one time in your life, cried in public.

I’ll admit that I’ve cried in public five times.

Now multiple that by 500 and we’re somewhere near an honest number.

I’m an emotional person, but also I’m in public a lot, so sometimes the urge to cry happens in places where I’m not alone and in the comfort of my own home, where there’s usually a box of coupon-bought tissues hanging around and a sink to wash my face off after, and perhaps another person, who loves me and understands me, and can hug me, or best yet, just sit with me, in silence, until I’ve cried as much as I need to.

But when that doesn’t happen, and you’re out and about, and someone calls you, or texts you, or emails you, or screams something at you on the street, or you see someone you don’t ever want to see again, or the hardest to explain, you think about something you know you shouldn’t think about, you may cry, in the discomfort of being in public, where people might ask if “you are okay?” as if being okay is something one must be, at all times,

We all cry, and there’s nothing wrong with that, so use this guide wisely to know the good places and the bad places to cry.

1. Coffee Shops

You can sit at a table or on a barstool at a coffee shop and you can cry, but you must know that eventually people will start to stare and soon enough, you’ll be required to purchase something, and if you’re there a while, someone might disregard your tears and ask you for a WiFi password, and if you’re there for an even longer while, the coffee shop will close and you will have to go somewhere else. So if you chose to cry in public, a coffee shop may not be the best place to go.

2. Yoga Class

You can cry in a yoga class, but if you really want to cry in a yoga class, take a hot yoga class, where they heat the room to 98-degrees and the second you enter, your whole body sweats like it’s been roaming the Sahara desert for a day, and by the time the class starts, and the lights are lowered, and the teacher plays meditative tribal music, you can cry your little eyes out and nobody will ever notice, because tears are just a tiny bit chunkier than balls of sweat, and plus, in yoga classes, people make the weirdest noises I’ve ever heard, without offering an apology or an explanation, so by all means, bust out your ugly cry in yoga class, and be applauded by a teacher who says, “Yes, let it all out.”

3. Grocery Stores

There might be special sanitary laws against crying in a grocery store. I’m not sure what will happen to the tomatoes and grapes and slabs of steak when you get them soggy  with your tears. People in grocery stores are in no mood for a crier. They want to get their fresh produce and their pound cake and get back to the car before their milk gets warm. Have you ever had someone jam their shopping cart into your thigh? Now imagine them doing that while you are hysterically crying? I bet they’d have the same reaction, “Oh, sorry, you’re just…just…blocking the whole aisle!”

4. Movie Theatres

Plenty of people go to the movies just to have a safe place to cry. I don’t know if that’s true but i’d bet 45% of people who saw Marley and Me brought tissues with them.

5. Libraries

Warning: if you feel like crying, back away from a library. Everything echoes inside of a library. One sneeze and you’re asked to leave. Imagine them hearing you hyperventilate cry or sniffle cry? It’s not worth anymore emotional stress trying to find a good place to cry in a library.

6. Streets

If you are going to cry in the street, understand what you have done. You’ve just invited a whole lot of people who have no business knowing your business into your business. Why’s that? Because someone will take note and approach and try to be there for you and you’ll appreciate that and tell them everything because if you want to know the truth, crying is just a way of us realizing how deeply we feel about something we feel, and sharing that or admitting that out loud, to a stranger, is one of the realest and scariest and coolest things you can do when you are crying.

Also, crying is okay.

Did you know that? Why do so many people tell you to stop crying when you cry? Because they are scared. They don’t know what to do to help you. Also, people don’t want you to be sad. But i’m here today to tell you that you can be sad, you can cry, you be anything but okay, and you can do this in private or in public, because chances are the people around you have done the same, 5 or 500 x 5 times.

I’m willing to believe that’s 100% true.

All my love,

Jen