Why Do I Cry At HAPPY Endings?

Here I go again...the movie has 10 minutes left, and I'm all choked up and tears are running down my cheeks. My eyes turn red, I'm searching for a Kleenex because my nose needs blown...why, why, why do I cry at HAPPY endings? Never did I shed a tear at all the drama and heartache in the other hour and fifty minutes of the very same movie, but at the end, it's always the same...me, my tears,...and my pain. Yes, I said it ~ my pain. But the movies have all had HAPPY endings, so why am I so sad? In romances, when the lovers are off to plan their weddings; in dramas, when all is righted, I'm left crying into tissues...with puffy eyes and a stuffy nose! Somehow, this just doesn't seem right...does it to you?

I remember back when my nephew was my best buddy. He had gone to see Beauty and the Beast, but I had missed it, so I asked him to go with me and see it again. He firmly told me NO! I begged and begged him to go see the movie with me, and he kept putting his foot firmly down. I really couldn't understand this: I wasn't asking him to see a horror film; I was just asking him to see an animated Disney film for a second time, yet he was so firmly against it. Because he loved me, he told me he would go see the movie with me (he was about 4 years old). I didn't know the story of Beauty and the Beast, so when I discovered at the end of the movie that the Beast was indeed a cursed Prince, I cried. Yes, I cried and I cried and I cried. Left without a tissue, the tears streamed down my face like a river. I was glued to my seat until the theater was empty. My nephew looked at me in astonishment and said, "Debbie, you cried more than I did!" You see, he cried at a HAPPY ending, too. And because he had been so moved by emotion to shed those kind of tears, he had not wanted to go back and see the movie again. Though he didn't cry the second time, somehow my tears sanctified his.

Although he was not abused, he did see the chaos in our family, and I think this brought a deep sensitivity to him, a sensitivity he still has today toward me and others. Maybe this is why he cried at a HAPPY ending. Maybe I cry at HAPPY endings because I am happy for them too; happy that they do have a HAPPY ending, unlike many of the endings in my life. But it still surprises me when I don't cry when all the drama in their lives is taking place ~ just at the HAPPY ending.

I am going to have to look into whether those of us who've been abused actually can become desensitized to the dramatic chaos and save those findings for another post...because right now, I still have eyes to be dried and a nose to be blown...yes, I just finished another movie with a HAPPY ending. And before the night is out, I will probably be in the same condition, because I like movies and, for the most part, they always seem to end on a happy note. So I'll just keep the Kleenex box close and shed the tears so desperately in need of their release. And so as movies go, so will I...THE END!