Things that make me cry

A few posts back I said I was crying a lot, and that's okay... and then I thought, these people are going to think I'm miserable, and now I'm back to explain:

I'm someone who wears my heart on my sleeve. I know, I know, so cliche, but it really is true and I can't think of another way to say it. While I do cry when I'm sad, I cry when I'm overcome with almost any other kind of emotion too: joy, pride, love, for example. I also cry - or at least feel the lump rise in my throat - when I'm moved, and I'm very often moved. Some examples:

1. M and I were watching Mulan the other day. Caution, spoilers approaching! At the end, when the emperor thanks her for saving all of them and she finds the whole country appreciating her, I got a lump in my throat. Yeah, for a Disney movie... sooooo....
2. Sports championships: I cry EVERY year when I see the captain of the winning team pick up the Stanley Cup, hold it over his head and skate around the rink with it. I cry more when he passes it to his anxious teammates. I cry when they take pictures with their family and friends. I cry (or get choked up) in tennis when the players shake hands at the end of a match. Same during Euro or the World Cup or the Olympics when the trophies and medals are handed out, but especially when the anthem of the winner(s) is played. It doesn't even have to be my country or my anthem. Just that moment, and all the hard work these athletes put in, and hearing their song, I feel a surge of pride for them and it chokes me up.
3. Beautiful words: If I read a great line of poetry, or something in a book, or a song, and it touches me, it can bring tears to my eyes. Some recent examples. From Journey Mama's blog, the following line: "You search with eyes open wide and sometimes full of tears".
   And another amazing line, this one from Bel Canto, the book I'm reading thanks to Jen's suggestions: "People love each other for all sorts of reasons... Most of the time, we're loved for what we can do rather than for who we are. It's not such a bad thing, being loved for what you can do."
4. Quran: Quran is the most beautiful poetry, especially if you can read it in Arabic, and not just an interpretation. There are lines that give me chills for their beauty, and on some days, when I read and the words are as though they were written just for me, speaking to something I have just experienced or felt, I get teary. Sometimes, too, I read a verse and it happens to be a verse my dad often reads in prayer, and I'm transported back to one of our old living rooms, standing with my mother and sisters and listening and worshipping in a row, my dad reciting softly but strongly, and I feel a surge of love mixed with sadness, and this also makes me cry.
5. Art, or the thought of it: I got home on Thursday, and M showed me the easel he had set up for the painting he is hoping to do, and the thought of him getting to paint when he'd been wanting to for so long and hadn't had a chance made me cry of happiness. I suppose it's less the art and more the seeing him do the thing he loves that moved me. Visual art is to M what writing is to me. Although art itself can make me cry. A painting, or a photograph, can stir me and move me to that point.
6. Reunions and departures: On our trip to Egypt in February, I would cry when I saw family as we were arriving, upon hugging my and M's aunts and uncles and cousins, and again when we were leaving. I think the reunion and the departure is the epitomizing point of being with those you love, and I rarely manage to keep a dry eye if I know it'll be a long time before I see them again. Along these lines, I cry every time my sister comes and goes from and to California. I expect to cry A LOT when my other sister leaves for Dubai.
7. Movies: I am the crazy sap who can turn on the TV at the end of a cheesy movie for the wedding scene, or the funeral scene, and not know the characters or the plot, and then hear the moving music crescendo and start to bawl my eyes out. This one I can't explain very well, and though I'm the worst at it, almost all of my sisters are also guilty as charged. Example: the first movie my poor uncle's wife watched with us when she moved to Ottawa many many years ago was Little Women. At the end, she looked around, and there we were, four sisters sobbing away, struggling up off the couch to hug each other to death and say how much we loved each other. My uncle's wife grew up with two brothers. Needless to say, this was a first-time experience for her. Don't worry though, she's gotten over it.