Happy Tears, Rough Tears

I'm a sap. I admit it. I tear up every time I hear the National Anthem. Same with Lee Greenwood's "I'm Proud to Be an American" and about 50 other songs. When I lived in New York City, I'd go down a few blocks to applaud and cheer as the New York City Marathon runners would come off the bridge from Queens into Manhattan, and those amazing athletes would bring tears to my eyes. I sob at movies when some wonderful person dies or when two lovers or family members reunite, especially the second time I see them when I know what's going to happen. Tonight's Olympics opening ceremonies and the debut of "We Are the World" are guaranteed to launch me into what Oprah calls "the ugly cry."

Commercials from Hallmark, Kodak, McDonald's and even Budweiser (that sweet Clydesdale that didn't make it onto the team and trained for a year with the dog and finally did) get the waterworks flowing. If I'm with someone else, I try to think about anything else as I dig my fingernails into my palms. In movies when I'm with someone else, I have to really concentrate to take myself out of the movie mindset and think about traffic, taxes or dinner so I don't blubber to the point of embarrassing my movie mate. If I'm alone I stay through the credits as much to compose myself as to see who did what.

As one person put it, I'm an "ocean of emotion."

And then there's the rough cry. Like when I'm walking through my mom's house and it hits me that she is forever gone, that I'm there to dismantle 25 years of her life -- and mine, since it's been my second home for that long as well. I am good at distracting myself with constant noise -- tv, radio, CDs, etc. -- and stuffing my emotions. But once in awhile they bubble to the surface anyway, sometimes at quite inconvenient times.

I think that crying in movies or books or during songs can be therapeutic and cathartic. I often am aware that a cry that starts out to be about the characters in a movie seeps over into a cry about my mom or dad (both deceased, my mom as of just a few weeks ago) or about those suffering in Haiti or even across town. I think that a good long cry, regardless of its origin, cleans out the tension and the sadness from a body much like driving for awhile at constant relatively high speeds cleans out the junk from an automobile.

I just wish I could schedule these teary sessions when I'm alone and when I don't have anywhere I have to be until I can recover and touch up my make-up. But life doesn't work that way. In fact, life doesn't work the way I want it to in many ways, such as when people suffer or loved ones die. That's what triggers the tears in the first place. Whether they are happy tears or rough tears, the biology is the same even if the psychology isn't. As long as I'm going to look ugly, when I can, I choose the happy tears.