On nights like this, my tears feel so near. Like they’re wanting to come out for a breath of fresh air but not waiting for my permission. It’s not sadness. Or despair. These tears just want a chance to see the world. To leave my body and mix with infinity of atoms that surround me.

The first time, tears left at the sound of Anne Lamott’s voice on my car stereo, speaking directly to my soul.

The second time, it was finding a bag of cheese curls in my room when I returned home after being gone for just two days.

The third time was when my dad showed me an old family photo of his mom, dad, and three older siblings –the thought of my dad losing the three most beloved family members he had brought many tears out.

The fourth time was hearing that a family friend lost her mother in Egypt –she was visiting there just a couple of months ago, and her mother died having met her two grandsons.

And the fifth, was watching my mother stir a pot of milk on the stove, a sight that overwhelmed me in its preciousness.

“Live to the point of tears,” Albert Camus said. Words I cherish, and that I’m often reminded of when I visit my friend Anna’s Instagram. Live to the point of tears, yes. And also love to the point of tears, because those tears desperately want to escape you.

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