Freaky Friday

What if...

“You’re such a… ” I pause briefly before throwing that last word like a knife. “...bitch!”

It’s oozing with teenage petulance, dripping with the tension that comes with growing up. When you’re desperate to declare your freedom despite not having the first clue what you’d do with it.

My mom’s eyes widen slightly as the word reaches her ears. She closes her eyes for a few seconds, pressing her lips tightly together, and it looks like she’s trying her best to teleport to a different place. One where I’m still that little girl in a floral dress that throws a tantrum if I can’t hold her hand.

When they open again all I see is hurt and the realization that her only child is losing her innocence.

She’s exasperated, and I’m desperate for her to listen to me, to really hear what I’m saying.

We’re locked in an unwinnable argument, and she’s handed down a jail sentence I’m desperate to break free from — the worst thing in the world has happened. I’m not allowed to go to my best friend's surprise 15th birthday party, the one I'd helped her mom plan over the last few weeks.

Everyone, and I mean everyone, is going to be at the party. Except me, it seems, despite my best efforts to convince her to set aside this sentence, suspend it for good behavior.

I don’t even remember what I said yesterday that caused her to take this away from me. I try asking for clarification, looking for some loophole.

But all she says is “get out of my sight.”

She decides solitary confinement is what's needed, and I retreat to my room, eyes aching from crying so much. How can she not get that this is so much more than a birthday party?

My whole life is at stake. I can feel my best friend slipping away, replacing me with the cooler girls in our class. The ones who will be at the party taking my place. And I’m terrified my best friend will realize it’s better without me around.

It’s just so unfair. How could what I said be that big a deal if I can’t even remember it? And besides, I see how she still talks to her own mother — there’s no way I’m any worse than she was.

I think I might actually hate my mother at that moment.

And then morning comes and that heaviness is still pressing against my chest, and I’m preparing one final plea that I’m praying can sway her — it’s hopeless to go to my dad, he’s declared himself a neutral party.

But only… those aren’t my hands, are they? I look down at them, convinced I’m still dreaming and run to the mirror and… it’s my mothers face staring back at me. Her auburn hair instead of my brilliant strawberry blonde.

I run to her, er— my room and see myself staring in the mirror, the same bewildered expression on my own face… Confirming that this definitely isn’t a dream.

In mutual horror we start to scream in unison, perhaps the only thing we’ve done in sync for years.

Okay — so that’s clearly not what happened next… It's the plot to Freaky Friday. You know, that movie from 2003 where fictional mother-daughter duo Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan switch bodies after a heated argument?

They eventually figure out that the only way to switch back is to quite literally walk a mile (or fifty) in each other's shoes until they’re able to love each other despite their differences. To see where the other is coming from.

Of course, it’s a fictional film. That kind of intervention from the universe (or a particularly observant owner of a Chinese restaurant) doesn’t exist in the real world.

But my God it should.

So rarely are we forced to consider another person's perspective, to engross yourself in it so deeply you can articulate it better than they could.

But imagine if we were? Imagine each of our relationships if we were committed to being curious instead of trying to change their minds?

Understanding someone else’s point of view as if it’s your own is a superpower — and we so often squander the opportunity to harness it.

Instead, we limit our compassion to those we’re already inclined to agree with, digging our heels in so deeply until we’re in a trench we can’t see out of.

We erect silos to block out disagreements and the things we disagree with. Settle in comfortably to our echo chambers, avoiding the ultimate discomfort of disagreement.

Imagine if the universe intervened, like in Freaky Friday?

Throwing us so fully into that discomfort we had no choice but to get comfortable with it.

If I had woken up as my mother that rainy October morning, I might have realized that she was trying to tell me something too. That she was desperate for me to see that my words were hurting her.

That it was the one thing she couldn’t handle anymore… She was used to cutting remarks from my dad. It’d been that way since they started dating. But from me, each word cut deeper. Left scars I couldn’t see.

Of course it wasn’t about a birthday party. And it wasn’t about some smart remark. 

But in the noise of trying to be heard, it became impossible to listen. Like we were speaking different languages, yelling louder and louder at each other as if that’d get our point across.

What we really needed to do was translate. To sit down and be less concerned with being understood and try to understand. To root out the true meaning of the words we were saying.

I never did get to go to the birthday party. Instead, that night my mom sat me down and was honest about how hurt she was by the things I was saying to her. And she was right. I’d been cruel in the way only your teenage daughter can be.

We can’t rely on being Freaky Friday-ed every time we have to confront disagreement. But we can learn from it.

Imagine, right now, someone you violently disagree with. Picture waking up tomorrow in their body. Envision your day progressing, the challenges you’d face in their life. Try to literally see the world through their eyes.

Assume that they’re at least 10% right about something. Find that 10% and make a point to dig deep to see an angle you hadn’t before.

It probably won’t materially change your own point of view… but understanding where they’re coming from could change everything.