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Seriously?   How does one word alone have the ability to show so much emotion at one time?  It carries the tremendous ability to convey anger, confusion, surprise, disgust, frustration and excitement.  It can convey one or more at a time, or even ALL of them at once.  It’s SERIOUSLY versatile.  Seriously.  It can even be said as a sentence, a one word sentence. It has that much libido.  I use it frequently. It has become my one word enveloping-all-emotion statement.  My husband can vouch for this.  There is no way to pinpoint when I admitted it into my everyday jargon, but it resides there permanently.  It can be used almost anytime, but it’s especially great when you are taken off guard, or when you’re faced with a whammy of a discovery.  If my sitter tells me my son has dropped a four letter word (not THAT one), my first thought is  “seriously?!”   Or, if an unbelievably challenged driver suddenly cuts me off,  I scream, “Seriously!?”  Not that I have a sailor’s mouth, but I am almost sure my kids are aware that I am using my favorite expression to replace the more choice word(s) I am dying to use.

I think I enjoy “seriously” the most when I throw it at a co-worker who consistently “freaks out” over the slightest challenges that come up  in her day.  Her problem can usually be solved quite easily. However, in an effort to concur with the “severity” of her situation I respond with a somber, “seriously?” (as if I can’t believe that whatever is freaking her out actually happened).

It’s almost fun to hear it thrown AT you. When I told my mom my husband and I decided to have child number four,  her “seriously” came in a quiet, questioning, shocked and excited manner.  When I told my oldest daughter she couldn’t go to the dance she was dead set on attending,  she threw me a “SERIOUSLY!?!?!?’ that was so laden with spitting emotion that I almost needed to take a shower to clean myself up.  Since I knew the outburst was coming, I had a smile on my face, which didn’t help the situation.  I was, of course, not making fun of her.  I was smiling for two reasons.  First,  because I remembered what it was like being the daughter in a similar situation.  Secondly, because it dawned on me that she had taken that one-word, enveloping-all-emotion statement into her own verbal arsenal, and that she would be using it against me for years to come.  As “seriously” is  handed down from generation to generation, I am sure it will become evermore powerful and versatile, if only for the sole purpose of improving family communications.  Seriously? Well, maybe.

image: allmotivational.com