Growing Up: Is it just a perpetual emo phase?

Let’s talk growing up this March, as I officially bid adieu to teenage. It’s all about emotions today.

When I was a child, I wouldn’t cry in any movies. Not at the biggest tearjerkers of the decade.Not at the most defining moments in television history. I will have to confirm with my parents but I might not even have cried when I was a baby and didn’t get the movies at all. You get it. I just wasn’t a big crier as far as fiction was concerned.

Cut to present day me. I can(Read: will) cry at the shortest dog or baby videos. I cry at advertisements, at stories, at a heartfelt message from someone I love, at moments in tv shows and movies that aren’t even supposed to make you cry, the list is endless. I can probably cry on demand now. It’s a tad….embarrassing.

Exhibit A that I would totally cry at

How adorable are they? How do you not cry?

So, what happened? What moment in the 2 decades(nearly) that I have been alive completely changed the way I was programmed and functioned and made me this person? How did I end up becoming the exact kind of adult that my kid self judged my mother for being? (Sorry mom, but you cried at everything and It was beyond me as to how you did it) How did I, the strong baby, the fierce kid, grow up to become a crybaby, an emotional adult?

Let’s start from the first time it ever happened. I remember because the first movie I cried in was an iconic moment in my life. Let us go back 6 years ago. I had just finished watching Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and as Hedwig’s Theme played for one last time during the credits, one solitary tear rolled down my cheek. My adventure in the Harry Potter universe was finally over, I didn’t have anything left to do now. As the credits ended, I was full on sobbing and lost my sobbing-in-a-movie virginity.

That is the first time I full blown cried at the movies but it was understandable. A major part of my very young life had just ended. The truth though is, there was also an incident before that. While watching a Bollywood movie about three kids dealing with the realities of their mother’s terminal illness, I got overwhelmed and teary-eyed. But, that can be justified by my love for my mother and called a momentary lapse of my otherwise sealed-off tear ducts of steel.

The next incident I remember is when I cried a lot and I mean A LOT with my best friend while watching The Fault In Our Stars with my best friend. My mother was shocked to hear her stoic,always-straight-faced-at-the-movies daughter cried and didn’t believe it. She is probably shocked by this post too because we live far away and she might have not realised how bad it has become. (Hi, mom! I cry now.)

After that, it is a blur and suddenly, years later here I am, an adult who cries at the drop of a hat. It is said that you cry when you feel too much of any emotion, when your body is no longer able to handle the level at which you are feeling the emotion, and definitely not just when you are happy or sad. The real question now is: How did I get afflicted with this tedious affliction? How did I suddenly learn to feel so deeply for fictional characters? Where and how did I find *shudders* emotion?

With much long and hard thought I have come to the realisation that maybe, just maybe this is what growing up is. Is it possible that I have begun to climb the tall mountain that is emotional maturity? I mean, I have dropped the walls I had around me. I have accepted my emotions as valid and something that I should feel and express freely. I have realised life is too short to be strong. And as I go into the next decade of my life, I’ve decided to take this with me. So, I’ll go be emotional and be very emotional, I’ll be unapologetically un-stoic, I’ll let go and I’ll cry a little. Or a lot. Whatever I want. Whatever I feel like.

THIS POST’S QUESTION: Are you a big crier at the movies? Did you also have a sudden moment when your tear ducts just turned on at the movies? Let me know what you think about it,I’d love to hear from you!