I Don’t Cry. The fear of forgetting | by Elena Hart | Aug, 2025

The fear of forgetting

I don’t cry. If I do, it’s because of some TV show or film I’ve just seen. I just don’t cry. I’ve never let myself feel that emotion, because I don’t understand it — like, why cry over losing a loved one, over an injury, or even just a TV show?

We all know nothing is everlasting, but when that inevitable hurt comes — when you feel pain — people cry. It doesn’t fix things. In fact, sometimes you go numb or get a migraine from crying so much. People cry all the time, but for me, I cry at TV shows and films. In real life, I swallow my feelings, because crying doesn’t fix anything.

Crying at my grandad’s funeral didn’t bring him back. It just made me feel worse.

Crying because a guy I love wants to leave me didn’t help either. It made me sad and angry at the world.

This world we live in is so complex, with so many obstacles and paths to choose from, that you fear going down the wrong one. I’d go as far as to say it’s scary — and that’s all the more reason people cry. Because crying is easy. We cry in the hopes that maybe it’ll give us some kind of clarity. But for me, it just reminds me that it’s not about which path you take or whether your choices are right. It’s about the memories.

And my biggest fear of all is forgetting.

So for me, it’s easier not to have someone I love — because if I lose them, I risk forgetting. Forgetting their smell, their mannerisms, how they made me feel, the moments I spent with them. That’s something to cry over.
Because forgetting them is scarier than any moth or spider I might come across. And if you know me, you’ll know I’m petrified of those creatures.

So I stay numb. Because that pain — the pain of love and loss — is unbearable.
Everyone has a coping mechanism. Some people turn to religion and talk about heaven and an afterlife. Mine isn’t that hopeful. Mine is shutting down. Going numb. Putting up walls as protection.

I tell people not to touch me.
I act stern. Bossy.

Talking about feelings? That’s not me.
Because feeling everything all at once is so exhausting, I’d rather not feel anything at all. Not for anyone or anything. At least then, I won’t cry or hate the world or be left standing there, not knowing what I’m supposed to do with my life once the things or people I love are gone.

It may seem sad or lonely, but this is how I’ve learned to be. I struggle with showing emotions, so I turn to TV and film. I get invested in characters. And when something happens to them, it gives me a strange kind of reality check. I compare it to my own life — and sometimes, it makes me emotional. Because I just wish I could be like that.

You know — those happy chick flicks where all the crappy stuff happens in five minutes, then it’s resolved, and everyone finds their happily ever after.
No one dies.
No one really suffers.

But that’s not our life. That would be too easy.
We don’t get to live in peace. Life kicks us in the backside, throws loss, heartbreak, illness, war at us — no matter which path we take.

We just have to keep going, in the hopes that one day, we’ll get to tell our grandchildren, or write our own memoir.

Despite it all — the numbness, the not crying — I do wish I could just break down my walls. Let people see me for who I really am. Show that I care. That I want more out of my life.

So yes, I’ll keep watching those shows.
Because maybe, just maybe, one day soon, I’ll have my own happily ever after.