Platitudes & Puffer Fish

Using the word hate in our home elicits this robo-rejoinder from me: “Hate is a very strong word.”

I make the observation—mostly to my children although I have reflexively said it to my husband—to point out a couple of truths.  First, hate is, in fact, a passionate word that, when used, almost always hugely overshoots the basket.  Second, there are so many other wonderful words in the English language that better represent a strong feeling of dislike.  To use hate habitually is both lazy and unimaginative.  There, I said it.

That said, I hate platitudes.  I really, really do. 

When I hear platitudes—even when the intention is perfectly kind—I internally swell up like a puffer fish from a caustic cocktail of skepticism and frustration but mostly from exasperation at the lack of creativity. 

In fact, the one platitude that involuntarily gets my venom flowing is “It’s all going to be okay” because whatever the situation is that’s represented by the pronoun “it,” usually (almost assuredly) is not going to be okay.  “Aww . . . your pet died?  It’s all going to be okay.”  No, it isn’t unless you have access to Steven King’s pet semetary and even that didn’t turn out okay for anyone, pets included. 

I have been hearing this “It’s all going to be okay” chestnut with some frequency lately because of my sluggish career change/job search.  “Aww . . . you received your 32nd rejection?  That’s too bad, but it’s all going to be okay.” 

*sigh* followed quickly by that astringent aperitif, and suddenly my insides prickle.

The imprecision of “It’s all going to be okay” is what gets me.  What does the pronoun stand for?  What degree of okay are we talking about?  I find questions and doubt in the expression, not comfort and calm.  For me, “It’s all going to be okay” generates an inscrutably disquieting, frigid space, and I abhor that space because it’s cold and it’s dark and it’s desolate. 

Who wants to be left there?    

Admittedly, I would be ungracious for rejecting a well-intentioned expression of sympathy, if I actually said so in the moment.  However, I invariably follow the Pennsylvania Dutch wisdom of my beloved Nanny who often cautioned, “Jessica, I’d just keep my teeth in my mouth if I were you.”  So I do; I hate it (and, yes, hate is a very strong word), but I accept the platitude and move forward, imperceptibly puffier.

And in my head, I rewrite the phrase to fit the circumstances and, thus, close the distance that “It’s all going to be okay” inadvertently creates. 

The truth is, life’s going to be different from now on, and that’s okay.