Return of Memoryfest - Day 15/31

[bironic]

15. Elementary School

A group of us had a sleepover at my friend K.'s house when we were about ten years old, the sort of party where we'd practice "light as a feather, stiff as a board" levitation games before settling in to watch movies and play "truth or dare" till we all fell asleep. That particular night we watched My Girl. I'd seen it before and I'd read the book, but I still cried at the end, sort of helpless hitching little breaths and tears. My friends laughed at me.

(It was embarrassing but not traumatizing. Still, sometimes I wonder whether what happened that night has to do with why I try my utmost not to cry at movies when someone else is there.)

WTF

Comments

[purridot.livejournal.com]

Crying at movies is a terrible weakness of mine. I try to be plucky in real life, but somehow in the dark theatre with the larger than life screen I get very emotional. I'm particularly sentimental about animals, so the movie poster of Charlotte's Web alone makes me sniffle. I even cry at happy endings.

[elynittria.livejournal.com]

I try to be plucky in real life

I couldn't help but giggle at the word plucky: it's just so appropriate with the Nancy Drew icon.

I try not to cry at movies if I'm watching in a theater; if I'm alone, I just go with the flow and cry (or not) depending on the mood of the moment.

[purridot.livejournal.com]

Hee! Sometimes asking myself "What would Nancy do?" is my only way of getting through the day!

[silsbee329.livejournal.com]

Someone else who did the "light as a feather, stiff as a board" thing! :D Good times... I don't remember watching a lot of movies at elementary school sleepovers (probably because we didn't have vcrs!). We did stuff like telling ghost stories, gossiping, and performing our own version of karaoke (taking turns singing along to the radio). ;p

[stephantom.livejournal.com]

I have nothing big against crying in movies really, it just doesn't usually happen. In fact, I've found generally that crying is like laughing that way - when you wouldn't mind it happening, it doesn't really happen, but when you absolutely cannot afford for it to happen, it does. I am constantly cracking up or tearing up at inappropriate moments.

There have only been a few moments in movies that have made me cry - it usually is accompanied by silence, or at least, quiet, in the movie. Or, what really gets me, is a character losing it and crying, and that's the only sound. The moment in "Dead Poets Society" when Neil's parents find him has done this for me (although strangely enough, only on rewatching - I didn't cry at all the first time). It's never all out sobbing, it's just an eyes-watering, chest-constricting feeling. One time I remember it happening quite clearly was actually in "Catch Me If You Can," in theatres. Odd, because that was overall, a comedy. But there's a moment when the main guy finds out that his father died - when all this time, he's been basically doing everything he did in hopes of getting his parents back together - and he' on a plane, and he locks himself in the bathroom. And yeah, the unexpected force of emotion just gutted me.

[thewlisian-afer.livejournal.com]

The moment in "Dead Poets Society" when Neil's parents find him has done this for me (although strangely enough, only on rewatching - I didn't cry at all the first time).

ME, TOO. I don't know why I didn't cry the first time, especially since I was going through a situation a lot like Neil's at the time and, I hate to admit, had thought about taking that way out more than once. But it didn't make me cry. Every time since then, though... :'(

[thewlisian-afer.livejournal.com]

Aww, I'm sorry you got laughed at. Now I feel bad! I was always one of the laughers at those kinds of sleepovers. XD

In elementary school, one of the cliques I hung out with consisted of me and four other girls, and then when we got to middle school, a sixth girl joined the group. From fourth grade through eighth grade, for each one of our birthdays we would have a sleepover at Liz and Annie's house (because I was at the top of the ladder in the group hierarchy and I liked it there best, and their mom liked having us around). We'd rent scary movies and order pizza and most of the time we were still awake, giggling and goofing off, when their dad woke up in the morning to work (they had a dairy farm). The best part was waking up at almost noon and eating breakfast -- pancakes, bacon, eggs from their own chickens, cereal with milk that hadn't been out of the cow for more than six hours... It was awesome.

