The Boys Are Blue At Night.

He cries himself to sleep every night because he doesn’t know what to do. He has no one to turn to. He’s ashamed when he cries because real boys don’t do that.

Right?

All his life, he’s tried his best to toughen up. He’ll look the part and act out. He’ll fail a class or two and maybe get suspended because he knows they’ll say he’s just a boy being a boy.

The girls say mean things to him, they tell him he’s stupid and laugh at his insecurities, so he listens to music and pretends he can’t hear them, but he can.

Now they’re stuck in his head.

At home he stares at himself in the mirror, all he sees are the insecurities, all he hears are the jokes made at his expense.

But it’s okay, he’s one of the cool guys, they do this because they like him.

Right?

Who knows.

He’s joined the work force now, he’s contributing to society - it’s time to be a man.

What do men do?

1. They don’t cry.

2. They’re super strong.

3. They take out the garbage.

4. They don’t hide when they’re angry and frustrated.

5. They don’t get sad.

That’s about all he knows and he’s terrible at almost every single one of them. He doesn’t believe he’s doing his life right.

Who’s going to tell them that none of that makes any sense?

I want to tell him to be who he is and who he wants to be. I want to tell him to love without fear and cry without shame.

It’s not a sin to be sad. It’s not a crime to be weak. There’s no fault in you if you can’t seem to fit into the one role you were given without a thought to who you actually are.

I want you to know that nobody knows your true role and purpose but you, no one knows the part you were given to live and no one else can perform it quite like you.

You are one of a kind and brilliant, you are allowed to feel.

Stop carving at your edges so that they fit and stop beating yourself up because you don’t look like him.

It’s okay to hang out “like a girl”. It’s perfectly fine if you don’t lash out when you’re angry.

Who told you that boys don’t have feelings or that men don’t cry?

Why did they lie to you?

What else did they say?

How much damage did they inflict on you?

Is it okay if we fix it now? Can we try to make things better?

The role that they told you to play is making you rotten, it’s spoiling you from the inside out and no one wants to be around you anymore. You’re becoming public enemy #1 and it’s not even who you are.

I hope we can get rid of all the wreckage, we all want to see your true colors shine.

It’s okay if that scares you right now, maybe you think you won’t be accepted.

Maybe you think you wouldn’t accept yourself.

How about we take things slowly, step-by-step until we’re where we need to be, where you can reach your full potential.

You aren’t too far gone.

All hope is not lost.

We’re all rooting for you, we want you to get better.

You’re not a terrible person just because you’ve done some terrible things and we’re not going to blame it all on your upbringing.

But you might feel a lot better if you let it all go.

So go ahead and cry through the night, if you need to, but promise that you’ll wake up in the morning and let us in.