feel good. I always question letting my emotions out because of my dad. He hated emotions and got angry even at my mom for expressing them. I see the guy telling my story and all he wants is care and support. He wants some affirmation. Showing my emotions has always been difficult for me. One time in elementary school I got beat up. I came home and climbed a tree to cry there. My mom was having tea with her sister. She saw me and left me there crying alone. My mom was dangerous so I wouldn’t go to her but I wanted someone to come to me. I wanted someone
to understand my pain. There is still conflict inside about showing emotions and conflict with liking this guy who is telling others about his pain. What I learned growing up about being a man is that I need to always be in control of myself. Men are like the lone ranger, cowboys don’t cry. Men solve all their own problems. Things seem to be changing for me on some of that and there is less competition and more cooperation. Our culture is becoming more open to men sharing emotion but then others still criticize that and say men are become feminized as a result of these changes. So how do we maintain our masculinity and still become emotionally more open? What bugged me about the movie, “tree of life” was that the grace side and the ultimate answer had no grit, no guts, no meat….Like there was nothing for me as a man there. I think men need to be more rounded and not necessarily lose their toughness. Men need to just expand a bit and grow some emotional balls. I like the character Rooster Cogburn who cared himself to exhaustion carrying Mattie Ross to safety in the movie “True Grit”.
