Things Are Things

The powerful catch-all phrase you never knew you always needed.

Have you ever been too tired to go to sleep?

Sometimes, when I’m going through a hard time, that same feeling washes over me. Not only am I too tired to handle the things going on in my life, but I’m also too overwhelmed to explain them.

That’s exactly when the expression “Things are things” comes in handy.

History and Etymology

If you’ve never heard the phrase “Things are things” before, I wouldn’t wonder.

My friend Alissa made it up.

As far as I know, it’s been used exclusively between the two of us for over a decade now.

Alissa and I met when we were both full-time teachers at the same school. Talk about being overwhelmed!

We were no strangers to stress.

But in the years after we both left that job, we have faced increasingly stressful situations.

As she was flailing her way through a particularly difficult season, I reached out to check in and ask how things were going with a “How are things?”

To which she simply replied, “Things are things.”

The beauty of this expression is its complete vagueness.

As you may already know, the word thing is a placeholder word. Known by a variety of names (including the completely undignified “dummy nouns”) placeholder words are highly contextual. As such, they have little or no semantic meaning apart from the context of the sentence in which they appear.

But what happens when the sentence doesn’t offer enough context for interpretation?

Communicational chaos.

Which perfectly depicts the mental state of the completely overwhelmed.

Popular Usage

Back when I was moving in November 2024, Alissa was also moving. Separated by roughly 600 miles but united by experience, we could do nothing to help each other except offer empathy. We texted back and forth about how stressful everything was and how overwhelmed we were by our ordeals.

Do you think either of us had time or energy to type out detailed explanations of the perils of moving, describe the towers of unpacked boxes, reflect on the psychological horror of emptying storage units and filing never-ending address changes and hanging curtains and getting the utilities turned on before move-in day?

Of course we didn’t.

We barely had energy to live, let alone text.

Which is exactly the sort of situation in which the phrase “Things are things” really shines.

EXHIBIT A:

As you can see in the above screenshot, over the years, the original phrase “Things are things,” has led to offshoot phrases, including “Things are so things,” and the eloquent “Things are very things right now.”

Trust me, you do not want things to be very things.

It’s awful.

When the Words Won’t Word

One of the aspects of the writing life I’ve always valued is the ability to attach words to universal experiences, giving people the language and vocabulary they need to talk about what they’re feeling.

Have you ever read a phrase in a book or heard a song lyric and thought to yourself, “Yes! That’s exactly it!” and “That’s what I’ve always wanted to say, but I’ve never known quite how to say it!” That is the hard work of the craft, and in this instance, my friend Alissa has done the work for all of us.

By coining the phrase “Things are things,” she’s given us a gift.

This is for the days when life bowls us over to the extent that we can’t even articulate the severity (or multiplicity) of the issues we’re facing. When we feel overwhelmed at the very thought of unsnarling the tangled threads in our minds. When explaining the strain and struggles feels as great a hurdle as the issues themselves.

That’s when we know.

Deep down in our bones, we just know.

This is it, we tell ourselves.

Things are very things right now.

And if anyone asks, that’s exactly what we’ll tell them.