Cry Baby

I have become a putz. The Poster Child of Weepers.

I cry at everything. A beautiful rose. An awesome sunset. Weddings. Funerals. Peeling onions. A Hallmark commercial. Aw, c’mon. You have to be special kind of hardass not to cry at those. Methinks they are in cahoots with the Kleenex guys.

I cry at sappy endings of mushy movies. Beaches. Ghost. Together. Departures. Tsotsi. Parent Trap. Well, excuuuse me!! if I become maudlin at the sight of a family reconnected. My husband has banned me from watching “An Affair to Remember”. He finds it easier to understand the complex hydraulics of Bernoulli’s Principle rather than the waterworks of the sniffling pulp whimpering on the sofa. Deborah Kerr looks up at Cary Grant with those water-logged eyes and says, “Darling, don’t look at me like that. …I was looking up…It was the nearest thing to heaven…” and the dam gates burst forth.

I soak up other people’s misfortunes and miseries like a sponge and wring it out with waterworks. I feel their pain.

I cry when something bad happens. A pile up on the I 5. A friend gets cancer. Wasabi up my nose. A war. An oil spill (let’s be current here). A dead bee in my pool (Seriously. This is a cry for help).

I cry when something good happens. The 16-year old lost-at-sea sailor found. A homeless guy wins the lottery. A photo of a veteran coming home. Every Mother’s Day/Birthday/Anniversary Card from my kids. Something in my eye, I say. Allergies, I apologize. Please stop with the cards, I tell them. Put Hallmark and Kleenex out of business.

I cry when nothing happens. No chocolate in the pantry. No Jeopardy on TV. No call from my son. He should have reached by now. I am a worrier and a crier. Paranoia disintegrates into Panic Mode, straight to Lachrymal Mode. While I am pulling my hair out and beating my chest hysterically, he calls with an apology. The tears turn to anger. A shouting match ensues. And I wonder why he doesn’t call more often.

My doctor has an answer for this: I am apparently ‘peri-menopausal’.

My family has a solution for this: they google ‘senicide’ and ‘eskimo’ and ‘ice-floe’. But change their mind when I start crying.