If there's one phrase I've heard on repeat in this little tiny baby of a year, it's "I know, it sucks." I have heard this so often because, depending on your perspective, there are things about my life that suck right now. I was struck by 'le suck' today when doing a training for future school counselors on suicide prevention and LGBTQ youth. We do this activity where everyone has to essentially cross off all of the things that are important to them in their lives until they are left with literally nothing. Sounds pleasant, right? It's an empathy-building exercise to get people to see what it must be like for a young queer person to lose all of the things in their life as a result of being who they are (regardless of whether or not that is a real or perceived fear). It's a bit mean, because from standing at the front of the room, I know what's going to happen, and every time I can see that feeling of crisis register on their faces. Even though all they're doing is crossing things off on a piece of paper.
When I asked what it was like for them to lose these things, one person replied "it sucks."
It sucks.
I found this really significant. When faced with such an overwhelming and emotional moment, we as humans can't always find the most eloquent thing to say. We can't think of big words. We want to acknowledge how awful it is but saying "this is the worst thing that's ever happened to me," seems melodramatic. "I don't know what I'm going to do," makes you seem clueless or helpless. "I kind of want to die," is not appropriate in a suicide prevention workshop, or ever... I guess unless you really do want to in which case I encourage you to reach out for help because it's there for you. The truth is on some level, all of those things are probably true for us in those moments. But nothing quite expresses it, validates it, makes it like "it sucks."
The phrase "it sucks" harkens me back to childhood, when something was really really unimaginably terrible. Like when Mom was making brussel sprouts. Or when you had to go to school because your attempt at a fever (rubbing your palm back and forth on your head to increase the temperature) was busted by a thermometer. I don't know about you, but for me it was a word that only the adults and Beavis & Butthead used. It was a bad word, but it didn't warrant getting your mouth washed out with soap. Still, "it sucks," was what I would say when I had no other words to describe the fucking shitty situation at hand. And Mom would immediately snap: "No, it stinks." In the hierarchy of bad words, stinks is officially more acceptable than sucks. Momma says.
Well, if you were to ask me how life is right now, I would say "it sucks." I would also probably make a pouty face, shove my hands in my pockets, look down and kick some gravel. So, apparently not much has changed since childhood, including still not having learned to say "stinks." As an expressive person who also happens to try to write in a blog on a regular basis, I know that "it sucks" doesn't cut it for an entry. That's what Tumblr is for - with the words artfully superimposed onto some black and white portrait of a woman looking wistfully towards a dark horizon. "It sucks."
When I lost my boyfriend (where is he? Have you seen him?), in the immediate two (three?)-week period thereafter, quite literally the only thing that gave me a moment of respite was when my friends would say:
"I know, Wes. It sucks."
And it does. It really does. I consider myself a relentlessly positive person. I attacked people with positivity. Now, all I want to do is have Joan Didion tell me about her grief, listen to Joni Mitchell's singing her saddest songs in a throaty, heartbroken voice, read Gabriel García Marquéz's musings on love and solitude, and yes... even try to associate works of art with my mood on a Tumblr page. I do all of this because I can't find the words to describe what this feels like. No other words than "it sucks."
I can't write because I have no conclusions to come to. I'd come to terms with my anxiety about the future a long time ago and have since become very comfortable with life being a big question mark. It's been a long time since I've been this uncomfortable with uncertainty and I think it's because it's deeply affected my ability to be... me. As a relentlessly positive person, I want to know when I will be okay again. I want to be strong. I want to be brave. I want to know when it will not suck.
In addition to being relentlessly positive, I've always tried to support others by empowering them to find that everything in life presents you with a choice: a choice to be happy or to be sad. A choice to move on, or stay behind. What I've found is it's not that simple. Maybe it is that simple, I'm just choosing not to see it that way. But there are days when I wake up, and I choose happiness. I choose RuPaul songs on my playlist rather than Drake. I choose to read Mindy Kaling rather than Didion. And then something happens, a wave crashes on me, and I can't choose anymore. I can only feel like shit and think "this sucks."
