The Cr-iary: A Year’s Silly Experiment in Emotion

On Sunday, March 16, at 8:45 AM on the corner of 59th and 6th, I was watching the NYC United Airlines Half Marathon when a runner ran over to his (I assumed) wife and baby who had been standing right next to us. The runner was locked in, racing toward the finish, when he saw his family. His face softened and he ran over, gave his wife and daughter a kiss, and then kept running, smiling contagiously. His name was Andrew. It was so beautiful and perfect and if we weren't standing right next to them I could have cried for hours about this. Instead, I cried for one minute and filed it under “happy + emotional.” 

It was, even by my standards, an unhinged decision.

I don’t remember how it came into my brain but at some point last December, I joked that I was going to log every time I cried in 2025. A documentarian at my core, it sounded “fun.” Thus the standing, left-most tab of my browser throughout the year was a Google spreadsheet called “Cr-iary.” When I told a friend about it halfway through the year, they (lovingly, I assume) said it was the most “me” thing ever. 

The spreadsheet columns ran: 

• Operational columns: Day of the week, Date, Time, and Location

• Story (long form column) and 1 word reason (looking for themes)

• Type of cry* (Emotional; Happy; Laughter; Sad; Tired; Physical Pain; Overwhelmed/Stressed) *More than one could be selected

• Duration (in minutes)

• Rating (between 1 and 5 stars with one special case of 6 stars)

We are still 10 days out from the end of 2025, but because I probably have more important things to write about at the end of the year, I’d like to share my findings on the Cr-iary today. Of course, knowing my sentimental heart, I will surely add a few entries before we flip the calendars.

In any case, let’s get into it—I’ve logged 148 cries. (I was only on my period for 18 of those—12%—so anyone who assumes emotional and tears equates to “that time of month” is wrong. I feel things wildly deeply month-round.) 

The minimum cry was 1 minute; the longest 180 (yes, 3 hours). The average was 9.9 minutes and if you add all the (estimated) cry times together it equals 1,476 minutes or 24.6 hours. [Insert Taylor Swift quote about crying a lot but also being so productive.]

I bet you’re wondering what happened in August. Of the 36 cries, 32 of them were related to our foster dog, Terra, and how much I loved her and how sad I was to be giving her up after our foster time ended. Most of those entries look like this: Thursday, August 14, 8:20 PM: “Being goofy, singing Carol of the Bells and then looked at Terra and I wondered where she was going to spend Christmas and then I started to cry. 5 minutes. 4 stars.”

I don’t have much to say about which day of the week I cried the most. It feels pretty random. But I did laugh when I realized the morning/night breakdown of cries. The morning hours (12:00 AM – 11:59 AM) saw 25 instances of crying. The evening hours (12:00 PM – 11:59 PM) saw 123 instances of crying. The average time was 5:05 PM. But the hour of the day with the most cries was 7:00 PM—conveniently, the hour we watch Jeopardy! which is known to evoke happy tears.

We were watching Jeopardy! with a friend earlier this year when a contestant story really got me. Are you crying? they asked. This happens a lot, we replied. I knew I needed to find a way to differentiate what kind of tears we’re talking about. “Emotional” covers a lot of ground and was often paired with “happy” or “sad.” “Laughter” could probably be looped into “happy” but I like the idea of calling out the times this year that I laughed so hard I physically wept. That feels important.

I was actually pretty surprised by the public versus private breakdown. Perhaps I felt like I cried in public more because crying in public is immediately more memorable—the biting of my tongue, the willing tears back into my eyes whether at a wedding or at a restaurant with friends after seeing Our Town on Broadway (January 2nd; first cry of year). There are a couple one off locations that became running jokes throughout the year. While dogsitting, my neighbor’s pup jumped up and bonked my face with such impact my eyes started involuntarily watering. As I wiped my cheeks, I couldn’t help but laugh—neighbor’s family room, new location unlocked.  

