God loves a crier

I’m a crier. I cry when I’m happy, I cry when I’m sad, when I’m surprised, or tired, or criticised, or complimented, or scared. Recently, I’ve cried during Love Island, First Dates, and a documentary about bees. Naturally, the first five minutes of the movie

Up is off the table. I cried when my nephew picked a flower and gave it to me, even though I know if there had been a proximate dog turd, he would have tried to pick that up too. Thinking about the hugeness of outer space makes me well up. A display of really shiny aubergines outside a grocery once moved me to tears with their quiet beauty.

A very formative English teacher wept as she told us about art displayed during World War II. Being 16, we were mortified, and didn’t know where to look. But Dr Gill wasn’t embarrassed — she told us crying only counted if it was in front of people. And, like most of the lessons I ignored as a teenage know-it-all, it turned out she was on to something.

They say that an hour of sleep before midnight is the equivalent of two hours after it; I’ve found that an hour of broken-hearted snotty wailing on the shoulder of a friend is worth at least two hours of solitary weeping under the duvet. If you’ve never howled on public transport, I highly recommend it.

“It’s good to cry” is something we tend to apply to other people. “Let it out” we say, when someone’s bottom lip is wobbling in front of us, “You’ll feel better”, but for some reason we don’t extend the same logic to ourselves. We should.

The healing release is increased tenfold when a load of people can see it, and feel slightly uncomfortable. If you cry alone in the woods and no one hears you, you never really cried at all.

I think crying is having a bit of a moment. The new season of Queer

Eye is being advertised with a box of tissues; it’s marketed as a means by which to achieve catharsis, through bawling over five gays giving old southern ladies haircuts. Have a viewing party, or better yet, stream it on the bus. Thank me later.