I'll cry you a river

We all cry now and again don’t we? I mean, everybody has a little cry sometimes, right? But I think you can end up crying too much, or at least I do.

After getting my heart broken in the first year of university I proceeded to spend the next two years bawling my eyes out.

I would go to sleep with a face wet with tears and wake up puffy-eyed with a blocked nose. After realising I was still alive I would start wailing again.

I’ve got over that part of my life. But as a lingering consequence of those depressing days I seem to blub at the slightest thing either happy or sad.

Before first year it would take me a lot to shed a tear. I would have to either be incredibly emotionally distressed or in severe pain.

Now though the slightest thing can set me off. It’s ridiculous.

I will be watching the advert for Channel 4’s Secret Millionaire and I start sniffing at the kindness of humanity. It’s difficult to even sit through an episode without a packet of tissues.

I cried when a guy and a girl get back together. She walked out on him after getting fed up of his constant lateness but then he sends her text and they fall back in love. This was a 40 second advert for Blackberry. It’s pathetic.

While watching another Channel 4 favourite How To Look Good Naked, I get horribly emotional.

It’s at the bit where the person sees themselves in the mirror post-make over and realises that they were always beautiful. I weep along with them during their moment of self-discovery.

I also mourn with them in the pre-make over mirror sequence when they are stripped down to their underwear. I can feel their low self-esteem.

Saying this, I would probably cry if I had to display my unclothed body on national television.

My mum says that you become more empathetic after you have kids. I am still a childless twenty-something so I don’t know where all this crying has come from. Maybe it’s the years of crying I denied myself. Who knows.

I dread to think what sort of state I will be in when I do eventually become a mother.

I will probably be dabbing my eyes with baby wipes while changing my offspring’s nappies. Or I will have a roll of kitchen towel in one hand, to mop my tear-streaked cheeks, while feeding my gurgling tot carrot puree with the other.