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How to Find Your Thing

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thinkerBased on the title of this post, you might think that it’s going to be a revelatory piece on sexual exploration. If it were, it would go something like this:

Step 1: Stick your hand down the front of your pants.
Step 2: Keep going until you find “your thing.”

Instead, what I really want to talk about is how to find your calling, or rather how to get your hands out of your pants long enough for “it” to find you.

Actually, I’m not even sure that’s true; I don’t think you have to find “it” or let “it” find you, because – from my own experience as someone who teeters perpetually on the edge of an existential crisis – “it” was never lost. It’s just that my thinking, analyzing, ruminating mind has never shut up long enough to actually hear what is calling.

You see, I’m a thinker. Much like Rodin’s famous piece of the same name, I like to sit around (mostly in pants, though) and ponder the meaning of life – both my life and the meaning of life in general. I think about a lot of stuff – from the relationship between reincarnation and epigenetics to what I’m going to eat for dinner. (If it’s Tuesday night, it’s pizza night.)

My favorite thing to think about, though, is: “What the hell am I doing with my life?”

As you can imagine, this is a colossal waste of time: first of all, I’m actually doing great stuff with my life! I have some of the most amazing friends, colleagues, and clients you could imagine. I’m teaching, connecting, mentoring, coaching, and writing. But the problem is that my brain has been searching for the meaning of my life for so long that sometimes it just doesn’t know when it’s got a good thing going.

That sense of being separated from my “thing” – my calling, you pervert – has been my life’s go-to feeling for so long that I’m not sure what it would feel like to function without it. Heck, I’m not even sure I have ever actually taken the time to learn the real language of what has been calling me! Instead, I’ve been walking around, like a stranger in France, claiming, “Je ne parle pas français,” when, in fact, I’ve been fluent in the language of my calling all along (which clearly has a French accent). However, I have never shut up the infernal chatter of my brain long enough to interpret what is being said.

Now, if you’ve been hanging in with me so far, my hunch is that you either have nothing better to do than to read my ramblings or you are seriously picking up what I am putting down. If the former is true: you’re right – this is the place to be. And if the latter is true: I’m going to guess that you resonate with this urgent, pervasive feeling that something is calling you and, yet, also feel like you have no idea what “it” is or how to figure “it” out.

For those of us plagued by that seemingly unquenchable yearning for a divinely guided and deliberately purposeful life, the truth is that we are receiving guidance all the time – through every hunch, sign, synchronicity, or that tingly feeling when we see a shirtless photo of Christian Bale. Our life has been speaking to us in the language of “our thing” all this time, but we’ve been too busy thinking about our thing and doubting that we’ll ever find it to notice that we’ve been receiving messages about it all along. We want the certainty and clarity of what’s calling us to be like a giant smack in the face and unless we get that smack, we feel unreconciled and adrift in longing. Oh, Christian. I’ll wait for you.

As Gregg Levoy says in the aptly titled, Callings: Finding and Following an Authentic Life, “There is such a thing as thinking too much about a calling.” Boy howdy. It’s this constant worrying, wondering, yearning, poking, and pondering that pulls me from being fully present to what calls me, which ultimately means I end up missing it through the addiction to its pursuit. Ironic isn’t it? The very pursuit of “finding our thing” can paradoxically distract us from ever connecting with our heart’s desire.

So how do we stop the lurid siren song of our busy, maddening minds?Excellent question. I am so glad you asked. Have a cookie.

The first thing we can do is clear up some of the long-standing cultural misconceptions that “your thing” has to be how you make money in the world. I mean, just because I’ve got mad pole-dancing skills doesn’t mean I have to become a stripper. (Or does it?) Your thing may not be a way of “doing” in the world at all, but rather a way of being in the world. Maybe you want to be more peaceful, more loving, more connected, or more forgiving. Maybe you want to learn how to listen more and talk less. (Weird.) Maybe you want to be, as Rumi says, “A Mighty Kindness” in the world. Or hike more. Make music. Carve wood. Save the orangutans. Or just be a better pole-dancer. (Pole-dancing orangutan? Why not?)

When it comes to hearing – really, truly hearing what calls us – money (or more specifically the fear of not having it) is what stops us dead in our tracks. In the words of the great pop star Jessie J. “It’s not about the money money money.” Look, I’m not saying you can’t earn a lot of money doing what you love. But if your brain is anything like mine, the moment you latch onto the idea that “calling=cash,” you beat, bludgeon, and choke the living daylights out of your passion. And there’s no faster way to kill passion than to put a price tag on it.

