With all the upheaval and negativity running rampant through our lives, it’s important to be able to stop, take stock of what’s important, and find some joy wherever we can.
At The Band Back Together Project, we like to take the time specifically to arrange a little happy boost for everyone.
My daughter has always loved to cook and create in the kitchen. When she was four, we were able to have cable television for a time, and the Food Network.
She was in heaven.
Other children turn on cartoons on Saturday mornings. My daughter would rather watch Paula Dean or the Barefoot Contessa.
She had – and still has – such a passion for cooking. She would get so excited every time she made something. It was always excellent! And amazing! Delicious!
Even when things didn’t turn out quite right, she always found a way to declare them good.
The bottom of the cookie might be burnt, but the top of the cookie? That was delicious!
Our scalloped potatoes and ham might be a touch closer to soup than a casserole, but didn’t it taste amazing?
She’d declare our efforts good, and then turn to me and say something like,
“We made this good. But next time, we should make it different, so it’s more good!”
Grammar aside, my daughter knew something at four years old that I still forget:
Even our mistakes can be good.
Our mistakes are how we learn. We muddle through our situations as best we can, and then we look back and see where we can do better next time we’re faced with something hard.
Even our mistakes can be good, if we learn from them.
With all the upheaval and negativity running rampant through our lives, it’s important to be able to stop, take stock of what’s important, and find some joy wherever we can.
At The Band Back Together Project, we like to take the time specifically to arrange a little happy boost for everyone.
t dawns on me as I sit there, anxiety at an all time high, my left butt-cheek falling asleep, that I could be somewhere else eating a bagel. Like Paris. Or Detroit. Or learning the Swahili phrase for “pants are bullshit.” Or washing my car. Okay, maybe not washing my car. It was like -900 degrees out. Washing my car would be like that scene in the Terminator with the Nitrous Oxide and the robot.
I smile, imagining my car shattering in the car wash, until I remember I’m probably sitting on barf germs. I hate barf germs.
My iPhone isn’t getting any signal in here. Stupid AT&T. Should be named the iCAN’TPhone because I haven’t been able to make a phone call since I got the damn thing. Hm. I really could use some mindless interaction from The Twitter right about now. Or maybe a Vicodin-Chip cookie. Or some vodka. Because my heart feels like it’s going to pound right the fuck out of my chest.
When the hell did this HAPPEN?
When did I start feeling stretched as taut as an over-tuned violin string? Why did I feel like the pressure to do more; to be more, to constantly outdo myself was omnipresent? Like I couldn’t ever possibly manage to live up to my own unrealistic expectations? Like I had to somehow be everything to everyone. Like if I didn’t constantly prove myself, I would cease to matter. I would cease to exist.
When did this start? And moreover: how could I make this stop?
These anxious racing thoughts; this anxiety, this had to stop.
Admitting that I had a problem the first step, I know from Al-Anon, and doing something about it was important. Hence the bagel-craving and the barf-germ-coated chair in my doctor’s waiting room. And, of course, the urge to flee so that I could learn Portuguese or Mandarin or really anything but admit that I had a problem.
I’m so tired of problems. I’m so tired of having something wrong that I barely want to admit to myself that I have a problem. Between migraines and my lazy-ass missing-in-action thyroid and insomnia, I can hardly stand to be in the same room with myself anymore without wanting to punch myself in the teeth. Problems are bullshit. I hate problems. Maybe I can make a “Problems Are Bullshit” shirt. Because they are. Bullshit, that is.
Maybe this isn’t ACTUALLY a problem. Maybe I can just ignore it and it’ll get better on it’s own.
Except it hasn’t. Because that’s what I’ve been doing. And it’s not working. Clearly.
Before I could do anything, though, the nurse poked her head into the waiting room, “Becky?” she trilled calmly, clearly unaware of my churning guts.
I sighed, put my iDON’TWORKPhone back into my purse and followed her back.
“What seems to be the problem?” she asked kindly.
“Well,” I started, looking at my hands, ashamed to be admitting this to anyone but the people who live inside my computer. “It’s sorta like this…”
Today’s session was a bit hard to swallow, but very much necessary. We discussed co-dependency, power struggles, and volatility… my apparent trifecta.
I learned that ‘feelings‘ are often thinly veiled thoughts and that the two, while similar in many ways, are VASTLY different.
