Today. In this moment. I feel pretty. I say this because I’ve been having some difficulty adjusting to outwardly aging. Also, because I’m trying to marry the how young I feel and how fast I believe the year count is going. It’s not a bother. It’s just an adjustment. Many things ment this. Helping others. Drawing nearer to God. Watching videos of inspirational people that I admire for their stories. Remembering the truth that some people lose limbs, are born with handicaps (though end up being more motivated and amazing than people who weren’t), and without the opportunities I’ve had, so I need to get on with changing the world and worry less about my face and wrinkles that came from smiling and laughing. The fact is I think older women are beautiful, but no one ever teaches us how to transition from one decade to the next. All the magazine would have us believe 50 year olds look like 19 year olds …
But this story isn’t about 50 year olds. It’s more about 50 dollars and the tale is “Urinetastic!” At least, that is how I would rate it and I’m the one who lived it. 50 dollars. It was the set price for gifts for a dirty santa game we played over Christmas. I thought it was too much. For 50 dollars you can draw names and get someone a thoughtful gift that they’d really like instead of spending fifty dollars and getting something you’d never use or want. Alas, the dirty santa fairy smiled on us and we got to play. I’d been wanting a massage for some time and I ended up with gift certificate for just that. I picked it for the third time and it was locked. It was frozen. It was mine.
I didn’t even know if the company existed in Nashville, but oh how I longed to feel my body relax in that way. Stress oozing away. In the end, I decided to get a facial. I’d wanted to try one for a long time and I thought it would be healthy for my skin, plus all the aforementioned word paraphanalia in paragraph one. It was set. 5:30 PM. Green Hills. Facial. Ah … (which are also my initials)
About 3:50 I went to the restroom at work, squatting as we girls tend to do. Well, sometimes I sit on my hands but I’ve stuck my hand in strangers’ pee too many times to do that consistently now. As I was squatting, my mind wandered. I saw a Christmas tree needle from our artificial work Christmas tree that I’d taken down earlier in the day on my new boot and leaned over to pick it off. I leaned all the was over. What is that sudden fountain of warm liquid making your pants and new red, silky Christmas underwear soaked? Why that’s your own urine you sweet, fabulous 32 year old woman! Great, I thought. Maybe it was just a little. No way. So I pulled my pants off. Stuffed my underwear in my pocket and tried to blot. I didn’t want to go home first and get out in the cold and get stuck in traffic and be late for my first facial. I needed relaxation! Thinking it would dry in the car on the way to Green Hills, I still couldn’t quite push out of the mind that I was going to a ritzy part of town smelling of urine. Did I wrap my sweater that I keep at my desk around my waste and throw on my coat? Ummm … of course not. What my coat didn’t cover, I hoped my purse would and I walked in the cold toward the parking deck. This is where I turned on the heat and sat on a car air freshner. Sorry, Glade, but this flat, bony hiney was crying out for you.
It dried mostly and somewhere along the way I resigned to the fact that if people I didn’t know though I smelled like pee for I don’t know an hour of my life while I was in deep relaxation I could live with that. Was it in the back of my mind in the waiting room during a close intake session with the person that pre-questions you? Yeah. Was I awkwardly commando in some not so fabulous to be commando in pants with sticky urine on my legs. Yes. Before the facial, the asked me if I need to go to the restroom. I said yes. I also reminded myself to focus and do it better this time. I walked bare butt over to the paper towels, wet them, and wiped up and sprayed the outside of my pants with Lysol. This would have to do. When they took me in I was told to lie down on a heated table in a dark room while a lady pampered my face and massaged my neck, back, and collar bone area. Was it “Unrinetastic!” Oh, my gosh yes! I think a lot during massages and always misask or don’t ask for the correct pressure saying “Ow!” over and over again in my mind. I couldn’t believe it when the facial was over and walked out like a drunk girl. That’s how relaxed I was and just like some drunk girls I already peed my pants.
Sometimes we have to just laugh at ourselves, accept things, and relax. Sometimes even at 32 you have to embrace the “Urinetastic!”
Trailmix 