Tuesday, March 03, 2009

Maybe it's a Kevin Bacon thing....

Watching the last twenty minutes - I'm not kidding, it couldn't have been more than twenty minutes - of Apollo 13, I'm in tears. Again.

There is something so completely compelling and moving about this story that appeared to have united people all over the world in the face of tragedy. Even more incredible than that, who could imagine that the Congress of the United States would call for a day of national prayers from the American public?

So what's the deal here do you think? Maybe I don't let out real emotions enough of the time and they have to escape somehow. I've touched on this before but I seem to favor some sort of "control" over freedom when it comes to expressing emotions. Which, believe me I know, can't be all that healthy for you.

So where does that leave me? I weep over movies.

Then again, I'm not completely deluded. I've found myself overcome with tears at other times that have exactly everything to do with real life, not Hollywood. The movie tears feel less painful, of course.

I need to find a middle ground of some kind. A place that lets me express emotions over some of the bumps in real life but where I'm not necessarily in tears automatically. This middle ground is also the same place I could find a way to watch twenty minutes of a movie I've seen half a dozen times without crying.

At times like this I wonder if I'm the only person on the planet who reacts to life this way. I suppose it's possible but I'm not nearly that complex or unique so I doubt it. But I'd love to know.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You are not alone. I myself happen to shed a tear now and then while watching a movie, and usually it is not the first time, but when I see it again. And yes, real life stories make me cry too, the courage that fortunately exists, the meanness that unfortunately still happens.

I hope it is normal and just makes us human.

Heaven knows that with all my other problems I need something to hold on to that makes me, at least seem, normal.

TommyP

renee said...

Hi TommyP -

Thank you for confirming I'm not the only one. Comforting to say the least.

I think I'm still incredulous, though, at the power of a story to move us...and that for me at least, it doesn't take much to get me to the emotional point of tears.

If that's normal and the human side of us, I'm all for it. But I blame it on my Dad - the all-time most sentimental Irish roots guy who ever drew breath and was moved to tears regularly, in great time and in bad.

I didn't understand it years ago - maybe I do now.