I’m not talking about a few tears leaking down your cheeks or your eyes getting a little moist… I mean a time when you straight up were fully crying, maybe covering your face, maybe having a few hitching sobs, maybe getting a runny nose.
Asking because I was talking with a friend earlier about guys and crying and how it always seems like men are more afraid to admit that they’ve cried about something, so I figured I’d see how many could freely admit they cry and actually talk about the last time they’ve done so.
I rarely cry, but the last time I did, it caught me completely by surprise. I was reading a thread here posted by a Doper who had to have his dog put to sleep. I have a very soft spot for dogs. The Doper wrote so eloquently about how much his family had loved the dog and dug a grave and had a funeral for her, that before I knew it, the tears started flowing and I was wracked with sobs. This came completely out of the blue and I felt like I had been hit with a sledgehammer.
I’m reccently seperated from my wife. I don’t mind that part, but at one point about 2 weeks ago it had been 3 weeks since I’d seen my kids because my wife won’t cooperate on setting up a time when I can see them. I finally got to take them to lunch. I only saw them for about 2 hours but it meant the world to me.
That night I cried like a baby.
I honestly haven’t cried like that since I was 12.
A couple of years ago, the BBC ran a survey to identify an unregarded classic book. The winner was “The Snow Goose”, by Paul Gallico. They produced a new radio dramatisation to celebrate. I knew the story, I had read it as a kid, so I wanted to listen.
We were going to a concert in Birmingham on the day of the broadcast - I turned on the radio as we drove through the city to a park where we planned to have a picnic before heading to the NEC. There was about 10 minutes of the play left by the time we parked up. My wife and son had not been listening to the play, so I sat in the car to listen to the last few minutes, and they got out.
Just as well - the last 5 minutes were spent with me having tears streaming down my face, running nose, grabbing tissues, one or two sobs, the works. It was such a moving story and presentation. I was completely lost in the pathos and nobility of the ending. It was just as well I had managed to park up before that point - I could not have been driving at that point.
After it was over, I took a few minutes, dried my face, and went off for our picnic. I haven’t had the courage to find the show and listen to it again, though.
When my wife died in January 1999, I cried a lot. Several times a day I would end up in full blubbering mode. This lasted a week or so. Since then I have teared up at emotional moments or while watching a movie or reading a book, but I haven’t cried hard since 1999.
Yesterday, when a supervisor told me that a student I taught was blown away after she got a B+ on a math test in class she was failing. Not out in the open mind you (went to the bathroom for a bit). Regular occurence for me, always tears of joy, mind.
I cried, but not hard, when my mom recently passed away. 5 weeks ago, I think. She had raised me to be pretty fiercely independent, and I’d cut my regular ties to her. (Most of my family is like this, and it’s always hard to explain to people that we don’t see each other more than once every couple of years, despite mostly being local.)
The last big bawling session was after a highly emotional coda to the breakup of my ex-fiancee and me a couple of years ago. The weekend after she broke up with me, I told her to retrieve her stuff from my place. That “move out” was horrible for both of us. An hour and a half of yelling at each other, arguing, turning down pleas for another attempt, saying stinging rejoinders. I wouldn’t let her in my apartment, but placed the boxes outside around her. After I had placed the last box in front of her, I asked for her copy of my house key. After cajoling, she finally admitted she still had it, then began getting it off of her key ring, and it was her realization that this was the final brick in the wall now built between us. She fell to her knees, sobbing hysterically, barely managed to get it off, and shakily handed it up. I took it, said “I love you. Goodbye.,” and closed the door. I sat on the couch emotionally broken, and listened to her gut-wrenching sobs from behind the closed door. I broke down completely, crying so hard that it physically hurt and I couldn’t breathe without choking, and just ended up laying on the couch in a fetal position, sobbing until I fell asleep. I found out later that much the same had happened for her. A neighbor came out to find out why she was crying, and ended up moving the boxes into her truck since she couldn’t stop. She then fell asleep crying in the truck cab, and ended up not leaving my place until sometime in the night.
