punching life in the face. Or at least parts of it, anyway.

It’s weird, now that I’m not married, my feelings hardly get hurt at all anymore. That might sound strange, but it’s true. And sure, I get sad or annoyed because of others sometimes, but I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about how this person has hurt me and how we need to work it out and I wonder if maybe he’s gay, but oh, actually he’s just fallen in love with someone else, so it all makes a sad kind of sense now.

And yeah, I’m just generalizing here.

But lately, the conflict is within.

And it has to do with my thoughts and my fears and how they can gang up on me. Because just when I thought I was having a really good time at recess, they’ve suddenly taken my lunch money and oh well, it’s okay that they have it because I’m not hungry anymore anyway.

Because dear God, I get scared sometimes. I feel misplaced sometimes; like everybody else got an invitation to the ball to meet Prince Charming and I am Cinderella and I am in rags and oh sorry–that part that you loved as a little girl–the part about the talking mice and the fairy godmother who makes everything okay for you? That’s the part we made up. Giggle, giggle, high-five.

And sometimes I am not good at silencing those thoughts. Sometimes my tears say what I cannot; they respond when otherwise I would simply sit and listen, and that’s something, I suppose.

But I think I need to get better at this; I think I need to be more like a friend of mine who, when he was younger, punched someone in the face.

Because see, this friend is a very kind soul. The kind who wouldn’t hurt a fly, as they say. Well, actually, he might hurt a fly, but definitely not if he could help it. And he would certainly not hurt a toad. Or at least, he made sure not to once, by stopping his car in order to let the toad hop across the road, unmolested. Whoa. Unmolested makes it sound like my friend saved this toad from a lot more than just getting squished.

But, anyway.

I randomly asked him today if he had ever punched someone before (the friend, not the toad). It was one of those questions you ask while thinking that you already know the answer. It’s a script; he’ll say no and then you’ll move on to something else. Until he said yes. Whhhaaa? And then, Um, why?

Because there was this kid who was so mean to me, he said. He made fun of me all the time, told me nobody liked me, and called me all sorts of things.

And so you just punched him one day? I asked.

Well, he continued, This had been going on for a long time. He’d always pretend to be really nice in front of my mom, and then when she left, he’d be cruel again. Finally he was making fun of me in front of a lot of other people and I just did it. I punched him in the face and gave him a bloody nose. This kid never made fun of me again.

And I love this story; it’s so perfect, it’s like a sitcom. But the kind of episode that I liked to watch–not the kind that would stress me out, like when the guy would accidentally agree to take two different girls to his prom and then have to juggle two dates who knew nothing about each other until, inevitably, the jig would be up and he’d be left alone at the prom before the half hour program had run out of time. Ugh, the stress of it all. Don’t be an idiot. Just take one girl, pay attention to just her like she deserves, and FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT’S GOOD AND HOLY, DON’T LEAD A DOUBLE LIFE, NOT EVEN AT THE PROM.

Sorry to yell, I get a little passionate about that kind of thing lately.

But well, punching someone in the face isn’t exactly the nice way to go, right? I mean, it’s not the kind of lesson that’s spelled out in black and white under the pictures you’d color in neatly at Sunday School. But in my friend’s case, it got the job done.

And I think I need to punch my thoughts in the face sometimes. I don’t care if that’s nice or not. And I think I need to get divorced sometimes; I don’t care if that’s nice or not. Nice to whom, anyway? It’s truth. It’s free. It’s reality. It’s acknowledging what’s wrong, what’s ugly, what’s been broken until it no longer even is and deciding to not live in those hideous, messed up places anymore.

And the other night I was talking to a different friend. Someone who has been shocked and saddened by the past events in my life. He looked at me squarely during our conversation and said, Lately, life makes me want to punch it in the face. To which I added, And once you locate Life’s face, I’ll aim about three feet lower and Life will really know how we feel about what’s been happening.

And so we made a pact.

And then we laughed because it was funny.

Which is usually why people laugh, I guess.