Starting a crying list

Pressing play on my emotions

I loved my cassette recorder.

I was seven or eight. It was the late 80’s. If you wanted to hear a song again, you had to catch it on the radio and hit record at the right moment so you could play it back later, “on demand.”

It felt almost magical to build my own collection like that. I had stacks of tapes filled with my personal hits. The only thing I hated was the radio DJs, talking over the first few seconds of every song like they were doing it on purpose.

Most of the tapes were just for listening. But one of them wasn’t. It had a very specific function—other than entertainment.

I called it my “crying tape.”

It was filled with songs that touched something melancholic in me. Songs that would bring a tear to my eye.

I didn’t know why I even wanted this back then, but if I wanted to feel sad, I knew exactly what to do. I’d put the tape on.

I’m amazed by how easy it was to feel things as a kid—and how I even went looking for them.

As an adult, I don’t have that kind of access anymore. There’s more resistance than wanting.

But if it was easy once, there must be a way to get back.

Emotional work

I heard myself say it about a year ago.

“I want to cry more.”

I mean, I do well at funerals, but outside of that I’m rarely “emotional.”

For the last few years, I’ve been trying to change that.

Taking courses and working with people who don’t let me hide behind being articulate. Who interrupt me when I start explaining and ask what I’m actually feeling. Who bring me back to my body. Who help me discover—and stay with—emotions I didn’t even know were there.

I had already started this work before I had kids. But now it feels even less optional, because I don’t want to unconsciously download my own issues onto them.

And it’s not only about crying—although it’s also about that. I want to be closer to whatever is there. Sadness. Anger. Fear. Helplessness. Even joy.

Very, very slowly, I’m getting closer. But most days I still manage what I feel instead of feeling it.

Making a list

When I got into this work, I assumed that it had to be serious. Deep. Maybe even spiritual (yak).

If I’m honest, I still think that sometimes. That if I’m going to do it “properly,” it has to take effort. It couldn’t be just pressing play on a song.

But maybe it doesn’t have to start that way. Maybe it can be a song that moves you. Or a movie scene that catches you by surprise.

I recently saw that CinemaStix shared a playlist called “movie scenes that make me cry.”

So I started one too. A crying list.

At seven, I didn’t need a method. I just collected songs that reliably made me cry and played them when I wanted to feel sad.

Somewhere along the way, I decided it had to be harder than that.

So now I’m making a list.

And I’m pressing play.