Today is the fifteenth day of the April A to Z Challenge. During this month I will be writing blog posts every day (with breaks on Sundays) about the topic “Sh*t I Say” starting with each consecutive letter of the alphabet. This is one crazy project, y’all.
Oh…
I know that is probably the most uninspired post in all of the 1600+ April A-to-Z posts you will see on the internets today that start with “O.” But believe me I have wracked my brain over this one, this letter O that seems so simple, to find something that I say often that is much more interesting, but to no avail. I work hard for you, my 10 readers, don’t think I don’t.
And so it must be that I settle on “Oh…” because it comes before so many other words and the phrases that I use all the time as such (see also “Don’t“):
-Oh, crap
-Oh, shit
-Oh, snap!
-Oh, man
-Oh, brother
-Oh no!
-Oh, poor baby
-Oh wow!
-Oh, dude
-Oh, holy balls (this one recently adopted after spending time with Andrea Fellman)
-and just plain “Oh” when no other words will do. Not even the word fuck. Because sometimes, the ground just falls out from underneath you and it seems like nothing will ever make life better again, not even the sweet sounds of your children laughing or the strong embrace of your man, not even the smell of the fat petals of wisteria hanging from the neighbor’s trellis, not even the perfect birdsong outside your window, so perfect it seems like it was piped in over loudspeakers through your neighborhood, not even a slice of the most delicious chocolate cake or the sound of your mother’s voice on the phone telling you everything will be okay.
Because that isn’t true. Not everything will be okay. Not everybody will be okay. But somehow you have to pull through and make yourself okay because what is the other option? Misery. And the misery you are going through now can’t last forever, can it?
So somehow you start to pay attention to the sounds and smells and the tastes, and the smile of your child pierces through the soot and gloom and gets right to your heart and you put one foot in front of the other and you start to walk forward again.
And so here we are.
Oh.
Pretty cool post. Made me stop and think — how often I use those two letters before words and phrases. And yes, sometimes just Oh.
To which I say, Wow! Another piece for the Storm Cellar.
Amen on those last paragraphs. That is where I am at right now.