Speaking of passion…the other problem we encounter on our quest to find “our thing” is that our culture has slowly poisoned us with its idea of our One True Love – not only in the bedroom, but also when it comes to our calling. From a very young age we are told that we have A calling, as in one, singular thing that calls to us. And that calling should be something we do every day that will earn us a boat-load of money AND bring us great joy. (If that were the case – I’d be the first Cheese Billionaire of the World.) However, for those of us Renaissance men or women who have multiple and varied interests and desires that range from fantasy baseball leaguing to Hummel figurine collecting to mid-century antiquing, putting this Baby in a corner by telling her that she has to have A calling is like telling me I have to eat the same meal every day for the rest of my life. Sure, I might think that I love pizza that much, but the reality is that even I would get sick of pizza eventually. (No I wouldn’t, baby. I love you. I’m just trying to make a point.)

When we carry around the notion that we have A calling, we may stifle the opportunity to live a richly fulfilling and meaningful life by getting locked into our narrow, artificial cultural constructs of “career” and “earning”. Or, more likely, we end up feeling like a miserable failure because we haven’t found that One True Love that we were told exists and therefore something is wrong with us as a result. There’s nothing wrong with us. As Auntie Mame says, “Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death.”

Life is a banquet and your thing doesn’t have to come off of some prix fixe menu of socially-acceptable and financially-viable callings pre-approved for us by God herself. Lawyer. Doctor. Financial Advisor. Human Resources Manager. Sometimes what calls to your soul is a smorgasbord of being and doing in the world that cannot be confined to a title on a business card. (Or it can. I do call myself Chief Mischief Maker, which says both nothing and everything all at once.) Your existence and how you make your way in the world is so much bigger than that. And yet, your whole life you are told you have to choose. And it should be something you love. And you have to make a living doing it. And you have to choose that thing when you are a teenager. Let’s be clear, when I was a teenager, all I could really think about was if Ty Osborne likes me likes me or just likes me? (I’m still not sure of the answer.)

Truth be told, it’s no wonder that what calls to us is falling on deaf ears. What a tremendous amount of pressure to put on our life’s purpose. No wonder we keep seeking. We’ve been brainwashed into believing that what we were built to do or be in this world is singular, extraordinary, culturally-ordained, and lucrative. As such, nothing can ever live up to the outside world’s projection of our interior life of longing. And honestly, that just sucks. 

In the end, when it comes to finding your thing, remember that there is no “there” there. A calling comes to offer you direction and motivation, not a destination. A calling is an invitation to experience the divine in all her forms, not an expectation that you shut yourself off from all other life experiences once you find it. “Your thing” is neither singular nor elusive. It is neither unknowable nor unique. Your life is speaking to you constantly and it is your job to listen – to quiet the roaring voices in your head that sound suspiciously like your parents and your tenth-grade teacher – and instead tune into that small tugging in your belly and that quiet sparkle up your spine.

As our favorite Sufi mystic, Rumi, says,

What in your life is calling you,
When all the noise is silenced,
The meetings adjourned…
The lists laid aside,
And the Wild Iris blooms
By itself In the dark forest…
What still pulls on your soul?

Let yourself be led. And if what you want to do with your life leads to putting a hand down your pants, well then who am I to stop you?

We Shall Be a Mighty Kindness

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Zero Circle

Be helpless, dumbfounded,

Unable to say yes or no.

Then a stretcher will come from grace

To gather us up.

We are too dull-eyed to see that beauty

If we say we can, we’re lying.

If we say No, we don’t see it,

That No will behead us

And shut tight our window onto spirit.

So let us rather not be sure of anything,

Beside ourselves, and only that, so

Miraculous beings come running to help.

Crazed, lying in a zero circle, mute,

We shall be saying finally,

With tremendous eloquence, Lead us.

When we have totally surrendered to that beauty,

We shall be a mighty kindness.

~Rumi


We Shall Be a Mighty Kindness

snow-721952_1920-2-2Occasionally in life, I will encounter someone whose entire being seems to radiate a sort of profound kindness that envelopes me and makes me feel wholly seen, deeply held, and completely loved. When I am around them, I feel clever. Interesting. Attractive. Maybe even a little bit shy. I feel that in their eyes I can do no wrong and that everything good in the world is possible.

