Things that make me cry...

I just started writing a list of things that I might want to write about in future posts. My goodness, who knew? And of course I want to talk about them NOW.

I'm sort of fascinated by the things that make me cry. And by the things that don't make me cry. I was raised in a somewhat ... restrained ... home - strong emotions were not encouraged. If you were too happy, you should restrain yourself because that other shoe would soon drop. If you were too down, you should just get over it. You get the picture. I'm sure this had some longlasting effect on me (duh!).

I have often said that I never or rarely cry. I was going to write this post about how weird that is. So I started the list of things that make me cry, which I intended to follow with a counterpoint of things that don't make me cry. But keep reading and you'll see how that turned out:

I cry when I watch videos of flash mobs belting out the Hallelujah Chorus - it is a powerful song and I love it, but I also love the surprise of flash mobs, just bringing music to random places for no reason other than to do it. I cry whenever I'm in a choir that sings The Battle Hymn of the Republic and sometimes even at sporting events singing the Star Spangled Banner, and certain hymns in church. I cry when my kids or my nieces or nephews have certain events going on...like my niece getting calling in the starting line up for one of her teams, or my kid playing her piano piece for her first recital. I cry when I think about putting my dog to sleep last year. I cry sometimes at weddings and almost always at funerals. I cry when I'm so mad or frustrated that I want to hit something. Incidentally, sometimes I cry with real tears and even noises - many times I just well up and can't speak - I'm counting all that as "crying." I cry afterwards if something has scared me to death (the time my kids pulled the TV down on themselves, for instance).

But I didn't cry when I got married, or found out I was pregnant or even when the kids were born. I didn't cry either time my husband announced he needed to go to CD treatment (neither time had prior warning that this was coming). I don't cry on the rare occasions that my husband and I fight.

I had an experience once of describing myself as "shy" and having my friend tell me I probably needed to rethink my self-description as I was the least shy person he knew....I'm thinking this is another one of those times since it appears I cry a LOT.