I know that one day it won't suck so badly and that I'll find some way to take this little broken part of me and make it functional again thanks to the magical wonder of Scotch Tape. What I'm not sure of is everything else. How do I get there? What happens to the friendship we built? Am I doing it right? I'm doing it all wrong, aren't I? How do I prepare for all of this? How do people fucking deal with this?
And, I guess I should just say it, the most prevalent question: isn't there a chance that it is always going to suck a little bit?
When I asked what it was like for them to lose these things, one person replied "it sucks."
It sucks.
I found this really significant. When faced with such an overwhelming and emotional moment, we as humans can't always find the most eloquent thing to say. We can't think of big words. We want to acknowledge how awful it is but saying "this is the worst thing that's ever happened to me," seems melodramatic. "I don't know what I'm going to do," makes you seem clueless or helpless. "I kind of want to die," is not appropriate in a suicide prevention workshop, or ever... I guess unless you really do want to in which case I encourage you to reach out for help because it's there for you. The truth is on some level, all of those things are probably true for us in those moments. But nothing quite expresses it, validates it, makes it like "it sucks."
The phrase "it sucks" harkens me back to childhood, when something was really really unimaginably terrible. Like when Mom was making brussel sprouts. Or when you had to go to school because your attempt at a fever (rubbing your palm back and forth on your head to increase the temperature) was busted by a thermometer. I don't know about you, but for me it was a word that only the adults and Beavis & Butthead used. It was a bad word, but it didn't warrant getting your mouth washed out with soap. Still, "it sucks," was what I would say when I had no other words to describe the fucking shitty situation at hand. And Mom would immediately snap: "No, it stinks." In the hierarchy of bad words, stinks is officially more acceptable than sucks. Momma says.
Well, if you were to ask me how life is right now, I would say "it sucks." I would also probably make a pouty face, shove my hands in my pockets, look down and kick some gravel. So, apparently not much has changed since childhood, including still not having learned to say "stinks." As an expressive person who also happens to try to write in a blog on a regular basis, I know that "it sucks" doesn't cut it for an entry. That's what Tumblr is for - with the words artfully superimposed onto some black and white portrait of a woman looking wistfully towards a dark horizon. "It sucks."
When I lost my boyfriend (where is he? Have you seen him?), in the immediate two (three?)-week period thereafter, quite literally the only thing that gave me a moment of respite was when my friends would say:
"I know, Wes. It sucks."
And it does. It really does. I consider myself a relentlessly positive person. I attacked people with positivity. Now, all I want to do is have Joan Didion tell me about her grief, listen to Joni Mitchell's singing her saddest songs in a throaty, heartbroken voice, read Gabriel García Marquéz's musings on love and solitude, and yes... even try to associate works of art with my mood on a Tumblr page. I do all of this because I can't find the words to describe what this feels like. No other words than "it sucks."
I can't write because I have no conclusions to come to. I'd come to terms with my anxiety about the future a long time ago and have since become very comfortable with life being a big question mark. It's been a long time since I've been this uncomfortable with uncertainty and I think it's because it's deeply affected my ability to be... me. As a relentlessly positive person, I want to know when I will be okay again. I want to be strong. I want to be brave. I want to know when it will not suck.
In addition to being relentlessly positive, I've always tried to support others by empowering them to find that everything in life presents you with a choice: a choice to be happy or to be sad. A choice to move on, or stay behind. What I've found is it's not that simple. Maybe it is that simple, I'm just choosing not to see it that way. But there are days when I wake up, and I choose happiness. I choose RuPaul songs on my playlist rather than Drake. I choose to read Mindy Kaling rather than Didion. And then something happens, a wave crashes on me, and I can't choose anymore. I can only feel like shit and think "this sucks."
I know that one day it won't suck so badly and that I'll find some way to take this little broken part of me and make it functional again thanks to the magical wonder of Scotch Tape. What I'm not sure of is everything else. How do I get there? What happens to the friendship we built? Am I doing it right? I'm doing it all wrong, aren't I? How do I prepare for all of this? How do people fucking deal with this?
And, I guess I should just say it, the most prevalent question: isn't there a chance that it is always going to suck a little bit?
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