Perhaps you’ve met someone like that. Perhaps you are like that. I believe that person – who exudes love like a rare, intoxicating and exotic perfume – is what Rumi might deem a Mighty Kindness.

True Confession: I want to be like that. I want to be a Mighty Kindness. I want to see the world as full of possibility and hope and be a beacon of love that guides people home. Back to themselves. Back to the love that is borne in the very marrow of their being. Back to truth.

In fact, ever since I first heard those words nearly six years ago now, I have proclaimed to anyone who will listen – and even those who won’t – “I want to be a Mighty Kindness in the world.”

Honestly, I’m not even sure what that means or what it would take to be a Mighty Kindness – although, Rumi does seem to lay it out for us, almost like a recipe:

Be Helpless: Check.

Dumbfounded: You know it!

Unable to say yes or no: Are you kidding? It’s a wonder I’m even wearing pants right now!

And honestly, I’m not even sure why I want to be a Mighty Kindness in the world. Other than the fact that I think it is desperately needed. That kindness is the essential ingredient for turning the tide of casual indifference, senseless barbarism, and overwhelming suffering that is making this planet a lonely and inhospitable place to be.

Oh right. That.

So, what does it take to be a mighty kindness in the world? How can a world that seems so sure of everything – a world where judgment is so immediate and accountability is so absent, a world where politicians argue over constitutional rights while children die in the streets and veterans rot in jails – how can this world surrender to the truth and beauty of not knowing anything at all in order to become a mighty kindness that heals us all?

Because that is the truth: when we show up confident in our opinion, controlling in our actions, closed off from compromise, unwilling, unbending, unseeing, we cut ourselves off from possibility and growth. We cut ourselves off from spirit, God, source, love… We cut ourselves off from kindness itself. We cannot see the suffering of the world, because we cannot connect to the source of love within us that helps us see the truth of others. We lose access to, as author Jean Fain calls them, “our compassion glasses.” We become suffering itself and kindness can find no purchase when we are in this state – this state that acts as a teflon shield to our humanity.

I believe the opposite of kindness isn’t cruelty. I believe it is indifference. Cruelty indicates an active barbarism that certainly exists in the world and for which kindness would certainly be curative. However, I do not believe that cruelty is our true affliction as a people. It is indifference that ails us as a nation. As a world. The more seemingly connected we become through bits and bytes and wires,  the more we seem to cultivate a blind indifference to the suffering in our world – the suffering within ourselves. Perhaps it is because of an overwhelming sense of the enormity of the task at hand. Perhaps it is a perceptual blindness, where we end up sleepwalking through life, collar upturned, eyes cast down, not seeing the man begging for his life on the street corner. Perhaps we have become too dull-eyed, separated from life and from love by a thin pane of glass.

But it is hard to be indifferent when you are eye to eye with a hungry soul, starving for food and affection. It is hard to be indifferent when you are sitting in a prison, bearing witness to the result of years of intergenerational racism, poverty, and abuse.  It is hard to be indifferent when you see a freezing and frightened dog on the side of the street. It is getting harder and harder to ignore the accumulated effect of our indifference when it winds up as more than a meme or a trending topic on Facebook and instead ends up on our doorstep. And so we are slowly waking up to the harsh consequences of indifference. We are waking up to the quiet pinging of our compassion that is growing into a thrumming wave of yearning to fix what is broken all around us and within us.

But compassion is  not enough and it is nothing without kindness. Compassion is a recognition of suffering in the world, whereas kindness is the transcendence of our own self-interest in favor of easing the suffering of others. Kindness is compassion in action. It is the expression of compassion in the world, not only for ourselves, but for others.

I believe that kindness is the lodestone of our moral compass, and without it? We risk becoming directionless in our values and in our character.

I believe that kindness is the keystone of our principles as a nation and without it, we cannot bear up our brothers and sisters who so desperately need our help.

I believe that kindness is a state of grace and without it, we will shut our window tight onto spirit.

Kindness is our healing.

It is our salvation.

It is our restitution.

The good news is that kindness is free. It has no capital. It is not quantifiable. It cannot be bartered or sold. And yet it is also the most valuable commodity on earth. And it’s abundant, if, and only if, we overcome indifference.

So I ask again what does it take to become a mighty kindness? What do we do? How do we come together and create real and lasting change when the task seems so enormous?

