On Crying

“I didn't know why I was going to cry, but I knew that if anybody spoke to me or looked at me too closely the tears would fly out of my eyes and the sobs would fly out of the throat and I'd cry for a week.” —Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

It has occurred to me that I use the phrase "I cried" perhaps a little too often. What I mean to signal to others when I say "I cried" is that I have experienced something intensely important or impactful. As in, "I cried after I read that part of the book." Or, "I was so happy to see my friend that I cried." When I tell someone that I cried about something, I expect them to react with such profound awe and desire to experience the thing because I have branded it with my "I cried" stamp. But I have now realized that I have been too liberal with my "I cried" stamp simply because I cry too much.

It wasn't always this way, you know. In my past life I cried very little. I cried appropriately when tragedy struck. I cried when I watched Little Women and Remember the Titans. And in high school I mostly cried to my mom about how my hair was too frizzy and I couldn't do anything about it. The typical reasons why any human would cry. 

Now, as you may know, I am simply a wreck of emotions. Much like the actress Kristen Bell, if I am not between a three and a seven on the emotional scale, I'm in tears. Experiencing any sort of artistic beauty: crying. Experiencing excessive feelings of joy or gratitude: crying. Experiencing sadness or lamentation: crying. Hopping mad: crying. Laughing too hard: crying. 

I can pinpoint exactly when this inability to control my tear ducts all began. When I was sixteen, I decided that after repeatedly watching Little Women (so many times that I'm surprised our tape [yes, tape] lasted that long), I should probably just read the book. So I did. It would be reasonable to assume that because I had seen the movie and had watched Claire Danes' performance as Beth a million times, I would not be in any way shocked or dismayed when Beth died in the book. Well with what I have previously mentioned about crying, that is actually a silly assumption on your part. Because I bawled. For hours. I shuffled into the kitchen, clutching the book, weeping inconsolably, hoping that my mother would know what to do about it. A book had never made me cry before. I was so confused. 

From that very moment on, I was on the slippery slope towards becoming the world's most emotional creature. During the rest of my high school years, I worked hard to keep my tears at bay, but once I started college there was nothing I could do. I read Where the Red Fern Grows and wailed. I read The Book Thief and sobbed. I would see an adorable child and whimper. During the final Harry Potter film, I yowled. Just the preview of War Horse was enough to open the floodgates. Now I weep, wail, blubber, boohoo, and snivel at the tiniest of instances.  

And I am afraid there is no cure. 

So if I have ever told you about an experience that made me cry, and used it as some sort of recommendation or system of evaluation, I apologize. I realize now that I am not your average human, because crying is my body's most primal reaction to any sort of stimuli. Now if I tell you "I cried," you can take it to mean that on the average person's scale, the experience was probably simply ordinary. But as for me, I am sure I will be beside myself.