Stop Crying, for Crying Out Loud

Holy cow! It’s been at least a month now, and I’ve forgotten to cry.

If you saw Holly Hunter squirting away in “Broadcast News” or read about how NBC anchorwoman Connie Chung regularly flash-floods, then you know that all of us tough women journalists routinely cry. It gives new meaning to the old term sob sister.

I don’t mean to denigrate the act of crying. I don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings. And frankly, the tears I’ve shed could fill an ocean. But if the next big trend is women crying, if large-pocket hankies are making a comeback, then count me out.

I think I simply got sick of crying.

I cried every day for the first 30 years of my life. I cried over mean boyfriends. I cried over mean girlfriends. Every once in a while, my father would catch me crying and he’d say, “Stop that or I’ll give you something to cry about.”

I cried through “West Side Story” and “Love Story” and--a real low point--”Out of Africa.” I boohooed so hard during “Terms of Endearment” that the people in front of me turned around and asked, “Are you OK?”

I cried listening to Frank Sinatra singing “Only the Lonely” and I sniffed my way through Ricky Nelson’s “Lonesome Town” and I howled with Roy Orbison as he was “cry-yi-yi-yi-ying over you. . . .”

I sobbed hysterically when Elvis Presley sang: “But if dogs have a heaven / there’s one thing I know / Old Shep has a beautiful home.”

I still cry every time I sing “We Shall Overcome.”

But enough already. I don’t want to cry anymore. I’d rather be angry or sarcastic or sailing.

We have just come out of an incredible pro-crying era, the poor-little-me generation. We have heard perfectly sensible friends tell us how there is now scientific proof that crying is good for you. We all know that certain “toxins” are released in teardrops. That suppressing tears leads to congestion and increased colds. That a bee pollen capsule, a cow mucus tablet and a good wail keep the doctor away.

But I’m beginning to think it’s better to sneeze on your feet than slobber on your knees.

Feminist therapists have built whole practices around encouraging women to cry. You know where things are headed when you walk into an 8-by-10 room with two chairs and a five-pound box of Kleenex.

Primal therapists aren’t content with mere wet tissues. They want you to add volume, to scream for your sanity. But what are they doing all the way to the bank?

Sorry, I’m not buying. I don’t need a good cry. Women don’t need to cry. Women need to get tough. Maybe men need to cry. Maybe Jimmy Swaggart needs a good cry. I need a shred of dignity.

I remember a day when I had just turned 20. Thought I was a toughy, a grown-up, a real cool kitty in a brand-new big city. A bank teller told me I had overdrawn my checking account. I burst into tears. Then I cried repeatedly thinking about how humiliated I felt.

That same day, a woman stood up in my Victorian poetry class and said, “I can’t stand it anymore,” and began shaking and sobbing. The teacher stared at her helplessly.

“Was it something I said?” asked the professor gently. The woman stood there shaking her head and sobbing. “Something Keats said?” he asked. “Or Wordsworth?” She finally dashed out of the room.

It was nothing anybody said. It was something we learned. Girls cry. It’s a mystery where it comes from. And for me, just as mysteriously--it left. I stopped crying. I guess I outgrew it like the crush I had on my poetry teacher.

Now, months will go by and I’ll realize I haven’t shed a tear. The bank account’s a mess, there’s nothing for dinner, my story got rejected, and still the world can’t lay a glove on me.

Maybe someday poor Connie Chung will stop crying too. Then if she still needs to make like Niagara, she can do what I do: listen to the news.