What the @#$%…Is there a "Kick Me" sign on my back?

Ever have one of those days? You know – where EVERYTHING goes wrong (and then when it can’t possibly get worse, it goes even more wrong)?

It kind of makes you want to check to see if there’s an invisible “Kick Me” sign on your back, perhaps put there by a twisted universe. Or maybe you’ve fallen into an alternate universe where your life is the TV movie of the week and you are the hapless hero whose fate hangs in the balance for 2 hours of prime-time drama.

“Sometimes you have to laugh otherwise you’d cry”

The words of wisdom shared with me by a good friend on one of her worst Kick Me days, Kleenex in hand laughing through the tears that she couldn’t hold back anymore despite her chin-up motto. These words suck with me and years later, I pull them out and dust them off whenever life starts it’s sophomoric pranks.

So when you mom spanks you at your 7^th birthday party in front of all your friends, giving that nasty boy ammunition for pointing and teasing you for what seems will be the rest of your life, laugh. Or when you become known as the girl who threw up ALL OVER her desk in grade 5. You got it – laugh.

Sometimes the laughter doesn’t happen immediately as you stare in absolute horror at the perm that turned your long hair into a weird clown-esque white girl Afro the day before the junior high dance where you had planned on asking “The cutest boy EVER” to dance. But looking back at it now – it’s there.

The list is endless – your first big red F in university, the one that jeopardizes your scholarship; the first job that turns into a test of will power working for an evil maniacal boss who thrills at humiliating his underlings; the first time you set out to do something big and it turns into a big flop.

It doesn’t feel like it in the moment, but one day you will look back and laugh. Even if it’s the kind of laugh that comes with the tears, the laugh that tries to resolve how stupid and cruel and unfair life can be. The laugh that guarantees your special admission into the “Oh yeah? Well, you won’t believe what happened to me!” club as you regale your friends with the detailed account of your “Kick Me” day over a glass of wine.

With this laughter comes the wisdom of knowing that this too shall pass and the strength to simply carry on.

This post was inspired by my dear friend Elizabeth who last Thursday had what was undoubtedly the worst day of her life as she discovered that her car had been vandalized leaving the battery dead as she rushed her daughter to the hospital with a brain tumor.

While I doubt she will look back on that day and laugh, she will look back and see what we see – the amazing courage and strength of spirit it took her to pack 5-year-old Gracie into a rental car to drive to the hospital and after enduring endless hours of wondering and waiting as doctors poked and prodded her precious little girl, having the ability to find the laughter in the little things like finally having deodorant.