[mer-duff.livejournal.com]

When I was in elementary school, one of the local TV stations was notorious for showing soft-core porn on Saturday nights at midnight. One Saturday, we had a sleepover in the basement of my friend KC's house. After "Saturday Night Live" ended, I turned to channel 13 to see what all the fuss was about. I'm pretty sure one of the Emmanuelle movies was on that night. Only a couple of us were still awake and we weren't particularly impressed by the script, the acting or the sex. It was an early lesson in not believing hype...

[daasgrrl.livejournal.com]

Awww, you sensitive soul. My greatest weakness in movies is falling asleep during them. Even at the cinema, surround sound, big screen and all.

[topaz-eyes.livejournal.com]

I never used to cry at movies, until I saw Brokeback Mountain. I'd driven to Calgary to see it (3 hours one way), sat in the theatre all through and didn't cry at all, but I was just sobbing when I got back to my car. When I saw it in my hometown a month or so later, same thing--didn't cry at the movie, but did when I got home.

Now I tear up a lot more at movies. I was just about sobbing when I saw "Charlotte's Web" with my daughter a couple weeks back.

[catilinarian.livejournal.com]

I remember trying to make myself cry the first time I saw "Little Women". I was at the movie theatre with my grandmother and my mother, both of whom were in tears, and I was terribly sad at the movie, but despite my concentration, I couldn't even make my eyes wet.

[roga.livejournal.com]

The one sleepover that will forever be etched in my memory is from fourth grade. It was my ninth birthday and my mom had organized a surprise party plus sleepover at my house, also inviting E, the most unpopular girl in the class, who lived in our neighborhood. I had returned from three years abroad a few months before so I didn't completely understand why she wasn't liked, but I went along with everyone else. At my party the other girls laughed at her for being a scared baby during the night, and finally, in the morning, they threw her stuff and her sleeping bag outside and locked her out. I didn't actively participate, but I didn't stop it either.

I felt pretty ashamed when it happened, but the older I got, the more horrified I was at the memory. Two years later we moved and I lost touch with almost everyone there, but it never stopped bothering me.

Fast forward to two years ago, when I was looking at lists of cadets who were training at my base for a work thing, and noticed that one of them was from where I used to live, and had a familiar last name, further investigation revealing that he was her younger brother. With a mixture of dread and anticipation I waited for the military equivalent of parent-teacher day, and when his family finally showed up, E was there as well. I walked up to her and asked if she remembered me, and after a moment she did, and for ten minutes I stood and apologized profusely for my behavior in elementary school. She was very gracious about it and kind of embarrassed, I think, and said that she hadn't been an angel herself and we were only kids, which I pointed out wasn't an excuse. We parted on friendly terms, and I spent the rest of the day feeling like an enormous load had just been taken off my chest.

Closure feels good.

[elynittria.livejournal.com]

Sleepovers were a big deal when I was in grade school. The girls I hung out with in my grade usually had one every year, at a different house each year. The usual proceedings included seances (w/ or w/o Ouija boards), ghost stories, Truth and Dare, levitation games, and such classic stunts as putting someone's hand in a bowl of warm water (it never worked the way it was supposed to). I was very upset when I was permanently uninvited to my old gang's sleepovers because I skipped a grade.

[nicocoer.livejournal.com]

At my high school best friend's house we watched a movie of the sort designed to make you bawl your eyes out. I had already told myself that I would not cry, no matter what, as I am a BAWLER when I start crying. We got to the middle of the movie when my friend walks back in from the kitchen and proclaims, "If anyone doesn't cry, they have no heart!"

At the end of the movie, I hid behind a pillow pretending to wipe my eyes- I had decided not to pay attention to the end of the movie to avoid either looking like an idiot or looking like a cold hearted bitch.

~N~

[kabal42.livejournal.com]

After the worst part of my depression, when I was in my early-mid twenties, I started cherishing crying over films because it's a feeling and feeling is the the same as knowing you are alive - the opposite of depression, which is lack of emotion and feelings, especially of connecting.

I usually cry about beauty and I do it unashamedly.

But once, a few years ago, Tim Burton's "Big Fish" was in theaters and I saw it with my SO. At the end I was in tears, unexpectedly, because the main character had an attitude - and more specifically his family had an attitude towards him - that was exactly like my recently deceased grandfather.