2024: My Year in Tears
In 2024, inspired by an Instagram reel titled “crying wrapped” and my love for leading a data driven life, I embarked on keeping track of each instance of crying.
So let’s get started,
The Numbers at a Glance
This year:
I cried a total of 40 times (that’s roughly one cry every 9 days)
First cry: January 22
Last cry: December 25.
Longest crying streak: 4 days (March 26–29, during a period of grief)
Longest gap between cries: 44 days (October 11 — November 24)
Potential PMS-related cries: 11 (27.5% of total cries)
March was my peak crying season with 12 cries, while several months (April, June, October, and November) tied for the least emotional with just one cry each. January started strong with 7 cries.
Why did I cry?
There was a wide range of beautifully human reasons I cried. Nostalgia, goodbyes, work transitions, missing my family, fighting with them. There were tears of grief and tears of joy, tears from the cold (only twice which is win because I spent the first 7 months of this year in Boston), and tears because the world is a happy place and similarly because the world is a sad place too. Some days I cried because someone wasn’t nice to me, and other days I cried because someone was too nice.
As Pepita Sandwich writes in “The Art of Crying,” crying is “the most genuine expression of emotion that transcends cultural and linguistic boundaries.” It’s true — there’s something universally human about tears. They’re our body’s way of saying “this matters.” The ancient Greeks and Romans believed tears were purgative, a way of draining off and purifying ourselves. Modern science agrees — crying is a natural stress reliever and emotional regulator.
Tracking my tears was a fun activity looking back. A map for the contours of my changing heart through an year marked by many changes. They remind me that to cry is to feel life deeply, to be moved by moving through this world. And really, isn’t that what being human is all about?
Thanks for tuning in to my Crying Wrapped 2024!
Appendix- The media that made me cry
A friend of mine and a fellow enthusiast of crying once came up to me and asked for movie recommendations that would make her cry. She called it getting rid of emotional constipation. Here is a list of all media that made me cry.
- A reel on Delhi about Dilli haat and flowers
- This post on India, poetry, death and poverty
- Rewatching the movie Ladybird (specially that scene where she reads the letters her mom wrote her)
- Slipping through my fingers by ABBA
- Rewatching My Name is Khan, who hasn’t cried at the proposal scene or when Allah hi Reham starts playing
- The song Kiska Rasta Dekhe
- News from Gaza, how does the heart not break?
- The song In my Life by The Beatles
- This video of an elderly man at Portugal’s Pride Parade made me shed happy tears
- The book Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
- Rewatching Veer Zaara
- A video on Van Gogh
- A video on elder sisters that made me miss my elder sister who was then on a work trip