We start by recognizing that kindness is not a random act, but rather a deliberate act of revolution – a resolution to overthrow the callous cruelty and sleepy indifference in the world; to cast aside our hubris, lay down our certainty, and reserve our judgements; to fall back in love with the tenderness of the world, the tenderness inside each of us.

We must put down our screens, roll down our windows, and open our eyes to what we have created in our sleep. We must allow ourselves the discomfort of witnessing the discomfort in others to the point that we are moved to act, in whatever way – no matter how small. We must let ourselves fall in love with the magic of creation to the point where we are once again mute and overwhelmed by its beauty.

We must live the question, “How can I bring more kindness into the world?” and let spirit – not our mind – lead us to the answer. It is our minds that make us believe the ugliness of our separation from one another, but spirit that reminds us that we are in fact connected to all.  When we have surrendered to the beauty of that connection, we shall be a Mighty Kindness.

And it will be grand.

This reflection was originally written and delivered by Jessica Steward at the Portland New Church, 302 Stevens Avenue, Portland, Maine on Sunday, February 21st. The service, “Spark of Kindness: The Simple Beauty of a Benevolent Heart,” was designed by Jessica Steward and Craig Werth, both students at the Chaplaincy Institute of Maine.

The Envy of the Stars

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“On Joy and Sorrow” by Khalil Gibran

kahlil-gibranThen a woman said, Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow.
And he answered: Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
Some of you say, “Joy is greater than sorrow,” and others say, “Nay, sorrow is the greater.”
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.
Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.
Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.
When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.

Reflection by Jessica Steward

Image: Karen Orr

Image: Karen Orr

As a young girl, I remember how close to the surface my emotions always seemed to run. I was so captivated by the possibility each moment contained that I would move from sadness to joy within what felt like seconds.

Today that might be considered a diagnosable disorder, but for anyone who has been a child, we know it is a normal part of growing up and falling wildly, rapturously in love with the world. The gift of an unburdened view of everything that surrounded me felt like I was constantly reaching into a field of pure potential and creating the world anew over and over again.

It makes sense then, that as a mere mortal, stepping into the role of Creator was often a turbulent and emotional affair:

One moment I was on the ground crying hot tears, having fallen off my bike and the next moment I would stare in curious wonder at the ants as they carried a morsel of food 50 times their body weight back to their home.

Another moment I was weeping on the stairs as I dragged my bag behind me, shouting down to my mother that I was going to run away from home, because she was so mean and the next, I was contently wrapped in her arms as she whispered her gratitude that I decided to stay.

Back then I lived unfettered by the sometimes-jaded cynicism of my elders, particularly my mother and her friends. My mother’s frequent refrain that “people are stupid” didn’t really seem to sink in or mar my love affair with those very same people to whom she directed her criticism, the people I met everyday on my adventures with my bicycle, the people who seemed to love me in return, which was enough for me. It was plenty.

Until I hit puberty…

Puberty: a time when the lustrous shine wears off the world and its hardness peeks out from underneath the naïve cover of our youth.

For me, the start of puberty was also a time of deep unrest for my mother. She and my father had divorced after having been separated for nearly 10 years and she was ready to leave this too-small town and set off on her own grand adventures to see the world.

So she sold our house. Planned a 6-month trip for us to Europe (as one does), where, upon our return we would move to Maine, a long-time dream of hers. She was excited, filled with joy. But her joy was my sorrow. My town was the perfect size for me. Regardless, it seemed that my life had something bigger planned.

It was a hard time for me, as adolescence seems to be for so many of us and it felt like sorrow and joy were the tide: They were uncontrollable and would wash in and out without command or concern. In fact it still feels that way: Sorrow comes in and joy washes out. Joy comes in and sorrow washes out.

Time and tide wait for no man…

The truth is that the emotions and experiences of life have continually been washing over each of us, even as a young children. However during adolescence – a time of deep personal, emotional, and spiritual growth – the strength of those waves can seem too strong and too frequent, almost as if we are caught in an undertow, keeping us drowning at sea.

As a child, I was able to float from moment to moment, keenly focused on the breathtaking beauty of the world; as an adolescent I seemed to get bogged down in the sadness of it: Sorrow washed in and seemed to stay on the shore more often than joy. I was depressed. I felt lonely. I felt the world was cruel and unfair. My father didn’t love me. My sister didn’t understand me. The small things that had once fascinated me as a girl no longer held their luster.

Where once I had looked down at the ground to avoid stepping on the ants, now I was focused on the horizon of when I’d be older and able to get out, move on, fall in love, get married and be in charge of my own life.

