When I laugh, I cry?

The strangest thing happened last night.

R (husband), Louie (dog) and I enjoyed two solid hours of excellent television - first The Last Dance (A+), then Killing Eve (B+). After that we started to discuss the follow day’s (today’s) plan to go to the grocery store. I have some issues with the grocery store these days, and I made a joke about one of those issues. I don’t remember the joke only that it was absolutely hysterical (to me) because I started laughing, hard.

I laughed so hard that I made a small fart, which made me laugh even harder. Surprise farts are very funny. I am not sorry.

By that point I was laughing so hard that my eyes were tearing (this is common-ish). I truly could not stop laughing!

And then, without warning, my laugh became a cry. It just…transformed. One second it was very obviously a laugh. The next second it was without-a-doubt a cry.

But, here’s (some of) the strange part: it wasn’t a sad cry. We’re obviously all sad most of the time, but this was not a laugh that prompted a sad thought that prompted a sorrowful cry. I was…I guess laugh crying? It definitely wasn’t cry laughing. The laugh came first and then became - I guess - the “on button” for the cry. A sort of gateway emotion? I don’t know. I was as perplexed by it as it was happening as I am now trying to describe the moment.

In hindsight it seems very The Joker in JOKER, which is the last description you want for something happening inside your body. But it’s true. I had to laugh and I had to cry.

Then it stopped, off-button like. The whole thing lasted 5 seconds. I didn’t cry my eyes out until I was good and through. I just stopped, looked up and said, “what the fuck was that?” R said the same thing but with his eyes. I think he was afraid to say anything with his mouth.

So I talked for us both. I said, “Whoa! Okay! That was so weird! I made a joke..and then a fart..and then I was just…”

But I didn’t finish because it happened again. Boom! Crying. This time it lasted a little longer - maybe 8 full seconds? And this time I remembered to cover my face because I don’t look very good when I cry. Not Carrie in HOMELAND bad, but not Nicole Kidman in everything good.

“Oh no,” R said. It was a sweet and compassionate oh no.

“I know!” I cried. It was a frantic and too loud I know. “I’m crying again! And I don’t know why! Do you know why is this happening right now?!”

Ramble-talking somehow made it stop, this time. But it’s not like the stopping felt better. My face hurt high in my cheeks and I could feel myself getting a headache. I had this sense that everything between my high stomach and low forehead wanted to keep crying but everything inside my brain said, nope.

I should mention that my brain is very bad at crying.

I blame it specifically because the rest of my body can cry, no problem. I make normal-bad faces and normal-bad sounds, and I know exactly when it’s time to get a tissue. I cry easily and with great pleasure at things like a beautiful dance on So You Think You Can Dance or a beautiful performance by a real underdog contestant on The Voice or Emmy Award acceptance speeches by the person you never thought would win. As R has correctly identified, I cry at people achieving their dreams. Remember the video of that high school basketball player with Down Syndrome that gets to play for the first time the final minutes of the final game of his career then makes an absolutely incredible play? I don’t because I couldn’t watch it. The YouTube video title made me cry.

So I can cry, just not about things that involve me (my emotions, my struggles, my fears). I’ve done some digging into this and think it has to do with being teased for crying a lot as a child + a general discomfort with expressions of emotion, but those things are hard to excavate - and even harder to write about online.

Plus, we’re in the here and now (or the living room couch and last night). It’s the middle of my second break from my second “burst” when R says, “do you think this is about the grocery store?”

It was a fair question. The grocery store is enemy #1 and the very last thing I mentioned (albeit in excellent joke form) before the laugh/fart/cry started.

“Maybe,” I said. And then the nerves of the moment made me keep talking (again) and I said, “I guess I really don’t like the grocery store! Hahahahahahaha!” Boom! On-button. Laugh-transformation. Full. On. Sob. 9 seconds this time ( a real record)!

Laugh, cry, break, talk. Laugh, cry, break, talk. I think one time I skipped the laugh and went straight from the talk to the cry? And there were several cries that shifted straight into laughs. It is funny (apparently) to lose complete control.

Has this happened to you during this Quarantine? Or maybe this happens to you in regular life? Do you need to laugh to cry for no reason (that’s really so many reasons)? I don’t know why I was specifically crying last night (though this grocery store situation is going to get the full court press next therapy session). But I know why I was crying in the general sense. My brain finally gave up and let my body have the release it needed. It got too exhausted to fight back. It lost.

But I think that means I win? Because I clearly needed to cry. And even though it was very short and very strange, I did.

It’s funny. I have more than 13,300 days of life on this planet under the my belt. But I’m starting to wonder if I’ve done more growing during the now 41 of I’ve spent in quarantine than all the rest.

Am I “people achieving their dreams”?

Cue (more) tears.