Finding Comfort Where You Can

Last week I went to the doctor and had to fill out a little questionnaire.  One of the questions was “Do you ever feel old or unattractive?”  Initially I laughed and thought what women over 40 would not answer yes to that?  I even told the doctor that they should just pre-mark the form with yes to save time and we laughed.  However, this week I found myself in a bit of a sad place and those words kept haunting me.  Getting ready for work? Unattractive.  Bathroom mirror at work under the fluorescents? Old.  Rearview mirror?  Old, unattractive and insanely hairy.  Sigh.

I guess sad place might be a bit of an understatement: tsunami of hormones and sinkhole of sadness might be more descriptive.  I was sad about being made to realize that there are days I feel old and unattractive.  My parents were going to come down for Thanksgiving but my dad is sick so they can’t come.  William wanted me to learn to play his trumpet for his winter concert and while I wanted to, my stupid, failing, Bell’s palsy ruined lip won’t seal and I can’t play it.  I am not going to lie; I went upstairs and cried my pillow wet when that happened.  The whole time I was weeping copiously I was thinking how vain I am, how stupid this all was and how I was just sad. And while it is okay to be sad, it is okay to cry and it is okay to mope, who wants to go around like that for more than a day or two?

Today I gave myself back some power.  It wasn’t straightening my hair or stopping to recognize all the good in my life or even tying my decorative scarf in a jaunty way.  My power came from wearing the most gigantic pair of underwear I own.  You should be thinking granny panties, stay-away-panties, putting the pant-in-panties-panties.  Bloomers even.  I am not worried about panty lines because they are so big there aren’t any.  They are so big that their waistband sits higher than the waistband of my pants.  They are even so boring they are beige.  Not ecru or wheat colored or farmer’s field brown, they are just beige.  The first time Bill saw them and asked what the hell I was wearing I lied and said I must have grabbed the wrong ones by mistake.  I didn’t.  I saw them beckoning me from the bin and I grabbed them because sometimes you just need to wear a gigantic pair of underwear.  Don’t judge me: I know you all have that one pair.  Heck I know some of you would still be wearing the mesh panties they send you home from the hospital in with your newborn if you could.  They are comforting and actually so gigantic they are almost swaddling in their protection.  They seem to be acting as armor against not only the world, but deflecting the negativity circling from within as well.

I definitely know why she is smiling.

Sometimes when you are not comfortable in your inside, you need to find comfort on the outside. I used to have an Old Navy Christmas tree shirt that I would wear when I felt sad.  Over the course of ten years, I would wear that thing around the house as a warning. I would wear it under a sweater to work and feel like I was wearing a hug.  Eventually it got so threadbare and disgusting even I had to admit it had served its time and quietly retired it.  Bill has a big white sweater he wears when he is feeling blue so I know that men do this too.  Somehow sitting here knowing I am wearing the most gigantic pair of underwear in the world has me feeling so much better.  I am no longer old and unattractive, I am as young as I am ever going to be and feeling in great shape!  Take that questionnaire!  I am still sad my parents can’t come but not so sad I will tell my daughter I don’t feel like Thanksgiving this year.  Let’s cook!  Let’s make a huge turkey for just two and more side dishes than four people can eat!  And while I can’t play the trumpet, I will rest comfortably in my giant underwear and the fact William said that he and I can always play piano together.

It's A Beautiful Thing

Today is November 11, 2015 and more specifically, Veteran’s Day.  Today we honor the men and women who have served in the armed forces.  I am absolutely getting my history geek on by scrolling the news feed of my Facebook page and seeing all the pictures people have posted of their relatives in uniform.  One coworker posted a picture of his father and mentioned, pretty casually I must say, that his dad escaped a Nazi POW camp.  What?!?!  How have we never talked about this?!  I want to know everything about it, right now!  Another coworker posted a shout out to his relative for serving in the Vietnam War and to the man’s wife for raising the kids while the grandfather was deployed.  Nicely, nicely done.

I drove to work and noticed all the flags flying today and thought of my neighbor who passed away a few years ago.  Bentley served in WWII and refused to talk about his service other than to say it was nothing.  I missed that he was not outside raising his flag and saluting it so very smartly today.  As old and fragile as he got, Bentley was ramrod straight and crisp when he saluted that flag.  It was a beautiful, beautiful thing and one that I am so very grateful I got a chance to witness.  I stopped at a red light and noticed the man on the corner had a sign declaring him to be a disabled vet so I rolled down my window and offered him some money.  He took it and thanked me and I thanked him for his service and he smiled a very toothless smile and walked on to the next car.  And then I leaky-eye cried; the kind I normally reserve for kids’ sports performances where I am so overcome with pride and emotion and nothing is sad, but dammit there I am crying again. 

As I think about it, I think it is because we are all, on our own way, kind of proud to be Americans today.  We are sharing our histories or our services and people are thanking and being thanked, and that is a damn beautiful thing.  How often are we proud to be American? How often do we even think about being proud of being American?  I think we are ambivalent about it most of the time and embarrassed about it the rest.  Next year is a presidential election year and as such, the absolute worst of America and its politics is what we are bombarded with.  I am tutoring kids in US History and one day will teach it, and America failed a lot of the time.  We killed, we conquered, we annihilated, we overpromised and under-delivered and continue to do so.  We continue to be racially divisive and sexually biased and discriminatory and if you don’t think so, you are a very white man with a college education and a good, good job.

However, today is not about the politicians or who is right or who is wrong. It is about the people of America.  Underneath all the bad you hear and find in America, the fact is that there are a ton of regular people doing good things every day.  Regular people raising their kids and thinking they are doing a terrible job.  There are people teaching kids or mentoring them and trying to get them to care.  People who volunteer to help, people who need the services the volunteers bring.  People who get up every day and just do what has to be done.  People who feed us, people who take our nasty trash away, and people who run our businesses.  Today, I feel reminded of all of that.  Today I feel like even though all we may hear about is the bad, that there is still an awfully lot of good and good people out there.  Today is about the dads and brothers and moms and aunts who believed in something bigger than themselves and who gave their time, their years and even their lives to serve it.  That is a beautiful thing, an amazing thing; a squeeze-your-heart and leaky-eye cry kind of thing.  Thank you veterans, for your service, and thank you also for reminding me that it is okay to have leaky-eye pride about the country you live in.