“Devastating problems in your life can also be interesting, and they can interest you as they’re happening to you and as they’re causing you intense pain,” says Agnes Callard, a controversial professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago. I stumbled across this quote in “Agnes Callard’s Marriage of the Minds,” a New Yorker article that explores Callard’s opinions on love through her choice to leave her husband for one of her graduate students. I clicked on the article for the interpersonal drama (sue me, I love gossip) and stayed for the poignant one-liners (“We are desperate for information about how other people live because we want to know how to live ourselves, yet we are taught to see this desire as an illegitimate form of prying”). 

Devastating problems can be interesting, and perhaps that’s why so many post- pieces are tender explorations of people’s most difficult traumas. Though joy fills this magazine’s pages too, it’s undeniable that there is something compelling about turning a difficult thing into words. It’s like taking a stone and turning it in the palm of your hand, feeling the weight of it, and maybe, someday, throwing it back into the water. 

I have written about devastating problems in my life in post- before (see: here and here). Despite being no stranger to showcasing my vulnerability on the internet for all to see, the current devastating problem I’m going through feels different. I’m not ready to talk about it in an article linked to my very unique first and last name (I’m so Googleable—it’s ridiculous). Yet, I still wanted to write about my pain, sadness, and anger; to do otherwise would feel, to me, like lying by omission. How do you write about a devastating problem without going into too much detail about the problem itself? 

I originally planned to write a quirky listicle entitled, “The 10 Best Places to Cry on Campus!” The first item was going to be “1. In your history class on American Empire. No one will give you a hard time—they’ll just think you’re really moved by the course content!” But the reality is, as I’ve gone through the most difficult week of my life in college thus far, there is nothing funny about sobbing in the back of lecture. So instead, here’s a list of observations from my last week of crying in public at Brown (CIP@B, if you will). Half-advice, half-autoethnography, I hope this list is helpful to anyone else going through a devastating problem in their life. 

1. Crying on the Main Green will give you a main character complex that makes you feel just a little bit better about what you’re going through. I personally recommend the steps of the John Carter Brown Library or the tables at the top of the Campus Center for increased cinematic effect. The only risk is that someone you know may see you, but I’ve noticed that if they wave from a far enough distance (even 10 feet), the vast majority of friends and acquaintances won’t even notice you’re crying. Honestly, it’s a pretty safe campus when it comes to people not recognizing that you’re crying. I don’t know what that says about our student body.

2. The last person in the world you want to see will inevitably pass by if you cry in public often enough. Though it will be annoying, the absurdity of their presence in the exact same part of campus as you at your lowest moment will, again, make you feel like the main character. The universe may be terrorizing you, but it also feels deeply humorous to have so much of its attention. 

3. It’s very hard to violently sob with a heavy tote bag on your shoulder. Humanities majors, I’m looking at you. It will slide off. All your stuff will fall on the sidewalk in front of you. And you will laugh, through choked sobs, at just how pitiful you look in the wet, New England winter, scraping your possessions off the damp, salted pavement. 

4. Crying in class is amazing if you have any lecture courses. I highly recommend walking to the back, opening up your laptop to hide behind, and just letting the tears fall. The back of a lecture hall is a surprisingly secluded place, and private locations to cry in are few and far between at this school. Some water may get on your notebook, but who cares? The professor posts the slides on Canvas anyway. 

5. Crying in the wind will just make you feel worse. It will feel like your tears are freezing to your face, and as the wind whips against your wet cheeks, you’ll feel like the most miserable person in the world, which I personally have found to be an unhelpful feeling as I navigate my devastating problem. Especially if you’re a California kid like me, crying in the wind will just make you wish you’d gone to UCLA or UC Berkeley, where maybe you’d be having the same devastating problems, but at least the weather would be nice. 

6. Crying in the shower is boring. It’s nice if you want privacy, but there’s nothing to look at except the clump of hair in the drain or your body wash. If you live in a dorm that struggles to have consistent hot water like I do, the sudden bucket of ice water will just make you feel pathetic. 

7. Crying on the phone to your mom, if that’s the kind of relationship you have, is nice, but don’t do it if you a) have T-Mobile and b) are on North Campus. The wind, combined with your choked-up voice and lack of cell service, will make it impossible for her to hear what you’re crying about. 

8. I can’t recommend crying before bed enough. Between the bold blend they have at the Ratty and the Andrews cold brew, Brown students are constantly wired. I know I can’t be the only one who has felt my heart racing before bed and thought, “Maybe I shouldn’t have impulsively drunk three cups of coffee at the V-Dub this morning.” A true, drawn-out, guttural sobbing sesh in your bed will lead to the best sleep of your life. 

9. A movie that you know will make you cry is a great way to induce yourself to cry if you know that you need to, but it’s just not coming out. For me, that movie is All That Breathes, a documentary that details the uphill battle of two brothers trying to save kites (as in the bird) in New Delhi. Though not exactly the same, it makes me miss Kathmandu, which I’ve been doing a lot of lately (I recently changed Siri to Indian English to deal with the homesickness). As a history major whose work mostly focuses on Nepal, it’s such a strange feeling to be at this predominantly white school, preparing to write a thesis about a place I so desperately miss. All That Breathes reminds me of that central paradox of my life right now, so it can always get a sob out of me, even those ones that are buried deep. 

10. The best cries, though, are those that are not had alone. On a walk last week with my lover in the snow, I cried at a rabbit we saw. Thinking of how small they are in such a big world made me tear up, and what pushed me over the edge into sobbing territory was thinking of the people I’ve lost in this life being reborn as rabbits in the next one. As I began to cry, he put his arms around me, and I realized that in a week full of crying in public, this one was easily the best cry of them all.