I can see now that, as Khalil Gibran shared in his writing, this period in my life – this period in all of our lives – is vitally important. The tidal strength of sorrow was carving a well deep into my being, creating a place to contain more joy.

And as I’ve grown, thankfully moving out of my teens and my twenties – as I have become that woman that I so desperately wanted to be as a girl – the tide has washed away that seemingly constant layer of sorrow and has uncovered a new layer of joy.

I am once again fascinated by the mightiness of the tiniest creatures on earth. I find myself smiling at the simple breeze that catches my hair and cools my skin. I feel my eyes prick with tears when I see the sweetness of a child shrieking in the ecstasy of ordinary life.

As I’ve gotten older – as the tides of my life have washed in and out, sorrow depositing wisdom on my shores and joy taking the decay of sadness away – I am struck at how the quality of joy and sorrow is now, at once, both completely different and yet wholly the same as it was when I was a child.

There is less urgency now. It seems that the deep grooves left in me by the hardness of my adolescence have made it so that I now able to hold two truths within me at once: Even in sorrow, I can recall the joy and even in joy, I can feel the sorrow. It seems that the hardness of life has made space for love to not only enter, but to stay in me more often and more fully.

That is the basic element of life that I didn’t recognize as being vitally important for my happiness as a child or adolescent: the element of love. Just as the moon influences the tide, our lives are influenced by the gravitational pull of love, which orbits each of us.

As love orbits our life, like in the phases of the moon, we are sorrowful when we cannot see it and joyful upon its return. As an adolescent, heck, as an adult, I didn’t believe there was enough love for me. I was greedy for it and when it moved out of my vision, I thought it was gone, never to be felt nor experienced again.

But now, unlike when I was a child, I know then even when the moon isn’t visible in the night sky, it is still there, slowly making its way round the earth, both predictable and surprising in its magical journey.

The same is true for love. When sorrow washes in once again and we are left grieving for a joy that is no longer with us, even in our darkest hour, we know that, if we sit long enough in the memory of love, it will come back around to illuminate our lives once again.

And if today you find yourself feeling sadness or melancholy – if you sit here in your seat grieving for something or someone you have lost – know that soon joy will come to unmask your sorrow. Just as a full moon returns to the night sky every 29.53 days, joy is on its way back to you and with it will come a love that is so bright and full, that it will light up the dark night of your soul with its brilliance and make the stars shimmer with envy.


This reflection was originally written and delivered by Jessica Steward at the Portland New Church, 302 Stevens Avenue, Portland, Maine on Sunday, May 17th. The service, “Joy as Sorrow Unmasked,” was designed by Jessica Steward, Karen Orr, and Leslie Hyde, all students at the Chaplaincy Institute of Maine.

I Told You So: Tell Me I’m Pretty

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IToldYouSo_TellMePretty_med

I only pretend to have a hard life. I don’t have kids yet, although I do have a tiny terrier with a big personality; a 16-lb raccoon cat who lumps around all over the house; and a 7-lb geriatric cat who has two bad knees and the bad attitude to match. And yes, I am lucky to be able work successfully for myself, although as a passionate solopreneur, the line between my job and my couch is very thin and barely distinguishable.

And I am also the only one who cleans the bathroom and who even pretends to know how to cook. So after a long Monday, when the husband is working late and won’t be home until 9pm, I just wish that someone were there to make me a hot meal. Someone who could take the dog out for a walk. Someone who would look at me in my end-of-day torpor and recognize that I need someone to just stroke my hair and tell me I’m pretty.*

Interested? I’m hiring. Apply within. (And I won’t even make you rub my feet.)

*a long time ago, my friend, Kathy, told me this was all she needed in life. So props to her for recognizing the truth and for sharing it with me. 

The Secret of (My) Success

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“Life’s too short to hang out with people who aren’t resourceful.”

~Jeff Bezos

There is one common trait that all successful entrepreneurs share and it’s probably not what you think. No, it’s not a winning smile or an outgoing personality. (Although that certainly has helped me. Wink wink.) It’s not even a background in business, sales, or marketing. It’s resourcefulness. All of the successful solopreneurs and small business owners I know are also some of the most resource-savvy people I know.

