I spent a couple of hours in the dark in bed this morning crying with Bruce Springsteen. I’m not certain why I was crying, but I was sobbing deeply enough to wake up Maria and she took me in her arms like a baby.

Springsteen ended his smash Springsteen on Broadway show this weekend. I was not on Broadway, but got a good seat in the dark in my bed.

Yesterday Netflix did people like me a great favor by airing a broadcast of his performance Sunday ($500 to $800 and up for a ticket) on Netflix for about $10.

I was up at 4 a.m. Sunday fretting about something I can’t even remember and fired over the Springsteen show which was beautiful and real and profoundly heartfelt.

It was a special setting, lying in the dark with my headphones on, Maria curled up on one side of me, Red dozing next to me on the floor, Bud snoring in his crate on the other side of the room.

Springsteen is roughly my age but in somewhat better shape. I often get emotional listening to Springsteen’s music and especially when going to one of his concerts (I’ve been to three, mostly around New York and New Jersey). There is nothing like him, a great fusion of love, anger, hope and heartbreak.

To see Springsteen perform in New Jersey is an emotional experience in and of itself, I screamed my lungs out along with the other 80,000 people in the stadium. Like him, we used to call New Jersey NewJerseyStan, we called it the Dead Space. Every creative kid in New Jersey counts the seconds until he or she can get out.

Springsteen did the same thing, but now lives 10 minutes from his seedy hometown, Freehold. New Jersey didn’t chew him up, it spit him out, took him back, lifted him up and grounded him.

Springsteen is, like me, a working class boy. He was, like me shaped in part by the Jersey Shore (I went to high school in Atlantic City and worked there as a reporter for several years).

I think that’s about as far as the comparison goes. He is a poet, a brilliant writer, and a very honest and real human being. He talked quite wonderfully about his wars with his father, his mother’s love of dancing and music, his first sign of Elvis on television in 1956.

I loved his story about his mother, who saved up some dollars from her small paycheck to rent Springsteen a guitar for two weeks for $25.

It changed his life and a chunk of the world, parents who see the creative spark in their children and help light that spark are blessed in my mind.

His broken family gave meaning and direction to his life, and so did mine.

Springsteen  shares his vulnerability and broken pieces with the world, and very much in this show, something I also try to do and perhaps that is the connection that got me sobbing.

He is successful in a way and on a scale that is unimaginable to me, and that I will never come close to attaining. My time is running out for fame and big breakthroughs, but not for good and meaningful work.

I always cry ever time I hear “Thunder Road,” and “Born In The U.S.A.” and “My Town,” he touches some deep chords in me and other people. He sang new interpretations of each of these songs, they were beautiful.

Springsteen did me a service by giving me permission to use his song “Atlantic City,” as the theme of a documentary I did with  Bill Moyers about the effects of gambling on the people of Atlantic City when I worked for CBS News.

Atlantic City was my town for some important years, and a place that still grips my imagination.

The Springsteen On  Broadway show was so poignant and real and beautifully staged and wondrously evoked that I think it just opened me up, as Springsteen has always been able to do. But for some reason, last night I was ready to be opened up.

I haven’t followed Springsteen too closely over the past decade or so, too many distractions. It was very fine to re-connect with him this way up in our second-floor bedroom in this little old farmhouse.

He is still my friend and companion,  even my conscience sometimes, and tonight, I’ll watch the second half of the Netflix broadcast “Springsteen On Broadway.”

I’m no groupie, I wouldn’t make a great fan of anybody, but Springsteen is so authentic, I can’t help but loving and admiring him.

I can’t recommend it highly enough. Maybe I’ll bring a box of tissues upstairs. As I started to sob at one point, I just rolled over and Maria took me in  her arms and held me and stroked my forehead.

Springsteen has had great successes, but like all human beings, he has also known great sorrows. He understands that both are a part of life, and he respects life as I try to do.

I don’t like to dwell on the sadnesses of my life, that is neither productive or healing.

I am drawn to the now and love my life very much. But sometimes I think the sadness builds up, and I need to flush it out, either with love or tears. Last night, I had the benefit of both.

This made me sob all the more. I was so grateful she was there, Springsteen tapped into a deep well of sadness, and I guess it just came gushing out.

I wrote yesterday about the abyss many of us carry inside of us, and some people took that to mean I was deeply depressed. I am not depressed by any means, this is a very good time for me.

But I have learned that the abyss, that dark hole inside of us, is wide and deep, and it lives inside of me. When it comes up, or is opened up, I know I need to avoid the temptation to run and hide.

Neither do I wish to be absorbed by pain and troubles, or being so distracted by life that I stay so far from my wounds that they can’t get to heal.

This wound will always be there. That is a broken piece that can’t be fixed. It can be lived with.

Springsteen sees his abyss very clearly and writes about it and sings about it very beautifully. He has acknowledged suffering from severe depressive disorder.

As he often sings, no life is free of pain and disappointment, you just keep on going  until you come to a bright spot on the side of the road.

I guess this is why I was sobbing so much last night, he has the genius of artistry, he pulled it right out of me. I thank  him for that.

It was a pleasure to cry with Bruce Springsteen. He is a spirit person. Crying seems to do me get, it lets stuff out that needs to get out, sort of like flushing a toilet. I feel lighter.

You can stream Springsteen On Broadway today and from now on. There are  no plans to release the performance to movie theaters, sadly. It deserves a big screen.