I return with tears

My blog hiatus (if you noticed it, which I'm guessing three of you did) is over.  The holidays (Christmas, New Year's, and Christmas Eve Eve) were great for me, and I hope they were for you too.  But I was really busy, and blogging was out of the question.

My friend KMech recommended I blog about crying.  Specifically, something about how women cry much more than men.  Unfortunately, I'm hesitant to blog about gender differences for a few reasons, the foremost of which is that I understand zero things about women.

What I understand better, but not completely, is myself.  By extension, I understand a few things about men.  Thus, we can explore two things here today: the crying of me, and the crying of men in general.  And so, all aboard the good ship Catharsis as we embark on a tangential voyage down a river of tears.

The turning point in my crying life

Most people in my generation have baby boomer parents.  One of the stereotypes of baby boomer men is their gruff anti-emotional personalities.  While stereotypes probably have a bunch of drawbacks, they typically reflect widespread truths.  This one seems to be pretty accurate. 

And so, as my peers and I grew up, the masculinity modeled to us was one in which crying was for girls.  Once we crossed a certain plateau in age (let's call it 8 years old), crying went from a regular occurrence to an extreme rarity.

I was firmly entrenched in a lifestyle that conformed to my peers' expectations, so from the ages of, say, 9-15, my eye muscles became amazingly strong from all my practice of holding in tears.  (To this day, those muscles are buff enough to hold in tears for just about everything but E:60 and Alf's Special Christmas.)

Then, one day, Everybody Loves Raymond changed my life.  I saw episode 20 of the 4th season ("Alone Time").  In this classic episode, Deborah asks Ray for some alone time.  He comes back to the house to see what she's up to during her alone time, and she's sitting in the living room crying.

He assumes it's because he's been teasing her about her moustache, but she later reveals to him that crying is merely cathartic, so from time to time she likes to have a good cry to relieve tension/stress.  Curious, Ray attempts to copy her intentional cry.  When he can't cry to the first song he puts on, he unwisely chooses another: 

Anyway, this episode was the first time I heard "cathartic" used effectively, and the first time something suggested to me that crying could be good.  From then on, I gradually became more okay with crying, especially when I was alone.

Why some men cry

I think men can be roughly divided into two categories: those who have seen that episode of Everybody Loves Raymond, and those who haven't. 

That obviously wouldn't be helpful, but what I mean is that you can dichotomize men as those who have shrugged off baby boomer steel emotions, and those who haven't.  Those who keep all their tears bottled up, and those who cry for the first 20 minutes of Up.

I sort of already touched on one big reason men don't cry, but why do some let the waterworks fly?  I think we've probably just allowed ourselves to do it, whether in public or private, and realized that it's not the end of the world.  In fact, it's... cathartic.

Recent personal tearjerkers

I have decided that, much like the golden ratio is the most aesthetically pleasing proportion in art, a list with 5 elements is the most intellectually pleasing item in blogging.  And so, I leave you with the 5 things I most recently cried about:

1. Praying with a friend

Just last night I got to pray with a dear friend of mine about some really hard stuff he's going through.  As God met us in our time with Him, it was powerful and cool.

2. E:60's coverage of Josiah Viera

E:60 is an ESPN show that I speculate is designed to give men their "Raymond crying experience".  This particular episode, which you can watch here, is about a 15-pound baseball-loving boy suffering from Progeria.

3. Vulnerability with family

During our family at-home Christmas Eve faux church servive, several of us opened up about our feelings and memories.  Once one person started crying, most of us were doomed (though, fitting to the topic at hand, I think I was the only male to cry).

4. Doctor Who, season 2 finale

I just found out about Doctor Who recently, but apparently it is a classic light-hearted British sci-fi series.  Within the last decade they began making new seasons, the second of which ends with me crying.

5. Toy Story 3

Technically, I didn't actually cry when I saw this over the summer.  But I have to honor the film for how close it came.  I decided I didn't want to cry, so I called upon my tried and true Super Eye Muscles.  But the last 15 minutes were so sad that I was barely -- barely -- able to hold back the flood.

Help me out with the maintenance of the U.S.S. Catharsis

How often do you cry?

What's the most recent thing you cried about?

Any funny crying stories?

                                                        Jon