I cry easily. Extremely easily. And it’s not just when I’m sad. Any kind of emotion—sad, happy, angry, scared, embarrassed, proud—I reach a breaking point, get overwhelmed and the floodgates open. It’s taken me a long time to realize this about myself and that it’s almost entirely out of my control. I’ve got a pretty thick skin, but to see me cry you wouldn’t know it. The tears almost work like an extra layer of armor, or a sleight of hand—masking whatever’s really going on underneath and distracting attention elsewhere. I wear my tears on my sleeve and keep my heart tucked away much deeper.

In middle school I went to a camp for two weeks in Florida that was sponsored by Sea World. It was an amazing experience and I had a blast. Each week started at Sea World and then we left on a bus for the hotel or cabins where we’d be staying. I snorkeled for a week off of Pigeon Key, got to see a sea turtle lay her eggs, and—one of my favorite parts—got to spend the night at Sea World at the beginning and end of the camp week. My program was actually a combination of two program weeks, which meant about half the kids left mid-way through and we got a new group that joined in for the second week. It also meant that I got to stay overnight at Sea World four times. Each night, we’d spread our sleeping bags out in the underwater viewing area of an exhibit. Twice in the manatees, once with the dolphins, and once with the sharks.

I’ve always been a light sleeper and whenever I’m camping, or at a sleep over, I’m almost always the last one asleep and the first one up. I remember lying on my back, facing the glass tank of the manatees, and watching them fall asleep, floating and bobbing near the surface of the water, lit from above by the moon and Orlando. When we got up, before leaving for the week, we got to walk around Sea World a bit before it was open to the public. By the beginning of the second week, the group of kids that were part of the combination package deal had learned the ropes, and we knew to stop at the dolphin exhibit first thing, no matter where in the park we’d slept the night before. Dolphins are incredibly social animals, and seeing them first thing in the morning is like being greeted by your dog when you get home from work. They’d do tricks for us, swim right up to the wall and butt our hands with their noses, spray us with water, roll over and let us rub their bellies. It really was amazing.

The other thing we’d always do in Sea World on the legs of each week was see a Shamu show. The first time it happened during the Shamu show, I chalked it up to homesickness and being tired. Shamu swam into the tank, the trainers stepped onto the platform, the music started, the lights went up, and tears started streaming down my face. I was totally shocked. Every time I tried to get it together, the trainer would grab Shamu’s fin and I’d lose it all over again. I wasn’t scared, I had no real ambition to become an animal trainer, no special affinity for whales, I didn’t resent Sea World for the forced captivity. But for whatever reason, throughout the entire show, I cried. And the next 3 times we watched the show over the course of the 2 weeks, I cried. Since then, inexplicably and predictably, every time I’ve seen a whale show, I’ve cried. When I was living in Madison I took my Little Sister (from BBBS) to Chicago to visit Shedd Aquarium and we got tickets for the dolphin show. I was 23 at the time and figured my crying-at-the-aquatic-show days were probably over. Not the case. The dolphins swam in, the trainers stepped out, and the familiar tears pricked at my eyes. I held it together better at 23 than I had at 12, but still, I cried.

I’ve yet to discover exactly what emotion/s overwhelms me to the point of tears during the whale/dolphin shows, but at least now I know to expect it.