F-bombs [& other explicits your mama doesn’t want you to say]

“FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF!!!!!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. We were in her car. She knew I was losing it. She screamed it with me, “FFFFFFFFFFF, what is going on!!!?” I asked her if I was going crazy. She assured me that I wasn’t…but I couldn’t help but feel that maybe I in fact was.

We searched on for answers, explanations, logic for a few more minutes and eventually I just shouted, “WTF, TINA!!?” (Except I didn’t bother using the letters.) Full blown f-bombs were now being dropped in her car.

Then I just said it again and again. Over and over–as if I could say it enough to bring clarity to my world and calm the storm in my soul.

{Travel back in time to approximately 13 years prior.} I remember exactly where I was sitting in my home when my best friend since third grade said “damn it” for the first time. We were good, little preacher’s and deacon’s girls. We absolutely did not let ugly four-letter words come out of our mouths. But she did. She was a year older than me and had been in middle school for a while at that point.

:GASP: “What did you say?! How could you say that word?” I asked. 

She assured me that next year I would understand.

I think she was talking about peer pressure at the time, but what I was experiencing 13 years post that conversation was liberation and complete fed-up-ness with my world. No word could any longer contain or capture my pain, frustration, exhaustion, or confusion. 

You see, four letter words of such variety were not spoken in my house…ever. The occasional “stupid” or “crap” slipped here and there, but never anything more moderately explicit than that. And certainly one would never hear F-bombs being dropped. “It just makes you ugly,” I was told.

And I agreed….until the proverbial spout on my tea pot could no longer take the pressure building within. When the spout popped up and the steam came streaming out…in came with one sound. That of one which rhymed with duck. 

What’s my point, you ask? I don’t really have one. {Kidding…well…kind of.}

I love freedom of expression. I hate judgment.

That being said…I hate that I judged others for their f-bombs. I truly enjoy the ones I send off these days. They don’t feel offensive or hurtful or ugly–but truly declarative of where I am at. They are also not directed towards anyone. 

One of my mentors last summer described my situation as a “clusterfuck.” Yes, people, that’s what this is. 

So I say it. I claim it. I put the most powerful word I can with my emotions because I want you to pay attention. I want you to hear that I’m hurting. I want you to know I’m angry. And when I am that happy, I want you to hear that too.

{Side note: For all my sweet younger readers…let’s talk more about this. This is not permission to go against all the good teachings of your ma and pa.}

My patients–the boys in particular– LOVE every single word my mama never wanted me to hear. Lord knows there is not enough soap in the building to clean their mouths out. 😉

But I get it…I will not make excuses for them or pretend to believe that they use “such language” so that we pay attention to the pain they can’t talk about. But I will acknowledge that that is part of their story. 

If I had a point it would be…to love through the bull shit. When those you love are dodging the F-bombs of life–that is not the time for you to sit on the sidelines and point out to them the obvious. 

Thank you, friends. For your support, encouragement, staying power, love, hugs, prayers, grace, and general awesomeness. Thank you for allowing me this space to be human…in all my glorious faults, flaws, and humanness.

With respect–I fucking love everyone of you!!! 

[I can hear you gasping now, mom. I love you.]

Happy Weekend. XO

“So he tasted the deep pain that is reserved only for the strong, just as he had tasted for a little while the deep happiness.” 

{F. Scott Fitzgerald, All the Sad Young Men}

PS. My campaign to get out of debt is still going on here for 23 more days! And my video story is here. Spread the courage.