There is no “try”…

My youngest kid is in a strange phase that manifests as him hitting you for no reason (save the occasional Marvel character-related interjection with the delivery of said blow), followed quickly by “Just kidding!”  And this face (no seriously, he looks like a young Chris Hemsworth):

Me: “Hands to yourself. (Pain increasing steadily in groin). Go to your room until I come get you.  I’m not kidding.”

And as much as the immediate consequence is the right thing to do, there’s still this weird, child-like all-boy part of me that gets it.  Or at least I think I used to get it.  Or I still do get it but I’m not allowed to get it. Now.  Then.  Or something like that…. and a pang of feeling-bad for the kid happens.

When I was a kid, I can recall at least three of my teachers saying to me, “Don’t bullshit a bullshitter.”  Adopted it as my own.  Strong and deep, that statement is.

But I never went so far as to say, “Don’t kid a kidder.”  Not Margot Kidder, just a kidder.

It dawned on me that I hate kidding (and Margot Kidder, gods rest her soul).  I hate, “Just kidding.”  Maybe that’s why I always liked Yoda’s timeless advice to a whiny little bitch Luke:  “No!  Try not… DO.  Or do not.  There is no ‘try’….”

What a crappy realization:  to have a lifelong hatred of kidding, and to realize, in the quiet of my current solitude, that I’ve been partaking in the worst form of kidding:  kidding myself.

And my inner-semanticist (or is it semantician?) wants to draw a line between kidding and adulting, as if they are antonyms.  But they’re not, despite some etymology that’s lost to me that ties being a kid to being a joker.  Or a bullshitter. Or a sociopath.

But adulting, though.  Accomplishing mundane but necessary tasks.  Being responsible.  Paying taxes.  Living your best life…Not lives, despite my postulate stolen from The Natural that we, in fact, have two lives– a life we learn with, and the life we live with after that.  Apparently not.  At least not today.

To quote Ellis Boyd Redding:  “So you just go on and stamp your form, Sonny, and stop wasting my time.  Because to tell you the truth, I don’t give a shit.”

And I wish that were true:  That I didn’t give a shit.  That’s where I want to live the rest of my life (and give the rest of my shits):  A warm place with no memory. But I do give a shit. Because I hope.

I hope.  At least I think I do.