The first time I said "fuck" I was around 8. I was climbing the wooden fence in our backyard, alone, when I fell from the top. Flailing downwards, I said it. Out of nowhere. I had barely just learned it so I was shocked that I'd even thought of it in that moment. I was the only witness to this seemingly horrendous misconduct. I had said it quite softly -a whisper, maybe- but nevertheless, I immediately felt a sting of guilt far more painful than the impact from the fall. I was so ashamed that I got up and locked myself in the bathroom where I poured liquid hand soap into my own mouth to "clean" it out. I remembered once seeing a family friend do this to her son when he had cursed. But even more relevantly, this is the same punishment Ralphie suffered in A Christmas Story so obviously it was, you know, the right thing to do. I sincerely thought it was the only appropriate atonement for cussing.
Fast forward a few years to fourth grade. I was sitting on the bus, (the best bus), Bus 2, in the school parking lot, waiting for all the other kids to sit down so we could go the heck home. Bus 4 (the crazy kid bus) was pulled up behind us, at such an angle that the driver, Ms. Catwick, was looking directly through my window at me. Ms. Catwick was a literal nightmare. Notorious for being the least forgiving, witchiest bus driver. I paid her no attention at the time, as I was busy waving and gesturing through the window to some of my friends on her bus. It was cold outside and I was wearing gloves so I thought it would be hilarious to make a fist and pull the middle finger of my glove upwards to create the illusion of flicking off my friends. For some reason, they got just as much of a kick out of this as I did. When suddenly, much to my mortification, Ms. Catwick, who had been staring in my direction the entire time, shook her head back and forth in a vigorous disapproval mouthing the word "NO". I immediately pinched the empty glove where my finger should have been in attempts to demonstrate to her my innocence despite my clever trickery. She was not amused.
The entire bus ride home, I was drowning in a mixture of anxiety, shame, and regret. All I could think about was how much trouble I was probably going to get in for having done that, and how stupid I was for not realizing Ms. Catwick could see me. My despair was visible, apparently, because once I got home and started to self medicate with my daily 5:00 dose of back to back episodes of Full House, my mom asked me if I was feeling alright. Even the distraction of the adorable Michelle Tanner wasn't enough to disguise my worry and discomfort!
I needed to do something to rectify the situation, or at the very least, put myself at ease. Washing my mouth out with soap didn't seem fitting. And I was going to need something more powerful this time, as there had been several witnesses. Eventually, I recalled a little sidebar message in my study Bible about a way to physically represent repentance by writing down a transgression and disposing of it. I wanted to give it a try. I slunk upstairs and scribbled about my deed on a piece piece of paper. Then I ripped it up into hundreds of tiny pieces, threw it on the floor, and vacuumed it all up. I had considered throwing it in the trash but I was too humiliated even thinking about the possibility of somebody from my family rummaging through the rubbish, finding the pieces, putting them together, and finding out!
I felt better, but I still had trouble sleeping. The next day at school, I was petrified that at any given moment, the wrath of God would fall upon me in the form of severe disciplinary action. Every school official that popped their head into our classroom that day made me slink down into my chair and wish I could crawl out of my skin. Every corner I turned, I feared running into somebody who might remember what had happened. At recess, our principal, Mr. Klaisner, came onto the playground and stood on the blacktop, surveying the land. I was absolutely certain that Ms. Catwick had sent him to chastise me so I was overwhelmed with relief when I found out he was really looking for kids who had been passing out candy cigarettes.At the time, it was literally the worst day I'd experienced. Looking back on my life, I'm so happy that I eventually stopped requiring a ritual for my f-bombs and related gestures. What was once a deeply rooted conviction has turned into something light enough to be carried away by the wind. I was 100% certain that my rituals were necessary to make up for the horrors of profanity which was the most taboo thing I had been exposed to at that age. My view on profanity now would be more along the lines of: Rude. Annoying. Flavoring words to portray emotion. By no means an elevator ride straight to hell. Soap, ripped up scraps of paper: I didn't really need them. I had been confused and misguided into a bizarre, and frankly, kind of creepy, perspective. Back then, I thought I was required to find my own closure and experience a tangible representation of forgiveness. But by now I've realized how very possible it is to be 100% certain and 100% wrong at the same time.
For fuck's sake.
