Machete.
Butter knives are boring.
I had a close friend of mine ask me a stupid-sounding question the other week. They said, “Am I too emotional to be in a relationship? —
—This guy I was meant to go on a date with cancelled on me last minute, no attempt to reschedule, not even an apology. I felt angry at myself for not being able to be calm and collected about something as tiny and insignificant and par for the course as a stranger's rejection. I think I take things way too personally and guys can smell that on me. That's why the good guys stay miles away while the equally neurotic, mentally unstable ones cling to me like flies.
People always try to break it to me that “people change, and it’s totally normal. I just need to move on. To stop being so dramatic and over-emotional about it.” It was like I was crazy for being this worked up about something that, in the end, wasn't really impacting my daily life. And it made me think, “Jesus Christ, maybe this is why I'm still single! All the people I know who are in relationships know how to be zen and chill about minor life irritations, whereas I'm constantly blowing them up into Crisis of the Century.”
I know that I need to learn to calm down. My parents would get mad if I got angry or sad or upset. They told me that anger is an ugly emotion. That it was important for me to learn to master my emotions. "Look at Cindy’s daughter," they would say, "She's always calm and she never gets stressed. Why can't you be more like her?" I felt as though hearing this message so often growing up has led me to become hyper-sensitised to legitimate constructive criticism of my issues. Whenever someone tries to kindly point out that I'm overthinking things, I get upset and frustrated because I'm not hearing them and their perfectly reasonable opinion, I'm hearing my parents' voices in my head, saying "You're not good enough! You'll never be good enough!" I look at others my age who are so much more mature and emotionally well-adjusted and I can’t imagine anyone choosing me over all these other people.
Is there ever such a thing as a knife that is too sharp for a drawer? What about machetes? We all know about sharp knives and steady drawers but…are there ever any circumstances where you think a knife would benefit from blunting itself a tad? If so, how can I do that?”
Starting off, I strongly believe that no parent should ever point to another kid and say, “Why can’t you be more like that one?”. No child should be asked to REPLICATE another child, to SEEM more like another kid. What does it even mean to parent, if not to delight in and embrace and rejoice the child you got, the one that landed in your arms and razed your previous delusions? Forgive me for saying this, but I tend to have an extreme reaction whenever I encounter that particular flavour of dumb. Your one job must be to encourage your kids to enjoy how unique they are, rather than putting them in this box because you are unimaginative and lazy and self-protective.
Years ago, I’d overhear relatives talk about my little cousin- referring to him as a ‘dumbass’ and other harmful words, casually, but it wasn’t quite a joke. I thought, “this is how you make a dumbass out of a little person who is pleasingly odd and tenacious and…bizarrely perfect in his own way”. Months later, I had also encountered a similar situation, the same relative referring to me as a dumbass—hardly in a joking tone. Now as an adult, I wouldn’t have cared less, but as a young girl, it was damaging to my self-worth. What I also thought was, “Maybe I hate these relatives. Maybe I’d be fine with never seeing or hearing from them again.” I naturally kept my distance from them.
I’m talking cavalierly about idiots today. I’m doing this because it’s fine and appropriate to talk this way about humans who tell children they are inadequate or broken or naturally stupid and also, (here’s the funny part) try to assert that these traits have nothing to do them, that there aren’t any consequences to their harmful words! We can talk shit about these idiots because they behave and speak in ways that are unnaturally stupid. Parents like that are remarkable only in their unmatched idiocy and also their repetitive delusion that their own stupid actions will never be soaked up by the smallest, most porous, most fragile little innocent children that are right there in the room with them around the clock.
Again, I’m talking about idiots so you can see that I too, am a machete. I also get worked up over the smallest thing. I hear my friends opening up to me and now I want to make my way down to their homes and mess up the people who’ve disrupted their peace. Sometimes I’d argue that my attitude can be unhealthy. That getting worked up over stupid little things is not smart or relaxing. I think about these things constantly, because they are true.
The point is, we must enjoy the luxury of truly interrogating our choices—and it’s fine to find ourselves wanting, constantly. There’s no shame in that. We can improve our behaviour if we forgive ourselves. We can grow to handle rejection because we realise that it’s not personal and that tolerating this occasional anxious feeling, or longing or certainty that something someone does is not good enough for us - is just part of our wiring and that’s okay and forgivable. I too am learning that I can have fun with people and their failings, and I can sometimes forgive them, but I can also REFUSE to forgive them at times.
When I think about it, I don’t know a single person that stores their machete in the drawer. You shine it up, display it on a wall or keep it above a fireplace. You put it in a place of honour. You show everyone what you’re capable of: slicing a melon in half? Yeah, sure. But also slicing other people’s motives and delusions into thin slices- without much effort. People might be afraid, or intimated by you, but what you do is beautiful. Some people might need to slow down and notice that. Most of them won’t though, because they just don’t get it, (which is fine). Others won’t notice because they’re some variation of unnaturally dumb and unkind.
People who are like machetes spend a lot of their early years internalising everything that happens around them. We are constantly tempted to dull ourselves, so we can stop reacting— stop feeling angry at our parents and sad about strangers who did that one thing to us in 2019.
To my dear friend, since you specifically asked for advice; I would recommend practicing letting go of your fixations whenever possible. Meditate, take that walk, think about things from every angle. That being said, the absolute best, most important thing you can do is to ENJOY YOURSELF. Place yourself on the mantel, a place of great honour. Marvel at your beauty and your fearsome power. And do it all day long- it’s not narcissistic to feed yourself, when you’ve spent your entire life trying to take a dull shape just to please your dull parents. I wouldn’t say it’s narcissistic that I’ve written about myself in this post dedicated to you, right? The words I’m writing to you are about connection. We are two souls being vulnerable, we are defining our worlds together. We are creating a space where we’re able to say out loud, “Hold on now. This world feels fucked, because it IS fucked!”
I’m also telling you that I love you for exactly who you are, my machete. And now you need to love you, too: forever and always. And sure there will be a situation that leaves you in anger and frustration, which I would suggest the solution to be to back up a little. Insist on boundaries. Ask for what you want, and if it can’t be given to you, forgive that. But you can also write for a few hours about what a pain everything is. Write about why you hate it so much. Give it space and then you can decide to whether to give it any more of your time, your heart, your mind, your energy, your love. THAT, is your right.
One last thing, I also want you to notice every single time you compare yourself to that child you were once compared to. The calm one, the quiet one, the upbeat one, the loving one. THE BUTTER KNIFE. I want you to notice every single time you feel rejected or you feel, physically, like you’re worthless or you feel like you need love, love, love, but…where is it? I want you to notice how often you transform your loneliness into a verdict on your inadequacy or your neuroticism or your very sharp edge.
I want you to say to yourself, every single damn time, “This is just who I am. I notice a lot and I feel a lot and I want to slice it all up into thin slices. For fun. Because I AM A MACHETE. Savour how good you are at slicing, either on the cutting board or around someone else who slices. Have fun being a machete. Butter knives are a dime a dozen. It’s the easiest path, to sit peacefully with regularly cutlery. You don’t have to polish away scratches or grime. You don’t have to admit when you’re being too heavy, too scary or too much. Being a machete can be embarrassing. You’re too shiny, too big, too sharp, lots of people seem to hate you for no reason. This is also what will form you into an exuberant being.
Shine your glistening surface. Try hard not to take it personally. Be what you are.