Thought of another one:
I can’t see a yellow Labrador Retriever grin without tearing up. They mostly only do it when running toward someone they love.
I sometimes cry during powerful musical pieces, especially live. I just get so overwhelmed by how cool they are that I start to tear up. For example, hearing Peter Gabriel’s “Signal to Noise” live was just…amazing. I’m glad it was dark in the auditorium.
Sometimes (not usually–I have to be in just the right/wrong mood) I’ll cry when I see pictures of kittens or cats, especially strays or ones living outside. I worry about them being so fragile, and there are so many horrible people out there who might hurt them.
One time I was really, really depressed. It seemed like nothing was going right in my life. Then I heard a piece of music on the radio - a piece of music I had really liked before, a ridiculously happy piece of music, and, somewhat to my surprise, I burst into tears. I think it was because I thought I’d never be happy again, or maybe I was sad that I was so depressed I couldn’t enjoy the music at that moment.
Your wife rolls her eyes at the expression of your grief? 
Well, this thread got serious fast. Wesley, as long as there is mental illness in the world I will never believe in a benevolent Creator, and I’m sorry you lost the life lottery in that regard. I’m also sorry you have had so little compassion in your life. I hope you take some comfort in knowing that we all feel weird and alone and afraid from time to time, and the fact that we all feel it means that we are not alone. Sometimes when I’m really hurting I think of all the other people in the world who hurt for the same reason, and it makes me feel better somehow.
[QUOTE=Dung Beetle]
I realized that he was a dad, doing a dad thing, for a female child he’d been around all her life. The witnessing of such a thing suddenly overwhelmed me and I had to step out for a moment.
[/QUOTE]
I’m sure the circumstances are very different, but I can relate to this. I never had a father worth a damn, my Mom was married 4 times and between drinking and abuse they all fucked up royally. I technically have a person I call Dad, who is my biological father, but I didn’t speak to him for the 10 most formative years of my life (age 12 to age 22) and the primary emotion I associate with him is guilt for not feeling warm fuzzy Dad thoughts about him. The only reason I spend any time with him is because I feel sorry for him.
The one thing I wanted as a kid was a father, I got 4 candidates and they all sucked. It was like life sent them just to rub it in. Every time I got my hopes up - crushed.
I deliberately avoid thinking about the fact that some people have fathers, and if I am alone, yeah, I cry sometimes.
Last Spring (2012), I ran my third half-marathon. That morning I woke up and did wanted nothing less than to run that stupid race, I was tired, under-trained, the weather was cold and rainy but more than any other reason, I had been sexually assaulted earlier that week and hadn’t slept well since. It happened at work, while on training and I was struggling with it.
I decided to run anyway. I wanted my body to be as tired as my brain was, I wanted to purge all of that horrible feeling that had bottled up for almost a week. At the start line, I happened to meet up with a co-worker that knew what had happened and offered some comfort. Anyone else and it may have sounded hollow, but he also happened to be a father of a fallen soldier. I had even worked at his son’s funeral.
I ran that race and at the finish line, burst into tears. I am sure people thought it was joy at the finish, but I was just sad and deflated. I cried all the way to my car and drive home crying. I wished my family or someone had been there to hug me at that moment, but it was okay.
My mom suffered a long, slow decline and then death from Alzheimer’s. I had not cried during her illness or at her death because it was just too enormous and overwhelming an event for me to even cry.
A year or so later, I was at a farmer’s market and there was an African band there, playing one of those beautifully melodic, joyous African songs. The beautiful weather that day combined with the happy lilting music operated weirdly on me: it felt like something inside suddenly broke and I was suddenly crying uncontrollably in public. I had to walk rapidly to my car to get out of sight, sobbing all the way.
That was strange.
Thank you, ThelmaLou. Your story touched me. I’m sorry for your loss, as well.
I understand wanting to hold a memory of someone loved and lost, even a painful one. Early on, I found myself feeling guilty when I forgot my grief for a few moments. The grief really never changes. The periods of time between just get longer.
“Weird. I am weird.”
