Source. (This sparkly photo was one of the more lighthearted options )

Indirect Grief

Why crying in theaters is so refreshing

Sarah
Sarah
Sep 8, 2018 · 2 min read

There are lots of words for longing for something you’ve never experienced,

Greed

Hiraeth

Curiosity

FOMO

And many more that drive home the point that someone, somewhere is missing out on something pretty awesome. Lately, I’ve added a new word to this list: Mourning.

There are times that I am in a state of grief for experiences that I have missed out on, and will possibly never have. Particularly, I mourn for a me that has a family life that I can be proud of. I am well aware that no family is perfect, and that other’s may just be dealing with the same feelings that cause one to go,

“Where the hell is my sitcom family?”

So, to express this, I cry at movies.

Hard.

I wish I could say that I am crying due to the overwhelming emotions, the way that the music swells just so, or the emotions that actors portray, but often it’s because I am grieving for the me that is trauma free.

Of course, there are times when the aforementioned qualities are exactly why I am ruining my eyeliner, ( I just have a lot of feelings, ok!) but that is not always the case.

I want the cast of perfect siblings to argue with, the doting parents, etc.
Maybe it’s undiagnosed PTSD or what I have always called an over indulgence in sentimentality. At any rate, for survivors of trauma, these instances could be referred to as triggers, a reminder of their traumatic past, but I don’t feel that way. At least not anymore.

While I feel silly at grieving for a version of myself that isn’t rife with trauma or forever wondering about the “what ifs”, I do feel a relief from the tears. Crying in movie theaters has been the cheapest therapy that I can afford, and offers a space for me to openly weep where in other situations, I cannot find it in me. To cry in that capacity, I have read, is one of the ways that survivors can began to heal. To acknowledge the pain and to begin to move on it. As John Green put so well in, The Fault in Our Stars

“That’s the thing about pain. It demands to be felt”

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