At the risk of sounding childish and stupid, I kindly apologize to all the macho men who still take pride in not showing their emotions and die like “MEN”. Well, not for me and not in this era. Recently, I found myself in an empty room, crying my eyes out. Not a sob, sob cry, but one of those good cries, the kind that I hadn’t produced since I was a kid, the kind with tears big enough to roll down my face and into the corner of my mouth with force and regularity that my entire mouth tasted salty.I can’t reminisce why I found myself in this sober mood. But what was clear was that I liked it a lot. The emotional release was unlike anything I have ever gone through, and it made me feel so good that I pictured myself crying, some more just thinking about the whole notion of crying. In fact, it felt so good that afterward, I made one vow to never think such a crazy thought again.Honestly I mean, what had gotten into me? unrestrained feelings are reserved for women and children, not grown men and especially one that prides himself on being a macho man. Crying is one of many taboo topics men simply don’t talk about or even think about leave alone that fact that they can’t even do it, at least in public, even though inside we all probably long for the day we can discuss and do it openly.Being hard men, is behind everything we do from we earn our bread, to where we reside, the kind of car we drive, the church we attend, the university we enroll in, and even what kind of underwear we wear. What if as men, we stop letting being “hard” take over our whole life, and important issues such as family and community, social responsibilities and personal growth. Where would we be if we strived to be responsible fathers and mentors rather than boyfriends to campus girls and dead-bit dads.Don’t get me wrong, I am not married yet but I don’t want to be a stereo-type kind of father. The type that becomes a ‘lion’ to his children. I want to do away with the stone-age old African mentality that teaches boys at a tender age that the three most important things in the world are money, sex and power. I can’t afford to be driven by these three stupid words. I want to come out from the shadow I’ve been hiding and be a human being with sense and sensibility. I want to simply let my guard down and be happy. I want to have an optimistic approach about life. I want to find out more about the world and less about the streets, more about romance and less about sex. By the way, I want to take cooking lessons, buy flowers, go for dinner not sit everyday via the ‘Junction’ and sip frothy beers.But at the same time, ladies need to reconsider their description of a man, encourage them to open up their hearts, their minds. Only then can we move towards more fruitful relationships. And ladies, don’t trust to hope: Sometimes it may mean being a little more maternal than you may feel comfortable with, encouraging a man a little more than you would like. But the only way a man will open up is if you give him no reason not to. Only when a man feels totally comfortable with his life and his woman can he begin to lower his guard, and take the relationship to higher ground.Probably that’s why I imagined myself crying. Am an adult now who is willing to live outside society’s defined limits. Or maybe it was just an abnormality that has never happened before and will never happen again. I hope not, but the emotional release I experienced in my mind felt too good to keep inside of me.