No, Alice. We call that ‘loving’.
Loving. OK?
Now you got me all teared up.
Yeah, I’ll take a hug. Thank you. I am trying to live the philosophy of one day at a time. I understand why people in prison or who are addicts say this, focusing on the horizon is too overpowering.
I’m just so damaged. And I’ve improved, people who see me post here can probably attest that I am not as insecure, defensive or neurotic as I was maybe 6-8 years ago. But some tears in your soul don’t heal.
Mine’s not as touching but here it is. I set a date of Sept 1 2002 to quit smoking. I bought patches, got my support system revved up, ready to go. That morning, I smoked my last cigarette and cried. Cigarettes had been my companions and comfortors for many years. I didn’t know if I could manage life without them, even though I knew they were killing me.
I got through it, though, and that last cigarette on Sept 1 2002 really was my last cigarette.
Christmas when I was 15th years old. I had a nervous breakdown the entire day, because it hit me that none of the materialistic things I was getting could assuage my hunger. Of course at the time I had absolutely no inkling as to what could. My family tried to soothe me but since they didn’t have what I needed it didn’t help.
During the summer when I turned 18 however someone did fully grasp why I was crying (in bed one morning), and that led to a bunch of other things…
Husband finds me, standing stock still and weeping, in the back of the pantry. Over a few bits of spilled cat kibble!
I had lost my beautiful husky dog a month earlier, he loved the cat’s food but only got any I spilled, while dishing it up in the pantry. I never, ever had to sweep it up, I never stepped on it, he would nose it out wherever it fell!
When I spilled some, that morning, I realized I’d have to clean that up! And with that thought, just burst into tears. I was caught very off guard by this and felt badly for poor hubby, stumbling into it!
I had an elderly friend (hell, when I met her, she was probably the age I am now :rolleyes: ) who had had a very rocky, contentious, troubled, charged relationship with her father. He had smoked and so did she her whole life. When she developed emphysema and the doc told her she had to quit, it made her very sad. Smoking was her link to her father. He was long deceased, but smoking still made her feel connected to him and their unresolved relationship. She just couldn’t give it- and him- up.
Smoking is much more than a physical addiction/habit. That beautiful package with your little cylindrical friends always ready to keep you company. Many congratulations for giving it up! A friend just got back from New York City and said ciggies were $14 per pack. Yikes! When my dad used to buy them at the PX in the 50s, a cartoon cost $2.50.
I’m sorry. My mom is still around, but my dad died unexpectedly when I was 21, over 20 years ago now.
I cry a bit every Father’s Day. We end up hosting it for my husband’s father, who I loathe (he abused his wife and kids when he was younger, and is still an asshole), and he never liked my dad. So while we’re getting the house ready, I end up crying for a little while. Other times too, but always on Father’s Day these days. I’m not sure I would cry that day if we didn’t host a “celebration” though.
For reasons I can’t explain I wept hard when I saw Sweet Honey In The Rock come on stage. They hadn’t even started singing.
I do this too, and hope that the tendency to tears will stop or at least slow down before my kids catch me doing it in public. I tear up when I watch my daughter play soccer, when the other one is on stage, or even when they are just hanging with friends in the backyard. Watching them and their wonderful glorious youth is just too much for me sometimes.
Recently my older daughter (14) accepted an invitation to go with another family for a beach vacation this summer, and every time I think about it I cry. It’s not her going away–she’s done that before–but rather a whole host of injured-inner-child feelings I have about my own childhood, the beach, other people’s families, etc., etc. I want to send her away with kisses and hugs, but I’m afraid I’ll be weeping my eyes out.
Well, for the first 5 years or so, she cut me some slack, but she figures after that, I should have my shit together.
I just tell her she’ll be here one day, and I won’t say I told you so.
It’ll make her furious! 
Sorry, the MMO City of Heroes. It’s been discussed at length in a couple of recent threads and I thought I could get away with the acronym.
I’ll bite. What’s MMO?
Grief has its own timetable, and five years is NOTHING. You do have your shit together because you haven’t shut down your heart.