From the time I was little* I have cried easily at being told off, reading a sad story, being heart-broken, being happy, and a whole lot of other times including some tv commercials!

Not all tears in my eye/s are from joy, as you can see from the list above. I cried (undoubtedly) when I sat on the glass face of a “shadow box” and broke the glass. (Luckily I have no memory of this as I was only very young, although I still have the very poorly stitched scar, performed by an old doctor who probably thought no one would ever see it, not knowing how society would become much less staid and would usher in such things as short shorts and bikinis.)

I think I must have cried when I was made redundant. It wasn’t that I loved the job. My boss had decided I should be a sales rep rather than the invoice typist/secretary. I should have quit rather than be lured into accepting at the promise of a car if I did well. I should have known that I am not, was not then and never would be a sales person. (I was certainly okay, later in life, at selling toys and jigsaws but I didn’t do that face to face with potential customers – I had a website and digital photos.) Selling huge shop signs to architects and builders was something I really wasn’t interested in and, in my twenties, I was very shy with strangers.

I cried when my daughter, ‘Veronica’, graduated from Oxford as I watched from my perch in the Sheldonian and when my grand daughter, Chloe, graduated from university some years later.

I have cried many times in the cinema during and after films when, thankfully, no one could see how I can allow such unreal things to affect me, if only for a minute or two.

I cry while reading a book and sometimes when I’ve finished. The same can happen while watching some programmes on tv. A couple of weeks ago I was watching Call the Midwife on catch-up tv and cried when a baby was born!

Babies – the concept – easily make me cry. I cry because they’re born, because they are so sweet (when asleep) and so cute and so cuddly and I can make myself cry knowing that I will never hold my tiny newborn baby again, being a bit beyond child-bearing age. Also I don’t think anyone that I know is going to have a baby in the next few years which I can hold, either, which makes me want to cry a little.

Seeing small children putting on a Christmas show has the same effect. Sweet dogs and cats, and baby animals also can bring a tear to the eye, so to speak.

I am not at all religious but when I hear or sing hymns, there will appear a tear or two in my eyes. ( I don’t sing hymns as a rule but when I go to a funeral and there is a hymn, I sing along – and cry.)

I cried when I had a really bad case of sciatica! It was like having toothache, but in weird areas of my leg and foot and it was always worst at night and interrupting my sleep! It happened, I seem to remember, after I had had pneumonia and had stopped taking amitriptyline for a squished nerve in my back.

What I hadn’t realised about that nerve, it must have been the sciatic nerve or one associated with it. No over-the-counter pain killer had any effect. I must have gone to the doctor eventually and was given a prescription for codeine. That helped but only ‘just’ – the pain was there but not so bad. I think it was around then that I realised I needed to start taking the amitriptyline again. Almost from the first dose, the sciatica went away. Occasionally, as I lie in bed, I feel a little twinge, reminding me that the sciatic nerve is still very much there!

I cried when Eric Zerbrugge broke up with me in junior high school. I’m not certain we had even talked to each other and am not at all certain how we were ‘going steady’, but he broke up and I showed the world (of the Zanesville junior high school) how badly I had been treated! I, and a group of girls, followed him and a group of boys, down the street, I was weeping and wailing, very theatrically (though it could hardly have been cinematic! My face doesn’t ‘do’ crying, prettily!)

You may wonder why I am putting myself (and you) through some of these memories. Yesterday’s prompt was about the reason for one’s blog. Mine is for my daughter (who is not really called Veronica but who doesn’t want her mother’s foibles to show her up so she chose a pseudonym for me to use.) Some time ago she asked me to write down all the stories I have told her about my life so she can pass them on to Chloe (grand daughter’s real name). So, here in my blog, are those stories. I didn’t have enough time yesterday so thought I would combine today’s with it.

*ie: young. I’ve always been short though not always little in size!😩

A “shadow box“, I believe, is like a deep picture frame displaying (in the above case) dolls. It had been taken down from its place on the wall, to be cleaned when I thought it looked like a jolly nice place to sit!