Sunday, February 12, 2012

A Good Cry

I don't know about you but I love a good cry once in awhile. I find it to be a huge stress release. Fortunately or un, I am not a huge crier when it comes to my real life. I think at one point, when I was younger, I did but now its a rare occurrence that I do more then get choked up or a little misty eyed. I'll cry in my car or alone in my bedroom after an overly stressful occurrence but not many times in front of others.

Unlike almost all of my female coworkers I don't think I have ever cried in front of our boss in the four years I have worked at this job, nor do I think I cried in front of my previous employer. As for in front of my husband...maybe a handful of times in the four years we have been together? And the majority of those times had NOTHING to do with him, rather he just walked in at the wrong time.

In fact, during my miscarriage I didn't really HAVE that 'good cry' that I probably needed. When I picked him up at the airport a few days after it happened, I had expectations of running into his arms and crying but life doesn't always play out the way it does in your head. He gave me a quick hug and kiss, and then ran to the bathroom...pretty anti climatic. I quietly drove him home while tears rolled down my cheeks but I didn't bother to tell him anything was 'wrong'. (Yes, I have a tendency to pick the wrong times to be a 'private' person and not share my problems)

Three weeks later when I found out I had to get my RH- shot NOW before the window closed, I called to tell him, he sounded more put out about leaving late to drive to my parents then concerned about me. I walked back to my office and enjoyed a 5 minute silent cry in the bathroom before I cleaned up and went back to work. I wrote him a long email explaining that I needed his support and that I had cried in the bathroom when I should have been able to cry on the phone to him. To his credit he called me back extremely apologetic that he didn't make my concern a priority but by then I was in control again.

Perhaps since I haven't really had a real good cry since my wedding (yeah that is a completely different story which I will tell another day, some parts amazing and others not so much), stress has been quietly building up inside of me. I keep saying that I'm NOT stressed when it is brought up as a possibility that maybe that is why my period hasn't arrived but now I am not so sure. Just because I don't feel like I'm at the end of my rope like I use to when I missed my period in the past (before I was on the pill), doesn't mean my body isn't retaining stress right now.

Although I am not a crier in 'real life' I AM a huge crier for sappy movies and novels. And I LOVE it. I was just discussing this topic tonight with my sister-in-law, on our way home from The Vow. Where, yes, I cried...big huge tears running freely down my face; quick, shuddering breathing...all and all a good messy looking cry, nothing pretty about how I looked walking out of the theater and it was GREAT.


There is just something releasing...relaxing...to allow yourself to get so caught up in a fictional world that you can let go and just cry like that. And the best part is that since it is a fictional world, when you wake up the next morning you aren't bombarded with all of the emotional baggage that sticks around when the drama is something from your real life. You can cry without having to worry about whether something will be solved or made worse because of it. You don't have to concern yourself with whether you will end out crying about it again or that you will still feel depressed. It is FREEING.

Now I had a nice cry in The Vow, the idea that he loved her that much, that he just wanted her to be happy, broke my heart and made me love the movie but it wasn't as messy of a cry as some of my past movie viewings have been and quite frankly I think its time that I have another really good, cry-yourself-to-sleep, cries. I just need to find one.

Previous memorable cry-yourself-to-sleep kinda movies for me have been:
  1. My Girl - this was my first crier. It ended with me bawling in my room at the age of 10 or 11, asking my parents, through heaving sobs, how they could LET me watch a movie like that! Little did I know that I would come to love movies like this.
  2. Love Story - I read the book first two years earlier and sobbed ridiculously until I fell asleep, so I didn't expect to do the same thing after the movie...I was wrong.
  3. Braveheart - Okay, when he knocks the Bruce's helmet off and sees it was him who betrayed him I LOST IT...cried so hard after that for the rest of the movie that I woke my sister and her friend up who had fallen asleep at the beginning of the movie because they had seen it already.
  4. Titanic - I had been told by my friends at the last movie we went to that they wouldn't go to another one with me if I cried through it in the theater (I was pretty noisy I guess), so I held it together while in the theater but as soon as I opened the car door and got in the back seat I was a HUGE mess. My father actually told me that if I couldn't pull it together I wouldn't be able to go to another movie...I think he just had know idea what to do with me.
  5. The Notebook - I had already seen the two previous Nicholas Sparks books made into movies (Message in a Bottle & A Walk to Remember) on DVD in the privacy of my home and had cried so I don't know why I thought it would be a great idea to go to this one ALONE at a theater. I had to run out of the theater when it was over and fell apart in my car where I sat in the parking lot for at least 15 minutes before I could drive myself home.
  6. My Sister's Keeper - I didn't get loud and embarrassing at this one but it was the earliest start for my crying. Within 10 minutes I was lost and continued silently for the rest of the movie. My shirt was soaked with my tears when I left.
I have cried in many other movies but these were my favorite. Ones that I fondly remember and would watch again....and probably cry in again too. I actually just saw the preview for the 3D version of Titanic that is coming out and I got choked up.

Now my question is what should I watch now to give me my next GOOD CRY? I think I really need it...

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