One mor­ning I was so sad that I just cried. All things see­med dif­fi­cult and frigh­te­ning, l was di­sap­poin­ted, and I felt my va­ca­ti­on had been far too short. Eve­ryt­hing see­med ut­ter­ly op­p­res­si­ve. I hug­ged my dog for con­so­la­ti­on. I lay down by its side, fee­ling my he­art weig­hed down by all my sor­rows. I just stro­ked the soft fur for a while, let­ting te­ars stream down my face, and the dog then lic­ked them off my face.

Soon, ho­we­ver, I al­most laug­hed about the si­tu­a­ti­on. I re­mem­be­red the song ba­sed on a psalm that says we will not be hung­ry or thirs­ty or hot from the sun, be­cau­se God Him­self will gui­de us to the li­ving wa­ters and will wipe away our te­ars. I felt sa­fer thin­king that God knew qui­te well how mi­se­rab­le I was fee­ling.

I am fa­mi­li­ar with mood swings. A very small thing may turn my joy in­to an­xie­ty and calm­ness in­to pa­nic and make me feel frigh­te­ned, me­lanc­ho­ly, sad or di­sap­poin­ted. Fee­ling re­al­ly low, I may sigh a pra­yer to the He­a­ven­ly Fat­her and ask Him to take me in­to he­a­ven. But as soon as I feel good again, that thought seems stran­ge and life seems per­fect­ly li­vab­le.

I have in­he­ri­ted this sen­si­ti­vi­ty. My mot­her was like this, and so was my grand­mot­her. Ma­y­be it all da­tes back to our Ka­re­li­an an­cest­ry.

Luc­ki­ly, ho­we­ver, I sel­dom cry for an­xie­ty. More of­ten I cry for joy, be­au­ty, or fee­ling good. Or even if I do not down­right cry, I may have te­ars in my ey­es for many dif­fe­rent re­a­sons.

When I was yo­un­ger, I found my sen­si­ti­vi­ty re­al­ly em­bar­ras­sing and tried to hide my te­ars. Even at ser­vi­ces, a be­au­ti­ful song so­me­ti­mes made me so hap­py that te­ars simp­ly stre­a­med down my face. I thought no-one el­se was like that. But I have gra­du­al­ly le­arnt to ac­cept this cha­rac­te­ris­tic. I have even found that such sen­si­ti­vi­ty can be a good thing. If I of­fend so­me­o­ne by sa­ying so­met­hing bad, I can­not live with it long. I just have to go and apo­lo­gi­ze.

Now that I have li­ved with my te­ar­ful­ness for more than fif­ty ye­ars, I have re­a­li­zed that I am not the on­ly one like this. There are many ot­her pe­op­le with a si­mi­lar ”prob­lem”. And it does not even seem like a prob­lem any more. It is rat­her like a gift.

Text: Lii­sa Lil­va­nen-Pel­ko­nen

Trans­la­ti­on: Sirk­ka-Lii­sa Lei­no­nen