Each entry has a long form story and each entry also has an attempted simplification—”media” or “stress.” I tried to simplify them more in the chart above. As you can see, the animal theme runs deep. The biggest is almost a catch all for all things interpersonal relationships—romantic, platonic, exes, family, and beyond. “Happy emotions” became a catch all for things like feeling proud of myself or grateful to the point of tears. Many of the others were filed under “happy” as well, but realizing that some of the happy emotions weren’t tied to Jeopardy! or a relationship, but were rather pride for the sake of pride, peace for the sake of peace, seemed noteworthy.

There’s no clear scientific method behind the star ranking. A long overdue cry that felt like a cathartic release would be an easy 5 star. Other factors included how I felt before the cry, how I felt after the cry, and whether I had to cut the cry short because, for example, I was in a public bathroom in Thailand. 

There is one exception—the 6 star cry, filed under physical pain immediately after the concussion. Thursday, May 22, 7:27 PM, Hampton Inn, Kansas City: “Back in hotel room, called Brad and got one of my best cries of the year to be honest. Just total weeping; crying; sobbing; desperation between the pain and confusion of how it could hurt so bad, etc. 35 minutes. 6 stars.” He remembers this with horror. I barely remember it. But in the chaos between impact and going to the hospital, that brief moment alone in the hotel room absolutely wailing from pain felt like a stand out of the year.

So really what have I learned from this aside that data is fun and interesting… 

That the existential will always be there: Sunday, April 27, 7:15 PM, filed under “emotional”: “It's just that everything is fleeting. It's all so finite. Eventually it all has to end and I just feel so torn between places and people and things and all the lives and paths I could have taken. Because now there are paths that have closed or are closing and what does that mean? Do I like my path? 10 minutes. 5 stars”

That I could stand to move more slowly: Tuesday, January 21, 11:10 PM, filed under “physical pain”: “Was trying to run a bit about getting to the sofa to watch the show and moved too fast and slammed my knee on the corner of our coffee table and it hurt very badly. 2 minutes. 2 stars”

That anything Jeopardy! related will always, always, always get me: Friday, June 6, 9:42 AM, filed under “emotional” and “happy”: “watched the video clip of Ken losing Jeopardy! and the crowd giving him a standing ovation. 2 minutes. 5 stars.” 

That it’s fun and cool and deserved to be proud of yourself: Saturday, November 15, 11:30 AM, filed under “happy”: “Got my sub 4 hour marathon medal engraved and was so proud and happy. 1 minute. 5 stars.”

That some of our bad moments aren’t things we will be able to recall 6 months later: Monday, June 23, 11:30 PM, filed under “overwhelmed/stressed”: “Overwhelmed and not getting a break; having no time to process or no time by myself; just feeling really overwhelmed and overstimulated. Stressed and not doing well. 8 minutes. 5 stars.”

That sometimes I bring it on myself: Wednesday, December 10, 6:15 PM, filed under “sad” and “emotional”: “I watched the ending scene of Homeward Bound on Instagram and cried when Shadow comes for Peter. 5 minutes. 4 stars.”

Or is the lesson that life is deliciously rich in spite of it all.

The thing I cried about the most this year was the foster dog. And while it was a very weepy time in the apartment, it was also a deliriously joyful time. I got to love on a sweet old girl. Thursday, August 21, 12:20 PM, filed under “sad”: “She rested her head on my hand again when I was petting her. 5 minutes. 1 star.”

I happy cried when I booked my flight to Bhutan and then sad cried on my last day there. When I am in Pennsylvania, I always cry on my last visit of the trip to my Grandma. I cry when John Denver’s Take Me Home, Country Roads plays, wherever I am. I cry about past relationships; I cry about current ones. I cry when I’m stressed or tired or homesick. 

Watching the New York City Marathon with my colleagues this year, I joked about how I’m too soft for this. Distance running also makes me emotional. 

But oh is this not the beauty of it all? Is this not the reward of a full and deep life? To be able to honestly engage with the world around you, even when it rocks you to your core. To be able to feel things euphoric. To be able to grieve. To learn to trust yourself and to accept the big emotions of living. 

To love in spite of it all. To get up and try again. To believe that things will get better. That life is forgiving. That you can make it so. To live. To wholly, authentically, boldly, sincerely, live.