I had to keep checking the foil packet to recount the remaining pills. With all this crying, I was certain it had to be PMS. I’m in a theatre filled with women, weekend relief dads, and gobs of girls. Third grade girls, chomping popcorn despite their orthodontists, show one another their new sneakers, kicking their feet in anticipation of “Jersey Girl.” Girls with small earrings, thin long hair swept into ponytails, sit on their booster seats squealing. Before the movie begins, I ask the eight year old beside me to please watch my things as I run to the ladies room. “Oh sure. No prob.” No prob from an eight year old at a PG-13 film. I return with tissues, a necessity for a chick flick of this magnitude. The music twinkles, the light dims, everyone shushes everyone else.

A quarter of the way through “Jersey Girl” I had to share my tissues with little miss no prob. Why do all women crowd theatres for mediocre linear movies? Why bother with the god-you-already-know-exactly-what’s-going-to-happen flicks? Lean in, I’m going to tell you. The strory arc of “Jersey Girl” isn’t surprising; how much it touched me was. See, women cry because we can relate to what’s going on, or more likely because we desperately want to. We want those lives where eyes lock and acoustic music replaces all doubts. He gives the girl that look, the one every girl wants someone to have just for her, like a name. And when we see it on screen, we hold our breaths a little. Anything evoking a memory you thought was only special to you, but then you realize, wow, it was special to him too. Enter the tears. He noticed. He remembered. Then they start in with the music. It’s not about what’s happening on screen; it’s about what we want in our own lives. It’s our heart up there.

Jersey Girl will make you cry, in the way you want.

Now, I can’t wait for Raising Helen, 13 going on 30, Mean Girls and Laws of Attraction to make me cry some more.