An Unjust Word

'A kiss is just a kiss
A sigh is just a sigh
The fundamental things apply
As Time Goes By'
--"As Time Goes By", Herman Hupfeld (1931)

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You know what's an unjust word? "Just".

I'll start off here with a big one: "just friends".

Oh, the pain of that phrase when you're a love-besotted teenager and you've convinced yourself the essence of love involves, well, spilling your essence. "Just friends" means you have to console her every time she's dumped by men who aren't worth a booger (or who aren't worth one of your boogers). "Just friends" means that at some point she's going to look at you, probably crying as she does it, and say something like "why can't men be more like you?" Because, you know, you're not actually a man, just a friend.

You grow up, you find love--it's usually hiding in plain sight in those people you call "just friends"--and you realize one day that you were right all around, the word "just" is a bad word...but for precisely the opposite reasons. You learn, with some people, that what you have is more than friendship--the word "just" belittles the relationship, makes it smaller than it is.

There isn't a word in English for that kind of friendship, and so we're stuck with the catch-all word I've written far too many times over the last ten years: love. It's a perfectly good word, to be sure...the only problem with it is that nobody knows what you mean when you say it. So you either don't say it at all, or you have to have a nice long discussion explaining the (ahem) ins and outs of what this particular flavour of love is for you, and making sure that the flavours match.

Friends are family you pick yourself--in that way, often, they become even more important to you than family is . It's ideal if you make your best friend of the appropriate sex your spouse...that way you have a friend who is family. That's Eva for me: if someone asks me to explain the longevity of my marriage, after I react incredulously at the mere thought of fifteen years being "a long time", I would probably first cite that she's my best friend. It makes breaking up doubly unthinkable because you'd be losing a spouse and  your closest friend.

 Then you have other friends, a very few, who would uproot their lives for you and who would help you with body disposal if it came to that. There's no "just" about it: they're not lovers, but 'friends' is pitifully inadequate to describe what they are. But, ha-ha, you can't even say "more than friends" without people thinking dirty thoughts. Even "close friends" is tainted. Screw it--if you're a friend with that kind of depth, I love you and I'm not afraid to say it.

Of course, sometimes there's a huge imbalance between what you feel for someone and what they feel for you. Call it unrequited love, or call it wishful thinking, sometimes you have to insert that word "just" where you hoped and prayed it didn't belong. That's a hard thing to do. I keep thinking I've learned the last of the big "adult lessons", that life school is over and I can finally get on with the business of living...the reality is you graduate from life school by dying and (I hope, anyway) levelling up. Letting relationships settle into where they're supposed to be, versus trying to inflate them into something they're not: it's usually easier to just part ways and move on.

"Just" is used in other places where it shouldn't be. "A kiss is just a kiss", for instance.

Um, no, not really. A kiss is usually considered more intimate than sex. Prostitutes, for instance, rarely kiss their johns. Given that many people would unthinkingly hold out sex as the most intimate activity two people can get into, well, the realization there's something more intimate than sex should always and forever exempt the word "just" from having to appear near it."
There are cultures where kissing on the lips is considered disgusting--you eat with those lips! Ewww! Suffice it to say that even a chaste kiss packs a fair punch in emotional power, and a serious, hungry kiss is like being hit by lightning while riding a different lightning bolt.

A "sigh is just a sigh"...not with me, it isn't. I have a whole sigh thesaurus I employ. There's an angry sigh (really? Were your mother's eggs expired?), an exasperated sigh (I just saw that damned commercial); the bored sigh (and now for an encore, we're going to twiddle our LEFT thumb!); the tired sigh (I think my eyes fell shut as my shoulders fell); and a whole bunch of levels of happy sighs, from mildly pleased up to delirious.  If I ever lose the ability to speak and write, I think people will still be able to decipher my mood fairly easily.

Last but not least, I want people to stop referring to their professions or jobs with the word "just". I've actually heard 'I'm just a teacher". That means you're only the most important person in the lives of the kids in the room with you, for as long as you share that room. "Just"? Seriously?

But it's more common with retail workers and "lowly' office peons. "I'm just a part time clerk". No, right now you're the face of an entire company in your customer's eyes. That's a massive responsibility, and if you think of yourself as "just" a clerk, you'll shirk that responsibility sure as shit.

"Just". It's a word that needs to go away.