Country music is fer Cryin'

If there's one thing I love, it's a good cry. This may come as shock because I believe there are people who have known me for years and have never seen me cry.In fact, if you have seen me cry it's probably because I temporarily lost my self control. I believe that crying should be done in the uncontrollable sobbing and bellowing way so I believe that crying should be done in private.

There's nothing like a good, snotty cry. It's very therapeutic. I believe a cry should be fully embraced. You can't just sit down and cry when someone is talking to you or cry at a sad movie, that's for amateurs. When you want a good cry, you must set the stage. Professionals criers, like myself, get ready to have a cry. First, when the urge comes we schedule a time to cry.

"Wow, I'm really upset about that, I think I'll cry about it next Tuesday."

Then we plan where to cry. I prefer a country sunset, the Lake, the parking lot of a church that's closed. I'm normally in my car. Then, because I've probably stuffed the original feelings of hurt or sadness down, I have to dredge them back up. The only good way to dredge them back up is with the proper song.

Yes, every good cry has the appropriate sound track. Sometimes it's about identifying with the words but a lot of times it's the Feel of a song. Give me slow guitar lead and I'm a puddle in two minutes. If there's one genre of music that lends itself to crying its obviously country music. Nothing dredges up the woes of the soul like a southern accent with a sad guitar and fiddle singing about loss, leaving or drunkenness.

The obvious choices: "Tonight I wanna cry", "Tear drops on my guitar" "What hurts the most"
Less obvious but equally effective: "White Horse" "Cold As you" "Dear John" (Taylor Swift Every time!) "Someone else's star"

Of course most of these are the remembrances of my pre-married crying days. So I asked my friend what songs she cries to : "Remember when it rains" "Shiver" and "Lie in the sound" is what she told me.

Whenever I'm alone, I try to get all my cry out. These days, the cry is mostly from stress. Why hasn't anyone wrote a go-to cry song about grad school?
Don't worry, I haven't been sitting alone crying this week but I have been chuckling about the dramatized cries of the past. 

Sitting on a stump by the river at sunset because someone hurt my feelings . Driving to Tennessee on a Saturday morning blaring Rascal Flatts and Avril Lavigne because somebody left me waiting for them again the night before. Hiking alone just to sit on the top of the mountain to cry over the view because that same person did the same thing, again. (Learned my lesson eventually.......). In the closet in the dark because things didn't turn out the way I hoped. (Emotional teen years much?)

One things for sure, in all my teens years and today, country music has never failed to set the stage for a good, long, ugly cry. And when I'm done, I'm done.

At the end of a long, country cry there's only one thing to do.

Bring on the RAP music!