Shut Up...I Have Something In My Eye!

I guess I've always been an emotionally sensitive person. I've been described as intense, moody, and many other, less-flattering words I can't say/type here. Sometimes being that way is a good thing. The psychotic sweet love I feel for my husband, son, and other family is a wonderful emotion to experience intensely.

However, I've noticed that it's gotten even worse in the past couple of years.  Whatever the cause of the emotional change I've undergone since The Mayor was born, I find that it's so easy to cry these days. Maybe not a full-on, snot-streaming-down-the lip cry, but at least getting wet in the eyeballs. Sometimes the situation where I find myself weepy surprises me, and sometimes it doesn't. Many are related to babies or children, which just makes me reflect on my little dude. Others are just ridiculous. Lately:

1.  Any diaper commercial
2. Watching a video of people dancing to Lady Gaga's "Let's Dance"
3. At the holiday Parade of Lights this year
4. Gymboree song sung to the tune of We Will Rock You by Queen
5. The ending of Monsters, Inc.
6. Creating a video of Santa for Jack

While these situations can be embarassing, especially when I'm in public, I find them humorous for the most part.

                + Me =







Then there's the much more serious part, the one that's harder to handle and not so funny. Somehow, I used to be able to distance myself from human suffering much more easily. This may sound terrible, but I think I had an issue with being able to empathize and connect with humans due to things that have happened in my life. It's been very hard for me to learn to trust people.

So, before Jack, animal suffering was the cause that really tugged at my heart. I gave money, I volunteered time, I signed petitions for legislation, I adopted every single animal I've ever owned, etc. Since The Mayor, though, I've changed. While I still have this soft spot in my heart for abused/neglected and homeless animals, I am much more drawn to helping humans, and especially children, in need. And it's really no mystery to me why that is. I am now able to see every.single.human.being as someone's child. I can picture Jack in their place, whether homeless, starving, abused in the sex slave industry, illiterate and uneducated due to complete lack of opportunity...the list goes on and on. It brings immediate tears to my eyes and a pain in my heart to ever think of Jack being in need or pain or forgotten by society. All of these people suffering in these situations were/are someone's child. And that just tears me up inside. I can barely watch a Feed the Children commercial, see an ad for the The Smile Network, or see pictures of AIDS orphans who are all alone in the wide world, without crying or feeling ill. And, while it hurts to feel these things, I realize it helps me to be more connected to my fellow humans. To care for them in a way that I wasn't completely capable of before. And that, in my (sad and teary) eyes, is a wonderful thing. Crying at a Pampers commercial is just a silly by product, and I'm OK with that.