I’ve been weepy from time to time over the past couple of years as I’ve watched my dad’s health falter and faced the realization that he may not be around five years from now (and almost certainly will not be around ten years from now).
The last time I was really emotionally destroyed was five years ago, when I learned that a friend had been killed in a motorcycle accident.
Two weeks ago, for pretty much the entire weekend.
I won’t get into details, but let’s just say that it was a hippie dippie woo woo gathering. Everybody cried. I wasn’t particularly sad, but it was like the relief valves opened up and I couldn’t shut them off. It was fucking awesome.
The best part was talking to a woman who didn’t want to be there, didn’t want to share her emotions, and was completely closed off. Within minutes I had her sobbing like a baby. We’ve been like best friends ever since. Yesterday she told me that that was her favorite part of the weekend.
Two years ago, my Dad was given about 48 hours, but he hung on for 8 days. We kept him at home, and my brothers and I were taking round-the-clock shifts sitting with him, giving him his meds, keeping him clean, etc. It was emotionally exhausting, on top of not getting regular sleep.
On about the fifth day of watching this once-vital man turning into an ever more withered shell of his former self (It wasn’t supposed to take this long,dammit!), my brother relieved me after a late-night shift, and I went back into the guest room, shut the door, and just completely lost it. My brother must have heard me, because the next morning he practically ordered me and my wife to get out of the house for a few hours. It actually did a world of good, as I don’t think I’d left my parents’ property the entire time until then.
I got teared/choked up a couple of times after he passed away, but my one big cathartic cry was *before *he died.
March 24th, when my Dad passed away. Mostly right before he passed away, when I found myself overcome by regret and the path not taken (by him, not by me).
Before that, February 1st when my first son was born. Cried more–and I mean, bawled–over the next couple of days than I ever have in my life. I was incredibly happy, but at the same time suddenly aware of and horrified by the existence/ramifications of child abuse. I managed to stay strong until I showered, then I’d let go so my wife couldn’t hear me.
Nothing since then. I consider myself an emotionally available person, but I only having “a good cry” is a pretty rare thing. Like, years may pass between them.
I know exactly how that feels. I cried when my ex left me and took the kids, I stayed in the house. One of the hardest days ever to come home to an empty house. I cried then. I still sometimes cry after taking them home, two and a half years later.
I cried a little at my dad’s funeral. And I sometimes shed a few tears and poignant moments. My favorite though happened about 10 years ago. I had been in a funk. I lay down for a nap and had an incredibly vivid dream of my youth. It seemed so real and recreated my youth perfectly. It ended as I stepped in the back door of our home. I awoke to tears streaming down my face. And they wouldn’t stop. Oddly though, I was no longer in a funk and I wasn’t feeling sad - just the opposite, I felt really good. I think the tears lasted for about 10 minutes. I sometimes wistfully think it would be nice to have such a dream again.
I cried several (multiple?) times during the first year of my separation. When I first found out I wouldn’t have a live to return to I was in Iraq and in a bit of a stressful situation. That did not help my emotional state. A few times after I got back dealing with the ****. I easily get misty watching movies and such but not a crier usually.
My midlife crisis of about 9 years ago topped all the others - more sobbing than when my father died, or my grandmother, or when I got divorced, or any of the other times. It seems in retrospect as if I was crying for all those other times. My family was afraid I was crazy, which I was, and that the presentable me would never come back, which it did. The thing about midlife crises is that the awful truths you realize, which are too horrible to be true, remain true. However, once they are true for long enough, it isn’t a crisis anymore, and you go on. Who’d have thought…
I don’t recall crying as a child so it must have been prior to age 6. As an adult my first cry when I was baout 36 when nephew died. I believe I was feeling my brothers pain. Again the following year when my father died and then again a few years later going through a divorce. The divorce cry was not the bawling type but my eyes would just well up and flow tears when I got into my car. This went on off and on for almost a year. Certain types of songs seemed to set it off.