I learned that it’s okay to express both thoughts AND feelings. I don’t always need to apologize when I speak my truths (even if it is upsetting to the other party) because I’m not responsible for others’ emotions, only my own.
I learned that to truly become better, I must acknowledge and study and embrace my failure. I can’t always strive for perfection.
I learned that, although others may be responsible for my traumas, only I am responsible for addressing and fixing them.
Also, and perhaps most importantly, I learned that true happiness isn’t going to be found anywhere else but inside of ME, so it’s up to me alone to find it.
Last night, after my session, (which was a combination service and whipping session that, in itself made me feel better) I treated myself to a cleansing evening at the local Spa. I sat in the heat and watched the parade of local naked girlies walk by and I realized something:
We women come in a LOT of shapes and sizes. Very few of them Playboy-ready.
The adorable curvy girls who mentioned being from the Pacific Northwest and sported HUGE dark bushes to prove it.
The skinny ass lil tattooed and shaved (yes, down there. No landing strip, no nothing) Emo Girl types.
The HUGE chicks. Both tall and… well. Just big. Two of them. Gorgeous and loud.
The tiny little Asian girls who sat in the water with their towel wrapped around them. Can’t tell you much of what was under there. It was tiny, and I’m thinking pretty firm.
The freaking adorable young blond with the tight ass, the tiny waist and the perfect perky boobies (not to mention the HUGE ovarian reserves) who probably hated her body as much as the rest of us do because she doesn’t like… well…. I’m not sure what there was to not like, but I know she was of the age where she doesn’t feel she measures up to what she, in her mind, should.
The other mommies with our soft bodies and stretch marks.
And, as in any Korean Spa, the obligatory 60+-year-old women who used the sitting shower the entire hour I was there. And yes, graphically scrubbed both the front AND the back door. Oh, my eyes!
So yes, I may not like my mommy belly, my sloppy boobies, or my extra IVF pounds. I may someday get a Mommy Makeover, but I’m about in the middle. Not so bad for being 41 with four kids.
And never ever working out. Ever. Even my Wii fit has given up on me. She just looks at me and says.. oh, YOU again…
I think we should all get to spend a couple of hours sitting in the hot steam of a Spa and realize: we all have our curves and our cellulite and our war wounds, but we are all pretty awesome when we are naked. It all adds up to make us what we are; who we’ve become.
So once my number was finally called and I was taken to the massage room – and not the private, darkened, quiet massage room where they step out for a minute so that you can position yourself on a pre-warmed massage table under neither a protective layer of sheets – but a large room, lit with fluorescent lighting and filled with massage tables, where a smiling lady women strips you of your towel and positions you by force, naked on a wet plastic massage table, and starts tossing hot buckets of water on you.
Thankfully she will toss a towel over your face to prevent you from opening your eyes and accidentally seeing the women on the next massage table over treated much like your dog at the groomer.
Just like you are about to be.
Sounds humiliating, but they get in and exfoliate and massage EVERYTHING. They get on top of you and dig their knees into your butt so they can get a better grip on your shoulders. They spread your legs so they can make sure those inner thighs are smooth as silk. They flip you, turn you twist you and stretch you until they knock the cry-baby right out.
Then they toss a couple more buckets of hot water on you and start again.
I sometimes wonder if you know how much we love being a part of this fabulous Band you’ve created, and how much of that love is rooted in our love for you. You have a way of letting those around you know that you truly care, and in this often too cold and callous world, that can mean everything.
Those of us who work with you on the Band Back Together Project are reminded daily of your dedication to the happiness and well being of those around you.
Those of us who have followed you for years, through Mommy Wants Vodka and the formation and falter and rebirth of Band Back Together, until today, understand that living our best lives takes a lot of work, a heavy hit of faith in ourselves and an ever-ready sense of humor, but we can get there.
Those of us in The Band, Band Mates in every sense, feel the warmth and love of this safe and gentle place you’ve created for us. We value the kindness and empathy we find here, and we envelope ourselves in it.
And those of us who are lucky enough to count you as a friend are amazed that such a kind, smart, sensitive and connected woman doesn’t see how much of an impact she has made on the world around her. And those friends want, this friend wants, nothing more than to see the flicker in your eye the moment you realize how dear, how valuable, and how loved you are.
So, our Aunt Becky, Happy Aunt Becky Day! We love you to the moon and back. You are our Dose of Happy.
