Where Have You Cried in Public?

You’d think it would be the other way round but in Istanbul, in this Mediterranean lovely lively city, the standard is that nobody cares when you cry in the public. This occasionally changes if you’re at a supermarket, or indoors somehow. Usually people who supervise that place offer help, thankfully. I loved the comments where random people giving bouqets of flowers or offering medicine etc.
I could cry anywhere and did almost anywhere in this city. Once after my therapist appointment, I cried in the traffic in a taxi for 45 minutes incessantly. The driver never asked anything to my surprise, but he was not weird at all, he just took it as it is. Sometimes the life gets so hard in big city, you just find yourself sobbing here and there…

I no longer live in New York but I did for about 8 years in my twenties and I have cried all over that damn city. It’s one of those things that is hard to explain to someone that has never experienced it before, but crying in public (especially in NYC) is one of the best and most liberating feelings that one can experience. One of the times that I can more vividly remember is when I was interviewing for a new position within my current company. I wasn’t really happy there and hadn’t been for some time. A new role came available and I begged for the opportunity to interview for it. I had set all of my hopes and expectations on this new role, thinking it would fix everything that I didn’t like about where I was professionally. It was just a few weeks before Christmas when I was told at the end of the day that someone else had been hired for the new role. I quietly gathered my things and walked out of my office onto a bustling 56th street. I started crying immediately but it didn’t feel right; everyone seemed so cheerful and hopeful, doing Christmas shopping and basking in the glory of New York City during the holidays. As I turned the corner onto 6th avenue I ducked into the Hilton Hotel right there — it was full of tourists and no one I would ever see again. I knew no one from my work (or literally anyone I knew in the city) would dare enter a Hilton in Midtown for happy hour drinks. I sat in a very dark corner of their lobby bar, ordered a beer, and cried by myself for almost an hour. I was pitiful. But it helped so much! After I had no more tears to cry, I paid for my drink and walked out into the glorious New York night. About two months later I was offered a job at a different company that turned out to be so much more in line with what I wanted for myself and my career. I often think back to that night and think about the Hilton lobby bar on 6th ave with such fondness. I needed a place to wallow and the bar tender there was so kind to just leave me be. Everything worked out so much better in the end (as it usually does).

The other day I passed a street, where I cried in a car during a particularly rough breakup, while on a field trip with 30 middle schoolers. For a long time that street made me so sad even just to drive by and now it just makes me smile about being young and in love.. Public cry spots are the worst in the moment and weird funny memories after

Most of my public crying has been in response to the emotional rollercoaster endured while dating one particular long-distance ex:
In the lone elevator, TSA line, and propellor plane from Monterey, CA, to the San Francisco airport and then the entire flight from CA home. Another time, from the point of leaving his car and going through security at San Jose, and the entire flight home. Through multiple hymns and sermons at church. On a bench on Main Street in my home town, right outside a tattoo parlor. Six years have passed and the anger and distress caused by that relationship have passed. Now I can laugh when I think back to the time he left me crying in San Jose. A kind man at the outdoor baggage claim looked from him to me and said, “It’s ok honey. I felt exactly the same way when I left my dad to go to university.”

HA HA. My ex was only two years older than me. And I was 33 at the time! Bless you, kind man at the airport, who thought my ex was 50 and I was 20!

I’ve certainly cried in public more times than I can count but after the fact I’m always able to look back at the remarkable kindness of strangers. One day 5 years ago I was on my typical commuter bus home, struggling to hide my tears from how miserable I felt at my job. Once I had generally composed myself the young woman next to me started asking me questions about the stops along the route and other general questions about the area. Her simple act of conversation saved me that evening and I still think about her.

1) I cried on the street corner of 42nd and 2nd Avenue when I got the call that my grandmother passed away. I had just been visiting my hometown and had flown back to NYC the previous evening, only to have to jump in my car with my husband to try to beat the incoming snow storm so that I could make it for her funeral.

2) My baby boy died in my arms in February, and these last few months I cry everywhere. In the store when I see a stuffed animal I would have wanted to buy for him, a baby in a stroller, a heavily pregnant woman, cute little boys, baby boys clothes, and the list goes on. Still working through this one and I’m often crying about not having him with me in the office, and on the streets of NYC, too.

I’m a pretty big crier, and I’m a sympathetic crier. So if you’re crying, I’m crying. I find that I cry at work a lot. Not because of performance stuff, but just because of random moments. The funniest one looking back happened early in 2018. I went online to balance my bank account and realized that my account had been hacked and they had stolen well over $3000. I was panicked, but managed to call the bank and cancel my cards right away. I kept it all together when I needed to but the moment I stopped and my co-worker (in our very open communal workspace) asked what happened, I burst into tears. Like heaving tears. I felt so violated. I went outside and called my mom and sobbed to her. Everyone at my job was seriously so gracious and offered me cash and money to help me get by until it could be resolved. Grateful for their love that day.

Was in a long distance relationship until I made the move to Europe. So yeah, I’ve cried everywhere. There are times when I just can’t stand to hear another word of the German language. The worst day was when I lost it at the beginning of my language class. My teacher was going over the corrections on something I’d written and the tears started. She kept talking and wished me to get well soon when I grabbed my things and fled the scene. She’s a great teacher.

