A time you've cried and no one would understand why.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
41

I started crying last night when I discovered one of my shelter dogs was not euthanized.

I knew she’d been suffering from kennel stress and was quite literally bouncing off the walls of the kennel. We even gave her the nickname “parkour dog” because she would run and push off the kennel walls. When I was there Saturday, there had been a note saying she’d been aggressive to another dog (very vague, but not uncommon for a bored dog in a small kennel). So yesterday when looked for her in the quarantine kennel, and she wasn’t there, I assumed the worst. A dog that’s that stressed isn’t living a happy life and, sometimes it’s for the best they be put down. I could have asked, but when a dog disappears from quarantine, there’s really only one reason. I was sad, but I didn’t cry. It happens.

Last night, I discovered through the shelter networking page that she was in foster care! I just burst into tear and started sobbing. Suburban Plankton was obviously startled. I just said, “It’s Becca!” and he was like, “Oh, I’m so sorry.” “No, no, she’s in foster!” He was confused because while I do sometimes tear up when a dog is adopted, I rarely burst into uncontrollable sobbing. I tried to explain why I was crying that she wasn’t dead, when I hadn’t even cried when I thought she was. I’m not even sure why I was crying like that.

42

Um, in all good humor, is Google down or something?

Massive Multiplayer Online [game].

43

Ever since I was a kid singing Both Sides Now in the back yard with my friends I have been a fan of Judy Collins. Fast forward to my mid 30’s and I was a volunteer with the local Arts Council and Judy Collins came to our little podunk town. Not only was I assigned to be her assistant’s assistant, but I stood with Ms. Collins in the wings in the darkened theatre while she sang the first verse of Amazing Grace a capella. I took the mic as she went onstage, turned it off and placed it back in it’s stand and rejoined my backstage buddies with tears streaming down my face. Not one person had a clue as to why I was so moved, and my explanations fell on deaf ears.

On an unrelated note, my mom is in the end of her liver disease (yes, sometimes it really is lupus) and I find myself choking up as tears well and spurt out of my eyes. When I am with family and friends it’s no big thing. At the grocery store (or any number of other places) I feel foolish to be suddenly crying in public, knowing that nobody understands why I am suddenly in tears.

44

And to add a little more detail - City of Heroes was a gigantic online computer role-playing game where you could create your own superhero or supervillain. They had their own “mythology” of known heroes and villains in that game world, and you started as a newbie, training under one of the well-known ones, and teaming up with other players to accomplish missions, whether it be to help save the city from threats or to BE one of those threats. You could pick your own powers from categories, you could design your own costume. You could fly or teleport around or even “super jump” like a human SuperBall toy.

So devoted happy players could, night after night, log in to this persistent world where you could make a name for yourself, chat with others, and go out to Save The World/Wreak Havoc.

Until the company that owned it shut down the servers. No wrap-up story to give you a “happily ever after,” nothing like that. Just a quick countdown. Boom. Your heroes/villains gone. No more nights of blasting across the skies of Paragon City like a comet. No more calling out to fellow heroes/villains to assist you in your mission, people who IRL might live down the block or downstate or across the world.

My husband and I stopped playing for a while when it became too graphics-intense for the computers we used, but we left regretfully and unwillingly. By the time we came back (after other games had taken our time and interest, and our computers had caught up again), it was nearly at the shutdown time.

I think one benefit of the game was that you weren’t playing Marvel or DC heroes. The story of Paragon City was from the game’s creators, and so unlike with the usual comic book superhero MMOs, you don’t feel like you’re either shoehorned into a known, static identity or sticking out as a written-in minor character in someone else’s big event. You begin as a newbie, sure, but you can make your own name for yourself.

And that’s one problem with MMOs, the other side of the coin to the benefit of the storyline and the persistent world. You make this character and go through this adventure that can occur over months or years… and then someday, someone might pull the plug and poof. Gone.

45

It’s weird, I’m forty-two years old and have hardly spared fathers a thought in all that time. But in the last few years, it’s really started to hit me.

Another tale of tears, maybe happier:

Last year, a few days before Christmas, I went to a small, locally-owned grocery store here in town. I hadn’t been before, but I’d heard good things. My son and I were poking around in the produce when suddenly a lady came out of the stockroom with a guitar. There were a couple of other folks following her with minor instruments like tambourines, and they started walking around the store, playing and singing “Feliz Navidad”. Customers stopped shopping and began singing along. My son looked and me and laughed; I started to laugh as well but wound up sobbing. Freaked him out a little. But seriously… a bunch of strangers singing together in a grocery store? Waaaaaaahhhhh! :slight_smile:

46

A fan took care of that. Grab a hankie.

47

If you ever want to deliberately end up a soggy sobbing emotional wreck, watch this. It’s from an Italian Fantasia-esque parody film called Allegro non troppo (I say “parody” but it’s actually quite dark in many places), and this segment is set to Sibelius’s “Valse Triste”. It absolutely destroys me every time. Note: contains a sad cartoon cat.

Apart from the above, I have a more recent story. My office recently sent me on a pilot of a new confidence-building course they had been pitched. It was a two-day course and rather intense - more group therapy than your standard management-jargon business course. For one exercise we were suppose to map out various past experiences, positive and negative, and what lessons we could take from both about moving forward and overcoming obstacles etc etc. So I went and sat in a quiet corner and thought about all my past experiences. And thought and thought and thought, for about half an hour, about all the things that had happened to me in my life, and the things I’d done and hadn’t done. Then I went to a stall in the men’s room and cried quietly for ten minutes.

