I can choose to listen to happy songs but I cannot choose a happy movie, or show, or book. Every movie, show, and book have its tear-jerking moment. It’s simply unavoidable. Those moments make me cry like a puppy.
Mom and aunts used to say I’m low on my emotions quotient (EQ) because I did not react to things as well as they expect me to. Well, how did you expect me to react when I am constantly being threatened with a feather duster? The first time, sure I react with a little tears because I was a child but enough time, I grow as hard as a shell.
When I told mom I cried like a baby when I was reading the book If I Stay, she scoffed and said, “What’s there to cry about? People live and they die.” Then she went into this big lecture about god-knows-what. I stopped listening. The same thing happened when I told what a good book it was when I read Everything we ever wanted.
To be honest, I rarely seen mom cry. I only seen her fake cry when she stubs her toe. It’s sort of like a laugh cry, no tears and her lower lip sticks out like a sad puppy. Her exterior shell must be tougher than a turtle and to mask her sadness, she chooses anger and frustration. Now, that’s sad.
I think crying is natural, it expresses our feelings and sometimes, you just can’t help feeling the sadness as one of the characters in the book, movie, or show. I remember when I read The Faults in our Stars, when one of the characters (I won’t spoil anything) died and the main character was completely sadden by the loss of her love, I could instantly feel tears creeping into my eyes and flowing steadily down my cheeks. I had to wipe it before mom came in and gave me another one of her lectures about how crying about a book is silly.
Look who’s got low emotions quotient now. Seriously, I think there’s something wrong with mom’s emotion, she is incapable of showing sadness. I didn’t even see her cry when one of our family members died in the past five years. She just sighed and said, “Well, that’s life. What can you do?” At least show a little tear and respect.
This is Another Story 
People equate emotional expression with weakness. This is especially true for men. However, it is a pretty stilted way to live. Crying is cathartic: it cleanses the soul. Those that don’t cry will only go on to pay therapy bills in the hundreds of dollars. You’re indeed correct, my friend.
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My mum is the same way and I guess it is sad. We’ve never really had the relationship where we talked about our feelings but she isn’t one to be all vulnerable so I’ve never been like that with her. Does that mean that one day I may be paying for therapy bills for my lack of emotions? Maybe…but how am I meant to understand such emotions when I’ve never been really allowed to express them to my own mother. I do cry when it comes to moments in a movie or TV show but I then feel uncomfortable when my mother asks whether I’ve been crying, I don’t admit it and then there is this awkwardness because as I’ve said we’ve not really had that sort of relationship. That is what is truly sad. (Sorry for going on a bit of a ramble.)
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I have the same awkward situation. That’s why I don’t watch TV or movie with my mom anymore. She talks and laughs during the tear-jerking moments. Who does that?
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Let us not be judgmental, especially re our parents. They have their problems and especially their emotional history and baggage, too. I remember a time when I was near my most depressed and went with my family to see “Marley and Me” at the movies. When the dog died, everybody around me was crying and I wasn’t. I think I felt nearly nothing which, since this part in similar movies I’ve seen had always moved me to tears, was a clear indication of how mentally and emotionally sick I was then.
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