It breaks my heart to see new entrepreneurs flounder and fail when setting up their businesses – missing out on opportunities, struggling with confidence, and taking class after class to try and fill in perceived gaps of knowledge from other subject matter experts. Don’t get me wrong: It’s not that there isn’t a lot to be gained from experts on subjects with which we aren’t familiar.  But when we take such classes from a place of perceived helplessness, they are merely compounding the problem. We forget our inherent ability and the biological imperative we all share not only to survive in this world, but also to thrive.  And how do we do that? Well, we learn how to use our resources, people.

How to Be Resourceful

Be Curious.

Remember when you were a kid and you’d ask, “why? why? why?” a thousand times, why? (And your mother would sigh deeply, roll her eyes, and then tell you to go look it up. Or was that just my mom?) Well that gift will serve you well, my friend, even as an adult. My insatiable curiosity has driven me to embrace a child-like interest in the world around me and to seek the answers to the questions of my life like a bear searches for sweet, sweet honey. Whether it’s why an aardvark looks so flippin’ weird or how to become a baby panda handler, I’ve used the Five Ws + H (Who, What, When, Where, Why + How) I learned in grade school to help me figure out the answers to all of life’s Googlable questions.

Speaking of Google…

“Search Engine” it.

I remember when I discovered the internet and opened Mosaic (an ancient web browser, if such a thing exists) for the first time. The World Wide Web!? A giant database of knowledge zooming around the world in a series of tubes? Sign me up!   Back in the day, when I would spend hours searching the internet on a wide array of topics, the search results were spotty and it was much harder to find appropriately topical information. But then, God created Google. (and on the 7th day? We searched.)  The truth is that internet search engines are your friend. Hell, be it email, in-app help documents, or a good old fashioned encyclopedia, search functionality in general is your friend!

I’m always floored by how many simple, easily searchable questions I have been asked throughout my career and how, as a result of my own curiosity and passion for information, people think I know everything. I mean, I’m smart and have a knack for retaining even the most banal celebrity trivia (Harrison Ford used to be a carpenter!), but most of the time when someone asks a question I don’t know the answer to? I just look it up. And voila! I’m a “genius” who “rocks”. Yeah, that’s right, Mick Jagger: reference librarians and I are the rockstars now. [Read more…] about The Secret of (My) Success

I Told You So: Top Gun

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I watched a lot of inappropriate television as a child. I’d stand with a finger on the cable box, my face nearly pressed to the screen, inhaling violence, boobs, simulated sex, and swearing as if it were my last meal. Which it would be if my mother caught me. Hence the finger on the button. The moment I’d hear her on the stairs, I’d flip the channel and feign an air of casual boredom until she finally came in the room to check on me.

“There’s nothing good on, so I’m just flipping around.”

I honestly don’t know if she had any clue of what I was up to. She did seem surprised when she sat me down to have, “The Talk” and I, with a blasé air of worldliness and a dismissive wave of my hand, told her I already knew all about sex. I then launched into a lecture of how the man and woman get naked and kiss and rub all over each other a lot. However, I wasn’t really sure what a woman’s breasts had to do with getting pregnant, so maybe she would be so kind as to clear that up for me?

Yes, I was a precocious kid with rather, um, sophisticated tastes in movies. This was never more evident than when I went for a sleepover when visiting my cousin, Abby, and her friend in 7th grade.  At the video store, I suggested two terrific movies: April Fool’s Day – which if you Google it, you will recognize as being wholly inappropriate for people in general – and Tom Cruise, er, Top Gun.

To make a moderately long story short, half way through the nudity, swearing, and scary violence of April Fool’s Day, our friend’s mother decided that we’d seen enough and, as she fixed me with a wary eye, popped Top Gun into the VCR player and promptly left the room. Honestly, I think she just didn’t want to know. I was glad she made the decision to switch movies, too, because in the privacy of my own suspiciously unsupervised home, the silly trifle that was April Fool’s Day took on an embarrassing and wildly inappropriate tone when sharing it with my peers. (Although, let’s be honest: Abby had furtively watched far worse with me at my house. Hotel New Hampshire, anyone?) And with relief all around that the decision had been made for us, we settled in to the couch again and enjoyed Tom Cruise and the guys from Nerds and Real Genius, respectively, play volleyball on the beach and zoom around the air in fighter jets.

More than 25 years after that incident, I sat down – somewhat hang-doggedly – to enjoy a Top Gun retrospective on Netflix and discovered something very surprising: the movie actually had a plot, with mystery and tension and conflict and stuff. And that Tom Cruise was really hot. Although that part’s not so surprising, because we already knew that.

Amiright, ladies?

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