Man, I got issues. Strangely, I’d still recommend the course to other people.

48

Oh, I’ve seen it. I don’t watch that one anymore. It’s just better that way.

49

When I’m on my kindle or phone, it’s a big nuisance to have to go to another web page to search.

50

I have no idea why, but disabled people bring me to tears. At the beginning of a local parade, the lead group was about 20 disabled, young adults. I had to hide my head in my hands to hide my tears.
Another time: I entered a Special Education classroom with about 10 autistic students. The teacher was reading a story and one beautiful little boy was simply staring into space. Again, the tears flowed and I had to leave the classroom. I don’t understand it, so I wouldn’t expect anyone else too either.

51

I cry quite a bit, at inconvenient times. Usually it’s something touching (tender moments between people, a kind concern towards me that I wasn’t expecting), or something that makes my heart ache, usually involving a story/thought of a neglected or abused child. Any kind of thought of children feeling unwanted/unloved makes my whole body ache. Hell, I’ve started crying in the middle of walking the dog on a sunny day. Last night I opened my eyes in the middle of the night, a tear fell out of my eyes, like it was sitting there, trapped behind my lids. I feel like I’m always on the verge of tears, the pain just sits there and the most subtle things will trigger it. It’s not just sadness, it’s an overwhelming feeling of beauty, vulnerability, our impermanence, etc. It’s the feeling that makes me feel most human. I still wish I could lighten up, though.

52

I cried at a Holiday concert in my kid’s elementary school, because I knew one of the girls onstage singing had lost her dad just a couple of months before. My mom died when I was around the same age as the girl.

53

When my son was born, I suddenly became unable to hold it together during TV commercials. I’d cry during ads for detergent. Anything with a kid in it, and especially those with babies, could move me to tears

The other thing that made me cry was my friend’s picture with her newborn baby on her chest. She’s so lucky. I only got to hold my son for 2 minutes before they rushed him off the NICU. He’s fine now, healthy and active and full of life, and I’m so incredibly grateful for that, but I still cry anytime I think too much about those hours that I missed when he was first born, when he was all alone.

54

I am your psychic twin. I’m glad I’m so sensitive, but it can be difficult. Hell on eye makeup, too. :frowning:

55

I was 40 years old when it happened to me. I had never shed a tear as an adult or for that matter anywhere in my memory. I was driving down the street with the new owner of the business I had sold giving him a tour of some of my accounts he would be taking over.
I stopped at a stop sign and watched as an extremely well dressed black man got off the bus and crossed the street in front of us carrying a briefcase. I imagined he was going across the street to the lilly white business park to apply for a job. I knew he didn’t stand much of a chance because he was black and no other reason. All of a sudden the unfairness of it just hit me like a brick and tears started flowing. The gentleman I was with at the time patted me on the back telling me he had gone through a divorce once and he understould. It was very ood.

56

I try to be a non-crier. I teach junior high, so toughness is essential. I taught through chemo, bald and sweating like a pig. I crushed the last joint of my middle finger at school last year, blood streaming everywhere. But the doctor’s office called at school and told me I had to have a lumbar puncture next week. I bawled like a baby out of pure frickin’ fear. Even talking about it next day got me a tad verklempt. I have had back problems since I was sixteen, and the dreaded lumbar puncture has always been the Worst Thing I Could Imagine. But the uncontrollable sobbing caught me off guard. And horrified half a dozen teenage boys.

57

All day today I’ve either gotten very angry or very sad at everything my boyfriend says or does, no matter how innocuous. I’ve cried twice today for no good reason (other than general anxiety over the fact that we’re moving soon, I’m guessing). He understands and helps me get through it.

58

For some reason, those musical flash mob videos always set me off. Most recently this one on facebook - Facebook

There’s just something about the beauty of the music, and the happiness of the people watching, and the idea that this can happen in real life, that makes me tear up.

59

About three years ago my Maternal Grandmother passed away. She was 94 years old. The house she lived in when she passed was the house she and my Grandfather had built on an empty lot on a street in So. Beverly Hills, CA.
This was the house my Mom grew up in from the age of about 12 years and my Uncle was 10. We spent (I am the youngest of four)many holidays and birthdays, etc… at this house. We grew up about 5 miles away.
Well, after the funeral and the dividing of possessions, the house needed work so it could be sold. My brother and I are both in our late 40’s now and we both are in the construction business. We spent about a month in the house doing major repairs. When it was about two days away from being finished, I sat in the living room, my brother under the house doing plumbing, and I just had this overwhelming sense of loss and sadness, because when we left in two days to go back to Northern California we would never set foot in that house again. Never. This was the only house my Grandparents lived in for the last 60 years. And it was to be sold. _
I sat and cried out loud, like a little boy who just saw his dog get hit by a car. My brother, very protective older brother, yelled from under the house asking what was wrong. He came crawling out from the crawl space and asked if I was hurt or something. I told him I was crying because I’ll never be in this house again. He said he understood, but I was the only one crying. I’m crying right now just thinking about that house and the memories I have.
I’m almost 48 years old and a tough tattooed electrician, that hold a blackbelt in Karate. I cant be tough all the time.

60

Loud noises make me cry, for reasons I don’t really understand. So being in a crowd of people singing the national anthem will make me cry, noisy live show scenes like the helicopter in Miss Saigon will make me cry, fireworks make me cry, and the opening scene of Twister made me cry when I saw it in the theater with big theater speakers.