(Can’t) Cry Me a River

I think something is wrong with me. Like, clinically. I cannot, no matter how critical, cry at the right times. I can cry, a'ight? Don't get me wrong here. I'll sob my guts out when a local soup-n-sandwich joint goes out of business, or someone has left the milk out for the umpteenth time. I'll weep hysterically when a group of people comes together in a perfect moment of either flash-mobbery or spontaneous humor. I'm not an emotion-free zone. But I can't cry right. Blessed events, weddings, funerals — I got nothing. I mean I feel, okay? Those things are moving and cathartic, and I get some emotional rumblings. But I can't drum up any outward evidence, not even pretend. 

As for movies, everybody can be sobbing and weeping — like when Dobby dies in HP7, or Hugh Jackman suffers and sweats and worries as Jean Valjean — and I'm just sitting there, quietly oozing saline-free verklempt-ness. 

It's really not that big of a trial, beyond people looking at me like "Where's your emotion? Are you not even human?" I pretty much never have to worry about mascara rivulets all down my face, and I can speak in public without the snot flowing (unless its about something deeply personal. Then I do get the wah-wah vocal tremor, but I recover quickly.) Also, I never have those weepy girl-moments of BFF embracery and huggery and bonding-ery (all technical terms that I did not just make up.) I do bond. I just don't weep about it.

But . . . there are moments when it would be helpful to be able to cry.

Like when I get pulled over for going a wee bit too fast. Which I'm not saying I ever do, especially since my kids read this blog. But, you know, you hear stories of women getting pulled over for speeding, and they bring out the whole Weepy-Wanda bag of tricks, and the officer feels so sorry for them that he just issues a warning. Yeah. This has never worked for me.

In fact, this has never worked so well that I have become an annual fixture at the local Police Department Traffic School. It's sort of a summer tradition for me. One that I'd like to break. One I'd like to break by evoking pity in the ticket-distributing officer who pulls me over. (Or by not speeding. But you know, whatever. It's not like I do it on purpose. I'm just so right-brained I can't see the speedometer.) Sadly, I don't have the ability. I simply cannot muster the tears. If I can't cry with Argentina over Evita, how'm I going to cry for Officer Ticketron?

Sigh. It's a problem. But I know all is not lost. I did manage to evoke pity in an officer a little while back and received my first ever warning instead of a ticket. I've got it framed on the wall of my office.

I had just dropped my kid off at the local university and was feeling all sad because she'll be leaving soon for a year and a half and I'm not ready for that. Plus I was sick, and had an elbow injury which prevented me from picking up my stupid registration from the floor of my car where I dropped it when the officer asked for it. And I was in my pajamas and had a nervous youngest kid in the backseat. AND I didn't have any makeup on. I felt emotion. I felt sad and weepy. I tried to prove it. My tear-ducts grunted with the effort. But it was nada, baby. I just sat there looking pitiful in my makeuplessness and unbendableness and pajamaness. In the end, I think the officer gave me a warning just to get me off the streets so I could go take a shower.

Bless him.

I'll never forget his kindness. Truly. I needed it right then. And it must not have had anything to do with tears because I wasn't crying. Maybe it was just my face without makeup. Maybe that's all I really need for people to think I'm an emotionally sensitive person in need of compassion.

Baaahahahahahahaha! So not happening. You'll just have to trust that I feel it all on the inside. And I'll have to try to stop getting pulled over.

Share
About Janiel 417 Articles
My greatest pleasure in life has been raising my four excellent children--some of whom liked me so much that they keep coming back. My second greatest pleasure has been doing whatever I can to make people laugh and create bright moments. I hope to do a bit more good in the world before I go the way of it. And if not, I'd better at least get to spend some serious time writing and singing in a castle somewhere in the UK.

Be the first to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.


*