Monday, February 8, 2010

Regression

My brother and I do a lot of texting and some talking depending on how drunk I am, how broke he is or what the status is on either of our packs of cigarettes. A recently common text, which I think we have saved so that we can send it out immediately is: "And the hits just keep on coming."
And sadly, they do. Like waves pounding on the sand that is begging for mercy. We volley the idea with each other, back and forth, wondering when the hits will subside for a bit, maybe the sea will be calm and we can take a picnic to the beach. No such luck.
Then it dawns on me. Maybe this is who we are. Maybe it's not the hits, but the reaction to the hits. Maybe, if we weren't so matter-of-fact and always wearing an ironic grin then it would ACTUALLY BE WORSE, Jesus help us!
That is an arresting thought. What if we didn't have a sense of humor? I'm guessing we wouldn't make it very far, at least not to 20 and certainly not to 30 and beyond. There must be some power in humor that I have overlooked until now. Sick power for sure, but power nonetheless.
What most families refer to as "the incident" my brother simply says, "Oh, you mean the time I tried to off myself, yeah, that was dumb." What other families try to explain away, we confront with reckless abandon. "Of course the father is black, what the hell do you think, I stole her?"
I could go on, and I will, at some point, in a book entitled: How to Laugh Your Way Through Hell.

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