Just Between You And...

When I was your age, my friends and I went through a little phase where we described everything with words that ended in -ness. For instance, we would talk all day about this person's cuteNESS, that person's stupidNESS, someone else's geniusNESS (not a real word, by the way), and all of our own boredNESS with everything that was going on that didn't involve ourselves. So, it got to a point where we would just say "ness" whenever something was really good (i.e. A really cute boy was just "The ness").

A sample conversation at lunch:
Little Ms. Grooms: Man, these skittles are so ness.
Little Friend of Ms. Grooms: Yeah, I agree. They are ness.
Little Ms. Grooms: That's what I'm saying. Ness. Taste the rainbow.

Yeah, so as you can see, we were so cool. I mean, that's obvious.

So, we talked like this for a while until we grew out of it. Thing is, it made sense to us then. Perfect sense.

Later, in college, at a sorority retreat, Meredith and I were in side-by-side sleeping bags and another girl was in hers at our feet. Someone (NOT ME) kicked her.
She yells, "Who kicked me?"
And Meredith says, "KK" (my nickname then).
I say, "Absolutely not. It was Meredith!"
And then she said, "No way! My feet are SO UP HERE NEXT TO MY LEGS!!"
And I say, "Wow Mer. So that's where you keep your feet?"
And she said, "Shut up."
And then I laughed and laughed.
So even now, some 5 years later, if I do or say something stupid and she tries to call me out on it, all I have to do to put her in her place is go, "Ok, and where are your feet?"

We have more little stupid stuff like that. I have stupid stuff like that with my sisters, with my other friends, with my parents. I like these little things, because these little things are what make us who we are. Our relationships are defined by these little things that make sense ONLY to us. We use our language to sort of accidentally create these ties that bind us. A little saying here, an inside joke there, a word that triggers something...they make us who we are together. We develop these like secret vocabularies.

What's something that you do or say that makes sense only to you and someone important to you? Think about the way you talk to your closest friends...your family...what kind of language defines those relationships?

p.s. I only say, "Cry on the inside" with you.
p.p.s. These can be anonymous again if you want them to be.