Day Twenty-One and the Step Brothers

Hope is a comedically unfunny thing.

Throughout the month of November, mostly without wanting to… and this is what happens when you feel committed to something and then, halfway through it, you’re wishing you’d never even heard of the thing… you begin to confront feelings inside yourself that you, till now, had successfully ignored. 

You’re forced confront those feelings, because the compression in this one month of time forces you, again, not because you want to.  Instead, it’s like you’re living in that familiar moment, where a parent will lock two feuding step brothers in a room together, until the two of them either break their undersized bunk beds, or resolve whatever conflict there has been between them, presumably for the good of the entire family.

And that is hope.  Hope that there is resolution in any conflict.  But like I said, hope is a comedically unfunny thing.  Also, just to clarify, because I’m sure those who got the movie reference want to know, my three favorite Will Ferrell movies are, in order: Land of the Lost, Semi-Pro, and Elf.

You will NOT find the movie Step Brothers named among them.

Unlike the majority of movie-goers, I don’t believe confrontation is funny.  I feel movie confrontation, fully and completely, in my trauma-soaked bones.  And I despise those feelings associated with confrontation, in all their forms.  Not only in our more accustomed violent images in film, but also, in the comedic. 

Those who know me well know THIS about me, very well.

So when I say I do not like the feelings I experience during annual November Blog Month, let me explain it this way.  Find yourself the most emotionally-triggering movie you have ever seen.  Now watch it for 30 straight days.  At the same time, listen to all your well-meaning friends tell you that “You’re just wrong about that movie”, or, “Okay, it’s triggering for YOU, but its ONLY 30 times in 30 days.”  Or my favorite, “I’m sorry IF YOU feel that way about it, but don’t make the rest of us feel bad just because YOU DO.”

November Blog Month is my Step Brothers. 

That one month every year when I must confront my biggest feelings, every day, for 30 straight days, no matter what it does to me.  And, by the way, after doing this six times out of the last nine years, and feeling this way about it every time, I’m writing this to tell MYSELF that I own these feelings, as mine, and mine alone, every time I enter this writer’s space. 

As of tomorrow, I will have 9 more metaphorical showings of Step Brothers to sit through, as I experience the undiluted dread of that daily confrontation in my soul.  I’ll decide what I’m going to do with it, some other time.  Until then…

Talk to you tomorrow.