A post from Elmo

We’re still in survival mode at our house. Life has been very, very hard this week. I’ll have to save my usual introspective and wordy thoughts for another day. For today, here’s a social media post I found oddly fascinating…

Last I looked, this simple post from Elmo had over 200 million views and 20,000+ replies. 200 million.

Here are just a few replies:

I recall a time back in college when I, much like the intern who runs Elmo’s social media account, found myself wide-eyed and speechless after asking the simple question, “How’s your day been?”

I was waiting in line somewhere (for what seemed like an eternity) and struck up a conversation with an older guy next to me. For the first 5 minutes or so, I had no idea the guy was a Vietnam veteran, had PTSD, or had issues of any kind. We were just sort of chatting about our days. Everything seemed perfectly normal. I don’t remember the actual conversation, but I do remember that things turned south quickly when I started complaining about something. What follows is the moment the conversation turned. No, this wasn’t the actual conversation. I don’t remember it. But, I doubt it is far off.

Him: “How has your day been?”

Me: “Ok…well…that’s not really true. Today has been kind of awful, actually. I’ve been waiting far too long in this line, I didn’t do great on a test I took this morning, and I slept terribly last night. How was your day?”

Him (as his voice rapidly increased in both speed and volume): “That’s an awful day for you? Kid, you don’t know ‘awful.’ ‘Awful’ is the stench of death on your clothes. ‘Awful’ is the Viet Cong. ‘Awful’ is attempting to drag your disemboweled buddy to safety amidst a hailstorm of bullets in the jungles of ‘nam. ‘Awful’ is coming back to a country that doesn’t appreciate you and constantly whines about how hard life is. Tell me more about how awful today must be for you, princess!” (many expletives deleted).

Me:

He rolled his eyes in disgust and turned away from me. We didn’t speak again.

Perhaps you’ve had an encounter like this. This is the encounter that came to mind when I read a few replies to Elmo’s seemingly innocuous Twitter question: “Elmo is just checking in! How is everybody doing?”

Based on the responses to Elmo’s post and my own personal interaction with the world, it seems none of us are far removed from trauma these days. Everyone is dealing with something. While I haven’t trauma dumped on Elmo’s social media account like the rest of the world, I was certainly tempted to do so. I know I’ve transformed into a version of my Vietnam veteran friend at various times. In the midst of our personal tragedy, I’ve certainly been that guy. In fact, I’ve taken to using “‘nam” as a verb to describe my outbursts. Example “I ‘nam’ed a guy today when he asked how my day was going.”

Here’s an excerpt from an actual text I sent my assistant: “For what it’s worth, I have been on the phone while also changing poop during a seizure while also replying to texts while also administering meds while also answering approximately 8,000 questions from my toddler. We’re both underpaid.”

’nam’ed

The moral of the story? I don’t know. Maybe I just wanted to trauma dump my problems here instead of on Elmo. Or, maybe it’s this: we should probably all have some grace for the people who mostly have it together but periodically boil over in seemingly mundane conversations. You never know what burden someone is carrying or what trauma someone is dealing with. Or, maybe it’s this: if we all did a better job being a safe place for people to open up, perhaps we wouldn’t need to open our collective souls to a furry red puppet.

In any case, I’ll leave you with this. My 8-year-old drew it for his teenage brother a couple weeks ago. (It’s his brother’s favorite gif.) I think it’s fantastic.