Faint at Heart

There is this funny little disorder I have. My Mom gave it to me. We are the kind known as the "faint at heart;" the people doctors usher out of the room when bad news is about to be announced. The people story-tellers shoo when a gruesome story is about to be told.

We cry at things. I cry at Hallmark commercials, the cheesiest of animal rescue stories, Chicken Soup for the Soul, country songs, and Obama speeches. I just cry. I don't even need a glass of wine in me. The cheesiest of cheese has me in raptures. At the Goodwill I was looking at this book made to soak in additional revenue from Tim McGraw's song "Live Like You Were Dying" and I was reading the lyrics and started getting all teared up.

"and I loved deeper and I spoke sweeter and I gave forgiveness I'd been denying."

It's this song about a guy who gets diagnosed with... something, it doesn't say, probably cancer, and with this renewed perspective on mortality he does all this awesome stuff like sky dive, ride on bulls, fish with his Dad and watch eagles fly around. Oh, man. I cry EVERY time.

This weekend, driving with Erica, my sister, she puts on "Waitin' on a Woman" and we're listening to it, feeling the music and by the time Brad Paisley is talking about a first date in the second verse I am yelling at her, "turn it off! I can't listen to this! I'll cry and crash the car!" Quickly the song is switched to the Lonely Island's "I'm on A Boat" which not even the most emotional emo could cry at. I told Erica to never ever play country music when I am driving as I become blind with tears of deep emotion, and veer of the road into an abyss (because abyss' are always on the side of roads).

Crying at everything makes me very very uncool. I realize this. How can you be cool if you are chillin' with your bros, about to watch Valkyrie or Wanted and a preview for The Secret Life of Bees comes on? "I gotta... get some more popcorn," you announce crumpling a tissue to your face like a runny nosed four-year-old.

One time I was running on a treadmill at the gym, totally zoned out with my headphones connected to the television watching America's Next Top Model and suddenly I hear "In the arms on the angels..." Oh. No. Sarah McLachlan, my nemesis. It's that Humane Society commercial with all those slow motion clips of animals in cages, kittens and puppies and old cats and old dogs and suddenly my lungs seize up and I can't gasping for air, stepping off the whirring treadmill as if having as asthma attack.

Another time at the end of AI (which I always call A1) tears were rolling down my face as the credits began to roll. My then boyfriend comments, "that movie sucked," then turns around and says, "are you crying?!" I buried my head, "Leave me alone!"

Yeah!? So!? Maybe the Spielberg ending was really really really weird but it was so sweet!

The movie Armageddon and Homeward Bound had me in raptures as a child and I sobbed in the bathroom from several minutes at the theater after watching Blood Diamond. My brother and I cried together at this historial documentary about dogs that went to Vietnam to help the soldiers. At the end of the story the dogs had to be left in Vietnam because the government thought they would be diseased or something. They had all these old vets choking up over losing their dogs. It was horrible. I am told everyone has, but I cried at Elf.

I am my mother. One day my kids will laugh at me when I am crying over some ridiculous Lifetime movie about a girl who has the whole world against her and manages to get back on her feet and find a loving man to boot. And hopefully one day they will cry with me when they break down and discover their inner uncool.