Photo credit: foodandwine.com
When I was in nursing school a friend of mine spoke of the only time she had to herself as a single mom working full time and putting herself through school. She would come home from the gritty daily life of a CNA, strip naked in the garage, throw her scrubs in the washer and dart through the house covering her bikini-bits and hop into the shower. Her children understood that gritty CNA germs are not desirable in the house and they would sit and watch something on TV until their mom emerged fifteen minutes later and tended to them.
She described this fifteen minutes of sitting on the cold ceramic, often dozing off, having a single glass of shower wine and letting the hot water wash away everyone else who could make demands on her time and energy; a cocoon of solitude before reentering the real world.
When she told this story I was amazed by how many other mothers chimed in, "Me too!" "I didn't know anyone else did that?" "I have a shower whiskey!" In fact, I had an almost identical ritual, but before that moment I would never have told anyone about it.
Because it's a little weird. You are actually bringing an adult beverage into a place where water descends upon your polluted body. It kind of makes you sound like an alcoholic. But that's not it at all. It's about being so tired, so overextended, so self-sacrificing that you pack all of your me-time into a single fifteen minute event. I will clean myself. I will nap. I will enjoy a single indulgent beverage. I will listen to Tegan and Sara. I will enjoy hot water on all of my aching muscles. I will wash away this day. I will have uninterrupted (mostly) peace and quiet (again, mostly). And with God as my witness, I will do all of this at the same time.
This is a real thing guys. Just Google "Shower Wine" and browse the array of products designed to support this ritual.
This happened to me today for the first time since nursing school. I brought my wine into the shower. I was too tired to stand. I napped sitting under the water spray. I woke up, because sleeping in the shower is a little terrifying, I put on a good song and I drank my Pino Grigio and thought back to this conversation that was had in nursing school. I thought about all the women - and maybe men - who have this routine, and I got a little mad.
It's TOO self-sacrificing. It's TOO overextended. It's too...alone. Too in-the-closet. Too doing-it-on-your-own. I didn't necessarily feel mad that it was happening, shower wine and shower naps are wonderful, but I felt mad that we weren't talking about it. Weren't sharing our experiences, our hardships. I felt mad that I had a ritual I wouldn't tell people about for fear of being judged.
About four months ago I got a feeling about my life. That happens sometimes, like a glimpse of things to come. Sometimes it's a picture of putty being stretched. Sometimes it's a feeling of an ocean calming after a storm. Sometimes it's the border pieces of a puzzle. This picture was two-fold: discomfort and greatness. I felt very clear that this time in my life will be one of my greatest periods of growth, success, progress and change in my time here on Earth, but I have to be willing to do the work. To put it simply: I have to get comfortable being uncomfortable. I will be tired. I will be in pain. I will struggle emotionally. I will struggle financially. I will push myself too much. And it will be wonderful.
I've always made choices that a lot of people don't understand: fly to a third-world country with strangers, move into a house when I don't have a job, change careers mid-course, expand my family as a single person, start grad school when I'm already sun-up to sun-down busy. A lot of those choices have been made in the last four months. This rubs a lot of people the wrong way. I get that, but I don't care.
It's extremely important to me, as a person and as a parent, that:
"hard" is not synonymous with "wrong", and fear is never a reason not to do something.
Nothing worth working for is easy, and every opportunity for growth requires some element of risk.
My goal is for the people who only know me from the outside to constantly be saying, "I can't believe she actually did that" and the people who really know me to respond, "of course she did."
Now here's my soapbox. Here's how it all ties together:
I can't do it by hiding in the shower. I can take the bold risks. I can make the hard choices. But I can't get through it alone. I can't be quiet about how hard it is because I'm afraid that you're going to judge me. Neither can the moms in my nursing school. Neither can you. I need my tribe. I need encouragement and "I believe in you, keep going!" I need volunteers and acts of service and fist-bumps and food and help. And so do you.
The two things I can conclude about the Shower Wine phenomenon is that 1.) Parents are praised for being too self-sacrificing - this should stop, by the way - and 2.) Admitting how overextended you are out loud invites condescending "I told you so" side glances that only affirm every insecurity that keeps you up at night. When really, I am not alone and this is only a single moment in the timeline of my life.
My tribe is out there. Some of them are louder than others. I am not unique for having a lot on my plate. I am not "so brave" or "so committed" for being a single parent. I am not self-sacrificing. I am living for me. I am being 100% selfish, and this is what that looks like.
So I am proclaiming from the rooftops: LIFE IS SO HARD RIGHT NOW THAT I ACTUALLY FELL ASLEEP WITH WATER HITTING MY FACE AND I DRANK WINE WITH SHAMPOO IN MY HAIR AND I DON'T REGRET A SINGLE SECOND OF IT.
If you want to judge and "I told you so" me, please keep it to yourself. And if you want to join the tribe, grab a seat next to me.
