Crying From Disney

Have you ever cried at a Disney movie? If you have, you probably know where I’m coming from. Lion King, Up, Bridge to Terabithia, I’ve cried at them all. There’s a certain pleasure in crying over a cheesy cartoon with talking animals and houses held up by millions of balloons. How could you not feel sorry for Simba crying over Mufasa’s dead body, or the old man in Up looking at the picture of his dead wife before letting his house sail away? Who could watch a girl die while swinging innocently into the magical land of Terabithia without feeling sad? My sister used to sit there like a rock and make fun of me for my leaky faucet eyes, but I never understood what was wrong or “weak” about showing my feelings for a silly movie.

As I got older, I continued to cry at any movie that was even remotely sad, even when I was often the only one. Before long, though, I noticed this wasn’t just true for movies, it held true for life, too. Most people could easily tell when I felt upset, or angry, and while this could sometimes seem a burden, it often resulted in lots of helpful advice. It made me feel better just to share some of my thoughts so they weren’t so crowded in my head. In contrast, I realized that most other people don’t like to let everyone else know what they really think or feel about something, but prefer to keep it locked away inside. I saw this every day in the refusals of people to answer the questions asked during sleepovers and in the insistences that everything was “fine” when you’d have to be inhuman to not see that it was not. It surrounded me, yet I never wondered why people did this until about a month ago.

Driving home from soccer practice with my sister, we were going around a traffic circle when I asked her why she would never tell me what was wrong when she was clearly upset. She said, “Emotion is showing the world your weakness.” At first, I couldn’t believe what I had heard. That concept simply didn’t make sense to me. In all my experiences in life, I’ve found that when you keep things bottled up inside, and don’t tell anybody what you feel, things only get worse, not better. Things can’t stay inside forever, so eventually, all the stopped up emotions come out all at once like a bottle of soda that was shaken one too many times. How could my sister see emotions as a weakness with all the good things they could result in? Talking things out and giving yourself a chance to let out some of your daily frustrations and angers can help in many ways. Maybe it will just help lower your stress, but maybe it will help you find some great advice, too. If you let it out, then it gets that much easier to get over it, and the faster you can get over it, the faster you can be happy again.

I don’t believe that letting other people in is a sign of weakness, I believe it is a sign of strength. It says to the world that you do not feel afraid of what people might think about your feelings, and that you are not ashamed of having them. Because realistically? What kind of person doesn’t have any feelings? Not one that I’d want to become friends with, that’s for sure.

I believe that if everybody opened up more, things would be much easier. Think about how much time we waste worrying about how other people feel about something, and trying to decipher the hidden meanings behind their words. Who needs the extra stress?

I believe that we should all strive to show our emotions. I believe we should not be ashamed. I believe in the powers of talking it out and most importantly, I believe in crying at Disney movies, no matter what age you are.