I don't like to think of myself as overly emotional, but in reality I do actually cry very easily at the most ridiculous things. It's annoying, frustrating and occasionally embarrassing, but I've yet to figure out how to stop it happening. It’s not that I think crying is bad, on the contrary, I think it’s a great way to get out pent up emotions, as long as I’m alone, or at least with people that I know and trust and not making a public spectacle of myself. Of course there are many valid reasons to cry, it’s the not so valid ones that bother me. I can be ridiculously sentimental, and sometimes just thinking of something touching will have me fighting back tears. And sad songs make me cry. Not all of them, and not all the time, but in the right frame of mind they can really set me off. Tank Park Salute by Billy Bragg almost always does it. If I have it on in the background or I don’t pay close attention to the lyrics, it’s okay, but if I let myself get caught up in it I can‘t avoid getting a little teary. Of course my taste in music leans toward the melancholy anyway, so I’m not doing myself any favours. I was talking to a friend’s 16 year old son about music the other day and he referred to most of the bands I mentioned as “sad British music”. I think that’s a great description, but I’m pretty sure he meant it as a bad thing. I love music that can alter my mood and take me away from whatever’s going on at the time, even if it’s only for a few minutes, and sad songs in particular can be excellent fuel for a nice bit of wallowing. Sad movies, on the other hand, I avoid like the plague. It's not that I don't think that a sad movie can be wonderful, some of the best I’ve seen have left me in floods of tears, (shamefully, I will also fall for the really obvious, manufactured to be “sad” movies, which just leaves me feeling stupid for being so easily manipulated) I’m just reluctant to watch something that I know will upset me; I have real life for that. I want my movies to be enjoyable escapism, they should cheer me up not leave me feeling worse. While I will happily listen to sad songs, part of the appeal is that they’re over very quickly, but if I’m expecting something sad to happen in a movie I won’t be able to enjoy it anyway because I’m waiting for the sadness to kick in and then trying desperately not to cry, which only makes it worse. Although I don’t always have the luxury of prior warning, so I have seen some very weepy movies in my time. For me, the saddest ever was The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. I saw it many years ago, when they would still show old movies overnight instead of infomercials, and I happened to catch it in the very early hours of the morning. If I had known anything at all about it I would never have watched it, but I got caught up and by the end I was sobbing. The thing is, part of me would really like to watch it again because I still think about it occasionally and would like to see if it matches my memory of it. But I couldn’t possibly sit through the sadness again, and I know I would be crying long before the really sad part even makes it to the screen.
The thing that frustrates me the most about my weepiness is that I can’t ever really get angry - I just get teary. I can never make a forceful complaint or be outraged without becoming ridiculously emotional and eventually incoherent, so I’ve trained myself not to bother and just seethe quietly instead. Although later on, when I'm replaying the incident, I really give it to them. No one would want to mess with the forthright, no nonsense imaginary me, let me tell you! Sadly for me she only exists inside my head.
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