When I was in nursing school a friend of mine spoke of the only time she had to herself as a single mom working full time and putting herself through school. She would come home from the gritty daily life of a CNA, strip naked in the garage, throw her scrubs in the washer and dart through the house covering her bikini-bits and hop into the shower. Her children understood that gritty CNA germs are not desirable in the house and they would sit and watch something on TV until their mom emerged fifteen minutes later and tended to them.
She described this fifteen minutes of sitting on the cold ceramic, often dozing off, having a single glass of shower wine and letting the hot water wash away everyone else who could make demands on her time and energy; a cocoon of solitude before reentering the real world.
When she told this story I was amazed by how many other mothers chimed in, "Me too!" "I didn't know anyone else did that?" "I have a shower whiskey!" In fact, I had an almost identical ritual, but before that moment I would never have told anyone about it.
Because it's a little weird. You are actually bringing an adult beverage into a place where water descends upon your polluted body. It kind of makes you sound like an alcoholic. But that's not it at all. It's about being so tired, so overextended, so self-sacrificing that you pack all of your me-time into a single fifteen minute event. I will clean myself. I will nap. I will enjoy a single indulgent beverage. I will listen to Tegan and Sara. I will enjoy hot water on all of my aching muscles. I will wash away this day. I will have uninterrupted (mostly) peace and quiet (again, mostly). And with God as my witness, I will do all of this at the same time.
This is a real thing guys. Just Google "Shower Wine" and browse the array of products designed to support this ritual.
This happened to me today for the first time since nursing school. I brought my wine into the shower. I was too tired to stand. I napped sitting under the water spray. I woke up, because sleeping in the shower is a little terrifying, I put on a good song and I drank my Pino Grigio and thought back to this conversation that was had in nursing school. I thought about all the women - and maybe men - who have this routine, and I got a little mad.
It's TOO self-sacrificing. It's TOO overextended. It's too...alone. Too in-the-closet. Too doing-it-on-your-own. I didn't necessarily feel mad that it was happening, shower wine and shower naps are wonderful, but I felt mad that we weren't talking about it. Weren't sharing our experiences, our hardships. I felt mad that I had a ritual I wouldn't tell people about for fear of being judged.
About four months ago I got a feeling about my life. That happens sometimes, like a glimpse of things to come. Sometimes it's a picture of putty being stretched. Sometimes it's a feeling of an ocean calming after a storm. Sometimes it's the border pieces of a puzzle. This picture was two-fold: discomfort and greatness. I felt very clear that this time in my life will be one of my greatest periods of growth, success, progress and change in my time here on Earth, but I have to be willing to do the work. To put it simply: I have to get comfortable being uncomfortable. I will be tired. I will be in pain. I will struggle emotionally. I will struggle financially. I will push myself too much. And it will be wonderful.
I've always made choices that a lot of people don't understand: fly to a third-world country with strangers, move into a house when I don't have a job, change careers mid-course, expand my family as a single person, start grad school when I'm already sun-up to sun-down busy. A lot of those choices have been made in the last four months. This rubs a lot of people the wrong way. I get that, but I don't care.
It's extremely important to me, as a person and as a parent, that:
"hard" is not synonymous with "wrong", and fear is never a reason not to do something.
Nothing worth working for is easy, and every opportunity for growth requires some element of risk.
My goal is for the people who only know me from the outside to constantly be saying, "I can't believe she actually did that" and the people who really know me to respond, "of course she did."
Now here's my soapbox. Here's how it all ties together:
I can't do it by hiding in the shower. I can take the bold risks. I can make the hard choices. But I can't get through it alone. I can't be quiet about how hard it is because I'm afraid that you're going to judge me. Neither can the moms in my nursing school. Neither can you. I need my tribe. I need encouragement and "I believe in you, keep going!" I need volunteers and acts of service and fist-bumps and food and help. And so do you.
The two things I can conclude about the Shower Wine phenomenon is that 1.) Parents are praised for being too self-sacrificing - this should stop, by the way - and 2.) Admitting how overextended you are out loud invites condescending "I told you so" side glances that only affirm every insecurity that keeps you up at night. When really, I am not alone and this is only a single moment in the timeline of my life.
My tribe is out there. Some of them are louder than others. I am not unique for having a lot on my plate. I am not "so brave" or "so committed" for being a single parent. I am not self-sacrificing. I am living for me. I am being 100% selfish, and this is what that looks like.
So I am proclaiming from the rooftops: LIFE IS SO HARD RIGHT NOW THAT I ACTUALLY FELL ASLEEP WITH WATER HITTING MY FACE AND I DRANK WINE WITH SHAMPOO IN MY HAIR AND I DON'T REGRET A SINGLE SECOND OF IT.
If you want to judge and "I told you so" me, please keep it to yourself. And if you want to join the tribe, grab a seat next to me.