I commuted every day for two and a half years on Metro North and I’m convinced I was known by my fellow 6:32 train riders as “the crying girl.” I cried once because a middle aged man yelled at me for talking on the phone (it wasn’t even the quiet car!!!). Once he realized I was crying he started apologizing but I was sobbing so hard I couldn’t even respond. And the other time was after I finished Me Before You. The train was empty because we were already towards the end of the line, but the whole car could definitely hear my heaving sobs. I closed the book and calmed my breathing…after ten minutes I opened it up again and immediately started hiccuping and sobbing and had to stop until I was finally in private!

On an airplane after visiting my son in Colorado, and realizing he was probably never moving back to NC; the sweet Delta flight attendant gave me free wine!

Looking forward to the sequel, “Portraits of Coworkers I’ve Cried in Front Of.”

I live in London and have cried on the tube more times than I can count. Almost entirely on the northern line- it’s busy and no one pays attention, which is simultaneously heartbreaking and a massive relief. I’ve cried in Russell Square, on the South Bank, in Hyde Park, in Regents Park, outside the River Cafe, outside the Tate Modern, inside the Tate Modern, in pubs, in restaurants, at work far more times than I’d like to admit…
Basically if you’re coming to London, and you’re going to a big thing that you simply MUST visit- I’ve probably cried there.

One day during the dissolution of my 13 year marriage I had to meet my now ex-husband at the bank to remove my name from a joint account. He casually mentioned that he was moving to California and the tears started. I left as quickly as I could and then sobbed my way down 7th Avenue to the subway.

I was a Teaching Fellow in NYC – teaching high school full time and attending grad school at night for two years. I was struggling so hard to stay afloat – working 80 hour weeks and still just barely keeping up with my lessons. My night classes were full of watching model teaching videos of experienced teachers with perfectly running classrooms and analyzing them with my teacher classmates who seemed to be doing just fine. I remember so many evenings just holding it together in class, and sobbing on my subway ride home because I felt so inadequate.

I cried my heart out publicly in the fall of 2001. I was suffering from traditional heartbreak—22 year old me dumped by someone I was over the moon for—and from the heartbreak of 9/11. I cried on subways, as I walked down 6th ave. in Manhattan, wherever and whenever I was by myself. I just visited the city this summer and as I left that playground in Park Slope on 5th between 3rd and 4th, I saw a young woman sitting on a concrete step crying by herself. I had a hard time looking away and walking away.

I ugly cried on the Coney Island boardwalk. I was in the middle of a really ugly breakup. Ugly Betty was filming at the time and they kept yelling at me to get out of their way. I couldn’t deal so I sat on a bench and bawled. A lovely older woman came along and said “I’m sorry you’re so sad. I know how hard it is to be sad. ” It was the perfect thing to say. No promise that it would get better. No trying to minimize the situation. I felt acknowledged and less alone. After she walked away and I had composed myself a bit, I tried to find her to buy her a hot dog but never did.

I use that now whenever I see someone crying in public.

When I was moving from a third world country to NYC I was sobbing so hard that the immigration guy at the counter asked why was I leaving the country if it was such a wrench?. NYC was hard, my new marriage was hard and I often cried all over the city on the corner of York and East End Avenues, on 3rd and 52nd street. I have lost count, when we were moving to Asia nearly a decade ago, I again sobbed on my way to JFK, I was leaving the city I had grown to love warts et al. Crying in public in NYC is easy :)

For most of the month of December, I felt like I was engaged in some bizarre performance art of public crying while navigating the ins and outs of our young adult son’s first significant mental health emergency. …On an airplane, at the grocery store, in a hotel lobby, in an Uber, waiting for coffee, standing in line at an Old Navy while others around me tended to their Christmas shopping.

I’m not sure if I have every cried in public previously, given personal hang-ups around vulnerability. But the emotion was so present and so overwhelming that I had absolutely no choice but to let it out. It was such a completely surreal experience for me, but towards the end, I started to reflecting to family and friends that “crying in public is my superpower.” A lot of my self-consciousness about it drifted it away. In my experience, public crying serves as a portal to seeing the humanity in others and ourselves…

I never ever cry in public except for one time. My father was dying and I’d been staying at my parents house for a few weeks when my mom said go home, rest up and I’ll call you when I need you back. It’s an almost four hour flight from Phoenix to Atlanta and I literally wept the entire flight. I was in a middle seat and the absolute sweetest older gentleman from India was in the window. He asked me what was wrong and I told him. He paused for a moment then said, please, tell me all about your dad. I kept weeping and talking and at some point he offered me half his little homemade lunch. This was thirteen years ago and literally the ONLY time I’ve cried in public. Yet the most beautiful soul of a stranger just let me. I will never ever forget his gentle kindness.

I can’t remember all the exact reasons, but I know I cried a few times on the bus while living in San Francisco (one was because of a crazy lady sitting behind me on the bus talking crap about me for no reason!!).

I have cried in yoga class. Sometimes the pace of life is so fast that it feels like there is no down time to absorb everything that has happened in a day/week/month. In Yoga class I finally slow down enough to feel everything and honestly sometimes it’s a little too much to handle and out come the tears.
Reading some of the other comments was really interesting because I would not have thought of spin class as a good place to have a cry, but it makes sense.