An Inappropriate Joy

My love of football...and birthday cake

I have a confession to make. 😬

I love football. I abhor almost every value it purports - competition at all costs, rabid misuse of money, physical destruction for the sake of bragging rights, idolatry of teenage boys. Even at the NFL level, it’s a sick mind fuck of a God-like complex driven by money and glory. Off the field, it looks like a shit show of CTE’s, rape, sexual assault, and spousal abuse allegations, homelessness, and bankruptcy. It’s not a pretty sport, and it’s difficult these days to church it up.

But, I love it.

Photo by Carol Highsmith's America on Unsplash

There is some testosterone-fueled part of my body that has a visceral reaction to the sound of a solid hit. That “pop” lights up my insides and accelerates my heart rate. I feel alive when I watch football in a way that’s difficult to replicate in my every day life.

I don’t understand how I can garner so much joy from something I intellectually find so destructive. I am the first person to admit that I would never want my son to play football. The first person to argue for a concussion protocol far more stringent than what’s currently in place. The first to scoff at the price of NFL tickets. The first to rail against the massive exploitation of mental babies brainwashed as children in to thinking this is their contribution to the world. But, by God, come August, I’ve put every game from my alma mater’s schedule in my Google calendar and am starting to plan my Fall around when the Bills play on Monday night. It’s hypocritical at best, and straight psychotic at worst.

Is there anything like this in your life? Anything that directly defies your values that you secretly wish for, wait for, want for? Is there something in your life that brings you joy that shouldn’t? An…inappropriate joy?

I’m not talking about schadenfreude here (those Germans 🙄), a word I just discovered working on this piece. This isn’t joy that derives from someone else’s misfortune or discomfort. It’s joy that surfaces from something you otherwise totally disagree with or recognize is morally, ethically, physically, mentally, emotionally bereft…or just dumb.

Here’s another example, albeit a silly one, although not to me, as I take this very seriously. I am aware of all the research that demonstrates the negative impact of processed foods and excess sugar on the body. I can recognize that as “crap” and physically feel the difference when I consume those foods versus when I do not. But, you put me in front of a piece of grocery store cake with buttercream icing, and joy abounds. It’s foolish, goes against everything I value, but I can’t deny that I will volunteer to cut the cake just so I can eat gobs of icing off the knife.

It’s debatable whether the feeling I get from that is a chemical high or actual joy, but man, do I love me some birthday cake.

Photo by Deva Williamson on Unsplash

Normally, joy makes sense to me. Not that I can necessarily predict when she’ll decide to show up, but more so once I recognize that she’s there, I see what drew her to me. But, sometimes, like with cake…and football…I just don’t get it.

And I’m reticent to share how much these things bring me joy. My feelings about it sit somewhere to the right of embarrassment and to the left of shame. Experiencing joy as a result of these instigators just feels…inappropriate.

I hate being inappropriate.

Don’t we all? I mean, who wants to be the only one in jeans when everyone else is wearing a dress? Or, the one who claps in church and its not that kind of church? Or, the person who, not having had coffee yet which means your tact hasn’t kicked in, responds to your new running friend who has just revealed she has eight kids with “Why?”

I hate being inappropriate, because often, I am inappropriate, at least according to the shared company I keep. As a woman with a big personality, a loud voice, strong opinions, no fashion sense, and an allergy to pop culture, I frequently find myself either completely missing the mark of what is appropriate or fully invested in not giving a fuck.

But, my grandparents belonged to a country club, and I went to school on a full academic scholarship, and then I became the leader of an international team, so I learned, largely through trial and error but sometimes through whispered admonitions, how to pass for appropriate in most situations. Fortunately, COVID helped accelerate the final vestiges of some of our cultural morays around appropriateness as did moving North. The South is nothing but an appropriate hypocrisy.

I despise the feeling of knowing I missed the mark, that my clothes or voice or tone or joke or entry were just not quite right. Not enough to be shameful, but a little more than embarrassing. Inappropriate. I can feel the tickle at the back of my throat. The hot that creeps up my neck, pooling just under my chin. I taught myself how not to blush, to keep the red blotchiness just south of my cheeks. It’s a power play, a way to own the narrative around the inappropriateness and earn the subtle respect of anyone hoping to out me. It’s served me well on numerous occasions.

Nothing about being inappropriate brings me joy. In fact, I usually struggle to rewrite the internal story, leaning hard on that big personality and a righteous “Fuck ‘em” to keep from caring more than I want to. Every now and again, a look or a comment cuts through the facade and leaves me rapidly blinking to clear the tears that prick the inside edges of my eyes. Most of the time, I don’t care. Sometimes, I really do.

I don’t feel any of that with football. Or with cake. I just feel sweet, simple joy. The sound of the announcers, the whistle, the snap call settles me. I never watch tv, but when I lived alone, on Saturdays my tv stayed on all day…just for the sound. It makes me smile. When I take a bite of buttercream, joy dances her way down my esophagus. I don’t feel guilty. I feel pleasure. My husband will tell you - I’ll spit it out if its not real buttercream, and I won’t go near whipped icing. But, when its right, its right, and there’s nothing better.

Sometimes, joy doesn’t make sense. She can be inappropriate, hypocritical, picky. Joy doesn’t experience embarrassment. Or shame. Joy also never surfaces at the expense of hurting other people or delighting in their demise. But she doesn’t give a shit about the rules of society either.

Joy is appropriate. Always.

I wish I had known that before. Wish I had believed that laughter born from joy could never be too loud, that the joy of twirling in a dress in front of the mirror should never be undone by everyone else’s jeans, that meaning found in conversations of substance cannot be sidetracked by not knowing Taylor Swift just dropped a new album (no offense to T-Swift, and thank you, IG, for saving me from total anarchy).

I wish I had known that joy, my joy, was always appropriate.

This Fall, I’m going to clap so loud at College GameDay that my daughter will cover her ears. And I will undoubtedly scare the shit out of my husband screaming at a late night touchdown when my team plays on Thursday night (and Friday, this season, which is confusing). It’s more than possible that I’ll eat birthday cake with buttercream at halftime. It won’t be my birthday. I won’t care. I will do all of the inappropriate things in the name of joy.

My joy.

I hope you will too.