It Takes Two To Too

this article is from the “Words Matter” series, which explores y(our) relationship to words and language

“I stood at the border, stood at the edge and claimed it as central. I claimed it as central and let the rest of the world move over to where I was.” -Toni Morrison

Cher lay sprawled across the peach plastic coral at the bottom and Sonny was floating upside down at the top, flakes of food bobbing futilely across his fins. Both goldfish had turned up dead in their tank. My five-year-old self was devastated.

“Ahhhh-huh-huh-huh-huh-huh…” I wailed, punching out reflexive heaves along with the tears. 

My small chest shuddered inside my shoulders, my mind clinging to a replay of the first time I

cradled them in my lap while they swam inside sealed plastic baggies, carefully balancing them in the backseat of  Dad’s car as he drove us home from the fair. I had loved them for a week. With five-year-old heart and soul. I continued bawling, inconsolable. 

“Oh honey, they had a good life,”  glass half-fulled my mom.  “You can’t let everything get to you like that. You’re never going to be able to handle the world otherwise. You’re too sensitive.”’

Well-intended guidance yet missing a manual.

I did not know how to tamp down my too-ness.

Too, like its redundant vowel, told me that I had a surplus of useless material, in this case my sensitivities. Not realizing that they would later become one of my biggest strengths, the inadvertent blow landed hard.

Its three potent letters had been stamped and delivered. The letters followed me through the years ahead, switching partners at random, where I was alternately qualified as unqualified by being too tall, too skinny, too loud, too flat, too slow, too ugly, too smart, too stupid, too much and not enough aka too deficient. Each label extorted my desired direction; with too at the helm I wasn’t headed to anywhere to be or not to be, I was excessively already there, marked as having missed the mark, the extra o emphatic in its denunciation.

Most people I knew had been captured in too’s trifold clutches as well, victims contending with its sentencing.  My best friend was too short, too fat, too weird.  My worst enemy was too mean, too dumb, too dirty. None of us could escape the terrible too’s that continued through all ages and stages of life. Predicated on the Goldilocks and the Three Bears school of thought, there was only ever one perfect fit; all others were excessive or excessively insufficient.  Any designation outside of the center was unacceptable, unfit, disregarded in deference to an idealized median. Landing near the edges was simply wrongous.

Too skews the view through which we see ourselves, branding us  ‘more than is needed or wanted.’ It fires with the slinger’s built-in barometer, a loaded concoction implying there’s a just-rightness that you are just missing. 

When not being leveled at someone, too can be a useful gauge for problem-solving. If the volume in a concert hall is below the audible decibel of capturing sound, too low becomes a helpful baseline for adjustment.  When the outside temperature exceeds triple digits, too hot is a clear guide to protect your pet’s paws from scorching asphalt. Too has its places, especially when used to mean ‘also,’ which encourages connection. Yet when applied indiscriminately, it can perforate a person’s potential, sometimes permanently.

With too, one size can smear all; the word is conclusive irrespective of facts. 

Whatever it points to it renders defective, wiping out nuance and gradation cementing a narration without variation Simply undue and untrue obscuring (subjectivity); He talks too much. (Exceeds enthusiasm cap) Her thighs are too wide. (Failure to conform to another’s invisible arousal template) They’re too boring. (Divergent interests) Too what for who, hmm? Too is in the eye of the besmudger. Entire industries have cropped up to redirect and correct too-ness, mitigating toofattoothintoocurlytoostraighttoowrinkledtoopoortooshorttoooldtoodrytoooily, dissecting surplus for profit. Yet no matter how discomfited others might be with your magnitude, they can’t peel off degrees of who you are. So what to do with too?  Don’t take to heart other people’s heads. You’re innately just right. Upright as is.    Too aligned with the divine not to-o shine