Crying at movies? I wish…

Nobody sees when you are lying in your bed
And I wanna crawl in with you
But I cry instead
–Love Ridden/Fiona Apple

Two drifters, off to see the world
There’s such a lot of world to see
We’re after the same rainbow’s end, waitin’ round the bend
My Huckleberry Friend, Moon River, and me
–Moon River/J. Mercer

In life, some of us are shouters. Some of us are sulkers. Some of us are cryers. I am one of the cryers.

There are a lot of types of crying, and I am afflicted with most of them. I cry when I am sad, when I am happy. I bawl like a baby at a sad movie, or at a happy one. I laugh until I cry. I cry when I feel powerless, or when I am furious or frustrated. There are certain songs that always make me cry. I cry at weddings and funerals. I cry when people are mean to me, or when people say nice things about me.

There are a few periods in my life in which I have been essentially numb, but for the most part I am an all-purpose cryer, and have always been.

The thing that I hate about crying, aside from the way it makes me ugly, is that people assume that tears equal hysteria or irrationality. Or worse, that the tears somehow indicate that your basic argument, if you have one, is invalid because you are expressing it through tears.

A lot of people are simply not able to listen to someone who is crying.

That isn’t necessarily always a bad thing. It has gotten me out of trouble more than once. More often, though, it has gotten me patronized or dismissed as silly. Which of course leads to feeling even more powerless, frustrated and angry…and straight to more tears.

Vicious cycles are fun, aren’t they?

Crying at movies or books is my favorite sort of tear fest. So cathartic. There are some movies I have a Pavlovian response to at this point. “It’s A Wonderful Life” for instance. It used to only make me cry when George’s brother Harry comes in at the very end and calls George the richest man in town. Gradually, though, I started having anticipatory tears. Now I start to cry as soon as George finds Zuzu’s petals in his pocket and I enjoy every second.

James Taylor’s song “Shower the People” also does it.

Once you tell somebody the way that you feel, you can feel it beginning to heal

And it’s true.
Especially if you have a good cry in the car after you tell them.

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