This One Is For The Women

{and men are welcome, too}

It's Friday night and I'm alone in a bathtub full of lavender epsom salts, rubbing my body with Dr. Bronner's peppermint body goodness and sipping on peppermint tea. The double-peppermint-dosage is a mere coincidence.

I'm watching a documentary that is analysing what is both wrong and right with the world.
I'm lying in the tub reflecting on my deepest desires.

Alone on a Friday night.

Ironically, one of my deepest desires is to be a loving partner and mother. I want to build a little home where I know the creaks in the floors and the spider webs in the corners. {I kinda like spider webs}
I want to be the one who cleans it, rearranging the spices on the counters occasionally and changing the placement of homemade decorations, photographs of my travels and flowers that I pick on my walks home. {Maybe someone can help with the floors}.

I want to be the one who raises my children. A few dirty-handed girls and chubby faced boys...or whatever is gifted to me. I want them to play outside and know animals and the spider webs in the corners. ...Or whatever feels right to them. I want them to explore.
I want to watch them.

I want to love my partner. I want to smile when he walks in the door and I want to have long talks over meals that I make, or he makes, or we make. ...Or maybe that we order, once in awhile. I want to go out sometimes, and have a beer or two. I want to watch him laugh with his friends. I want to hear about his ball games and tell him about... my ball games. ...Or, just sit quietly.
I want to hold hands.
...And other things, too.

And, so, here I am.
In all my glory.
Alone on a Friday night in a bathtub overflowing with peppermint.

I am 27 years old. And I am single.

And so, one may think, after reading about some of my deepest desires, that I am unhappy.
Or, far from what I want in life.

One might ask, as I am often asked, 

"When are you going to start your real life?" 
"What are you doing?"
"What are you going to do next?"

And I sit here, soaking in my peppermentness, alone on a Friday night

And I feel effervescent.

Truly
Madly
and
Whole-heartedly.

I feel free. I feel good. I feel open. I feel real.
I feel
Me.

Inadvertently, I feel happy.
I just choose not to use this word because it doesn't quite capture what it is I am feeling.
No words do, as a matter of fact.

It's just this feeling I feel. I guess it's like how you feel when you are running down the soccer field, if you are a soccer player. Or riding a sweet wave, if you are a surfer. Or finding a beautiful gown, if you are a designer.

This is how I feel.

Immensely grateful.
Free.
Wild.
And

Comfortable in my skin. Even more than that. Joyful in my skin.
Even sexy, I'd say, as long as my readers are all women....

It's too dangerous to feel sexy anymore as a woman walking down the streets in Costa Rica, or New York, or anywhere really. Too many dogs are out there after the skin that hangs off the back of your arms and even more ravenous are the men who lean out truck windows and make faces that leave you regurgitating lunch in your mouth. {oops, side-tracked}

Yet, the truth is, I do
feel it.
Not always, no. I am a human. A female human, to be exact. {well, kinda. I'm quite masculine}
So, I don't alllllways feel sexy.

However, these days, I've been feelin' it.
And I'm not ashamed to say it. Not in the least. 'Cause it's been a battle. One that I am used to losing. That I sometimes feel like I am supposed to lose. I'm not supposed to feel sexy.

And I just don't f*cking buy that anymore.

So, here I am, on a Friday night, rubbing my body with some peppermint body wash, sipping on peppermint tea, in a steamy bathtub,

and I feel f*cking awesome.

And it's a nice little ritual I do, whenever I get the chance. Which isn't often these days since I do not have a bath tub... mostly because I do not have a house... and because I am living on my friend's couch in Costa Rica... and Costa Rica is pretty freakin' hot so I hop in the ocean or a pool and not a steamy tub...

However, at this time I find myself in my house in New York and Fall doesn't feel like it used to feel 8 years before I moved south...

Anyways, the ritual involves the scene above. And as you rub yourself with a hot cloth of steamy smelly goodness, you give thanks for each and every tiny piece of your god-for-saken body. You love your toes, all of them, from the big to the very small. You love the soles of your feel and you press into them with your fingertips as you massage those little guys that carry you ALL day and you hardly once thank them. Damn you. Make the time!

And you love your ankles as you rub them. Your calves and your thighs. And all that's underneath there, too. Those muscles and ligaments, bones and tendons. All the little blood cells dancing beneath your surface.

You keep going, loving your body, the only true home you have been given, your vehicle for walking through this world, your partner.

Did you hear that? I'm talking to myself now.
Your partner.

This is all you have sometimes. Even if you "have" someone, you never really have them. You just have this body.

And you can share it, yes! And I fully plan on sharing it.
And so, what better way to prepare for sharing it than to love it as much as I possibly can right now?

Physically, emotionally, figuratively, literally. Love it.

Give it water and rest. Joy and healthy food. Do special things for it. Spend time in nature. Experience pleasure. Be in awe of your human form. Realize the power of your own body. Awaken.

And as you love it, yourself, your body, your partner
Realize that simultaneously you are loving your future partner, your family, the world, as well.

And for all those who ask me and wonder,
What I am doing? And When I am going to start my real life?

I let them wonder. For I know, if they are asking these questions, then they have no f*cking idea what they are doing themselves.

And, if they think they do, I smile...

Realizing that none of us really know what the f*ck we are doing. We are just doing our best, each and every one of us, everyday. We are doing our best given the experiences life has dealt us.

I don't know where I am going. It would be quite boring if I did.
And quite arrogant, also. Don't you think?
I never know if my plane is gonna land. Or if I will choke on my kale.

So, more and more, I practice appreciating each moment.
Doing things consciously.

Full of effort. Full of love. Fully me.
Which, often times, involves the presence of my weaknesses, my ego, and my past patterns,
that I am still working on dissolving
{in peppermint tea and body wash}

And I so have a brilliant idea of the things I love and want and need in life
And every moment I am living those things

It's just that some of them have longer time lapses than others in the physical world
{such as the partner}

And, I'm {pretty much} okay with that.

Because I am so very grateful at this very moment.

And
that's all I can be.

And all I really ever want to be.