What Do You Say?

We have a phrase in our family that we have said for over a decade.  Whenever one of us talks about fun upcoming plans, or an interesting day, in our perkiest sing-songiest voices, with our heads rocking back and forth we say, “That’s cool!  That’s fun!”

That much-used family phrase came about from an encounter on a school bus that my middle two sons had with a cute little girl who asked them if they were twins and they said, “No, we’re just brothers.”

“That’s cool!  That’s fun!” she replied as she hung over the top of her seat on the bus trying to make new friends for the school year.  That was the first reported story of that particular school year and that particular phrase has “stuck” in our family for all of these years.  I imagine most families and people have borrowed phrases that become part of their history, their vernacular, their being.

My friend would always say, “Dammit, Jim,” in her best “Dr. McCoy from Star Trek” voice whenever something annoying would happen.  Although I have never been a Star Trek fan, I decided to mimic it until I owned it because it helped me to keep my potty mouth at a respectable level.  Recently my daughter, who has probably never seen Star Trek, asked me about this quirky habit of mine and she said, “Who’s Jim?”

“No worries!” is another one I copied.  Some kindly man said that to me probably two decades ago and it made me feel so good, I decided it had to be part of my vocabulary to pass along.  My husband likes to quote from movies.  He has held on to Billy Bob Thorton’s, “Some folks call it a slingblade . . . ” for a long, long time only because I think he likes to do that deep guttural “Mmmmm-hmmmm” at the end of the quote.

I could go on and on and I’m sure everyone else can do the same with their family’s phraseology.  It’s the things like these that make a person or a family, so uniquely them; a part of them that makes them so divinely special and different from the crowd.   It’s the little things, like shared phrases and nicknames that make us feel connected to our loved ones.

When my eldest son first headed to college, my daughter and I couldn’t stop crying.  In a misguided emotional moment, I told her that we should think of all of the things that annoy us about him so that we wouldn’t feel so bad and miss him so much.  That was a fail.  It just made us sob harder, because when you focus on all of the attributes of a person, you are understanding every little detail of what makes that person so alive to you and you are realizing how well you know and love that person.

At this middle age stage of our lives, it is almost certain that we have all gone through the very painful experience of losing people whom we love.  It is in those dark moments of loss, that in wanting to save a clear memory of that person, that we think of all of the little details, quirks and nuances that made that particular loved one who they were to us and who they were to the world.  It’s rarely the big things that serve as a reminder of the essence of a person or a family or a group of friends, but a mixture of all of the special little moments, looks, laughs, habits, scents, ways of moving, ways of speaking, inside jokes and understandings, etc. that bring a smile of recognition and joy to our hearts.

What are some phrases that are part of you?  Where did they come from?  What’s the story behind them?  These are just some of the ways “you are being you” in the world and someone or many someones, are noticing that and treasuring that about you.