April 4, 2023

The days following the Battle of 13 Items were kind of a blur. I wanted my epiphany to cause an immediate, tangible difference in my life - to wake up singing “What A Wonderful World” while small woodland creatures gathered at my door to harmonize and help me clean my house. In reality I woke up with puffy eyes and a migraine. I guzzled my coffee, apologized to my family for the previous day’s foul mood, assured them I was tickety boo, and went on about my life.

Write Drunk, Edit Sober

Impaired writing is my favorite kind of writing. I’m always convinced the words pouring out of me are brilliant, clearly I’m a genius and my gift will totally incite a bidding war among all the major publishing houses. In the light of day, I’m lucky if I can find one usable sentence among those pages and pages of words. 

That’s how I felt in the days after the Battle and my subsequent lightbulb moment. It just didn’t have the same gravitas in the light of day. Yes, my reaction to a 30 second interaction was extreme. Yes, I clearly needed to figure out what the hell was going on in my head. But what I thought was a paradigm shift turned out to be a mere fractional equation. Kind of like thinking I came home with Adam Driver, only to remove the beer goggles and find Adam Sandler. Not totally disappointing, but not the BFD I thought it was. 

Within a week of the Battle, I was no longer thinking about Express Man, or changing my life. I was pretty much back on my bullshit. Parked at the high school waiting to pick up my kids, I was mindlessly scrolling Facebook when I came across a post on our community page. “Janet” had a bee in her bonnet about local road construction. There were over 20 comments on her post, all of them echoing Janet’s thoughts:

• Road construction sucks
• Traffic is a nightmare
• They are always working when I am in a rush?

I rolled my eyes and mentally scoffed at those people. The ones who need to bitch about every freaking thing that inconveniences, annoys or angers them. You can be as pissed off as you want to be, you don’t need to fling your misery out into the world. Nobody wants your sad story,  Janet. It’s a major buzz kill.

One of the other moms waiting in the lot came over to chat, “Hey! I told my husband about the dude in the store - he said you totally should have throat punched that asshole!”

Hello Pot. It’s me, Kettle. 

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. - Lao Tzu

Step One:

• Shut.
• The fuck.
• Up.

What did I gain by telling my Express Lane kerfuffle to everyone within earshot? I got exactly what I wanted: sympathy, attention, reinforcement in my belief that I had been wronged. Did I stop to ask if anyone wanted to hear something shitty? Nope. Chances are at least a few unfortunate souls had been having a really good day, but I didn’t ask before I fully harshed their mellow. 

In my early 20’s I dated a dude who was super chill, until he wasn’t. If something pissed him off he would fly off the handle, ranting and cussing until he ran out of steam. He always felt perfectly fine afterwards. Me, not so much. He was not violent or abusive, I was not afraid of him - but having someone unleash a shitstorm in your presence is zero fun. The second time I experienced this, I told him it freaked me out. It was no big deal, he told me. He just needed to get it all out, and then he was over it - so I should be too. 

Every encounter we have is an energy exchange. I doubt anyone was traumatized by my Battle story, but it didn’t make anyone’s day. Clearly I’m not destined to be the person skipping through life with a smile for everyone. Doesn’t mean I have to be a whiny little bitch.

Now what?

Am I going to stop complaining?  I’m a genuinely miserable person so, no. By the grace of God I have Spouse, and I have friends willing to listen to my bullshit and to call me on said bullshit when necessary. I will spew my sad stories to these lucky bastards until they leave me on read.

Yes, I tossed too much Fu at Express Man. I wasted even more by repeating the story ad nauseam. Surely someone who heard my story was already having a shit day - I just reinforced their belief that people suck. Only an asshole does that.  If I had the same experience today, I’d tell Spouse, my bff, and probably no one else. 

Humans need to commiserate. When going through a shit storm it’s comforting to know we’re not alone. Misery really does love company, and company can certainly lessen misery.  Traffic is annoying, road construction is a pain in the ass, and eggs cost too much.  Janet could have complained to her husband and left it at that. There was no need to gin up everyone else. 

Janet didn’t ruin my day. What she did (and what I did with the Battle) is put an inconsequential nugget of negative energy into the world. All things considered, not that big of a deal. Thing is, if you took a scroll through her social media you would assume that Janet has an absolutely miserable life. I don’t know Janet very well at all, and what I know of her makes me not want to know her any better. Miserable people are funny on TV, but in reality no one enjoys time spent with George Costanza. Or Janet.

So I’ll continue to trauma dump on my people, and I’ll hold space for them to dump right back at me with things both major and ridiculous. And for the rest of the world, I’ll shut my pie hole. 

You’re welcome.

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