Knox just walked into the room I happen to be working in. (Well, I shouldn’t say that he “walked” because Knox doesn’t actually “walk” anywhere. A far more accurate depiction of the scene would be Knox boldly announcing his physical presence about as gracefully as Fred Flinstone would. Which is to say, very loudly and with as much emphasis as possible by aggressively stomping his feet one pace in front of the other until the habitual movements eventually transport him from points A to B. We’re coming to find out that there isn’t much Knox does gracefully or with restraint or tact, especially if whatever he’s doing requires any movement of his body.)
Anyway, after I was alerted to his emphatic entrance into the room which houses the desk where I get approximately no work done with the constant interruptions by multiple children, he stands there, sulking, for a moment and then lets out an audible sigh— a sigh that reeks with exasperation. Then he opens his mouth:
“Knoxy not okay.”
“You’re not okay? What’s wrong, bud?”
(I sincerely doubt the life of a toddler can bring about too much stress— especially in light of what’s going on in the world— but I’ll entertain this conversation because apparently that’s what millennial parenting dictates. Validation. It’s a whole thing. Just wait.)
“Penis!”
Knox then turns on his heels and exits the room as brutishly as he entered, resembling a viking more and more each day, and behaving as though the verbal exchange that just transpired between the two of us was nothing short of ordinary.
I close my eyes and shake my head because, for fuck’s sake.
The truth is that this type of verbiage is ordinary. Quite often, Knox will reply to someone by shouting his male appendages at them. The other night while taking a bath, he discovered that he has a pair of friends below his penis that Joe and myself— two very mature parents, obviously— proceeded to tell him are his “balls.” He now alternates which word he shouts at unsuspecting receivers and, luckily for everyone, nobody has proven to be exempt from this heathen behavior. He could be minding his own business (or you may be minding yours) and all of a sudden, a demonic toddler voice screams penis! or balls!, sending you three feet in the air, startled with butt actively clenched.
If life lately could be accurately summed up by any one single interaction, the moment between Knox and myself that just transpired would probably be it. Someone, lots of someones for that matter, not being okay. When prompted to explain why, the person (or persons) has no real concrete explanation to give due, at least in large part I’m sure, to nearly everything not being okay right now. And, so, they are forced to yell out the first thing that comes to mind which, when under duress, is often an expletive or, in the case of an almost-three-year-old boy, what we refer to in our house as potty talk.
I think we’re at the point in this shit storm of a sandwich where a large majority of people are having a harder time denying the stench. We’re still trying to be positive but we’re no longer aiming or hoping for the best because the bottom line is that there is no version of a best case scenario that is even remotely good in this chapter of our lives. Sure, we can be grateful that we’re healthy and haven’t died. Sure, we can keep our circumstances in perspective by dismissing them as relative by way of comparing them to someone else’s shittier circumstances. But even a healthy dose of perspective doesn’t diminish the validity of any negativity a person may be experiencing right now.
Yes, as so many continue to point out, it could be worse. It could be much, much worse. But, since this post is about embracing the negativity for as long as it takes you to read these 500 or so words, isn’t it then fair to point out that it could be a hell of a lot better, too?
I guess what I’m trying to say is that there is a time for positivity and there is a time for leaning into whatever unfavorable feelings that may bubble up through this entire ordeal. If a person breaks their leg and can no longer do all of the things they were planning to do over the next eight weeks that would require the use of a second leg, you wouldn’t tell them “Well, at least you didn’t break your arm, too!” or “It could’ve been worse! You could’ve had it amputated!” You wouldn’t do that because that would make you an asshole and I’d like to assume that you aren’t an asshole. Instead, you’d likely say, “Hey, I know this is shitty and I’m really sorry you’re going through this. I can’t do much to make it better or easier on you but until life resumes as normal, I’m here to shout expletives at the sky with you for as long as you need to.”
Because sometimes we just need to scream at no one or maybe even a specific someone to feel better, to feel seen and heard, or to release those hard-to-articulate feelings that can be even harder to justify when compared to the plight of others— the shameful feelings that we’ve been long conditioned to push down deep inside and silence for fear of sounding ungrateful or apathetic of others’ suffering. Suffering being uncomfortable shouldn’t need to be justified but often is in order to be taken seriously, annoyingly enough. Humans weren’t built to thrive in environments where suffering is the default and yet we expect the average person to navigate chapters of stress and uncertainty like they’re experiencing no stress or uncertainty at all or, if they are, to do so under the pretense that there’s a silver lining to it all and that we’ll all be better for having gone through it. Convincing us that refreshing, delicious lemonade can still be made from rotten lemons shouldn’t be their burden to prove and I, for one, am officially done subscribing to the notion that I should have to explain why I’m entitled to not enjoy having a bad day when someone else is having so much worse of a day.
Fuck that noise. Because this shit sucks. FULL STOP.
We’re all just doing our best, that I very much believe. Some days, our best looks like putting on our optimistic, happy and brave face and thanking whomever we believe in for all that we have and for everything we surely have coming our way. Other days, it looks more like walking into a room and roaring PENIS! at an unsuspecting audience and, more importantly, doing so without apology for lacking the saccharin coating we often laminate any degree of our discomfort in. You know, to make it easier for other people to handle.
Because, at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how we get through this.
It only matters that we do.