Yesterday, I went shopping for the first time in probably 10 months. It wasn't grocery or necessity shopping. It was the kind of shopping that you carefully drop sacks in different rooms as you go so that when you are finally in front of your husband the sacks are minimal. I don't do that kind of shopping often, as you can see. Not because I don't have a job and therefore have no money, but because I just don't like it.
When I was shopping yesterday, I spent a lot of time carefully choosing new fall decorations for my house. Maybe the overhaul of the house has driven me to want to be a little more festive. One of the things I bought was a cute little turkey made of pine cones and sticks. Cute, yes! Necessary, no!
While I was in the shower this morning, I started to think about how I very unnecessary that little turkey was. There are other things I could have spent the $6 on and things that could be used for more than a month each year. If it's possible to have buyer's remorse over a $6 stick turkey, I was definitely in the middle of it.
As my ADD mind often does, I began to wonder off in a different direction completely. Why do I do most of my thinking in the shower? Am I strange? Why is it that I can focus there better than any other place?
It's because the shower is a place I like to be. Aside from the obvious for this germophobe, it's a relaxing place and I can clear my mind.
I think even as a child, it was a place to clear my mind. I was not given soap or allowed to use my parent's soap or shampoo. Standing under the hot water allowed me to feel like all of the leftover ickyness from being molested and raped by family members and strange men was washed away. The water beating down on my head created a barrier between me and the chaos lurking outside the door.
For someone who never lived with neglect from their parents, you might not understand my thinking that hot water alone would cleanse your body. Soap was a luxury item in my house and used only by my parents. We weren't given shampoo or even washcloths. We weren't allowed to have toothpaste or a toothbrush. If we brought a toothbrush home from school, it was used to clean the bathroom. All this was "normal" for me. I was living on my own when I realized that it was not only ok for me to brush my teeth, but it was expected.
A shower was also a luxury in our house. Showers were only allowed about once a week for me. If I tried, I could get in, rinse off, get out and get dressed before my dad caught me. Sometimes the hot water provided such a break from the outside world, that I just didn't care what I would face if I got caught in the shower. My showers often ended with me laying in a beaten lump on the bathroom floor, cold and crying.
Looking back, that covers just a tiny, little bit of the deplorable living conditions I lived in and through. There were no cute or pretty things and there were no calm places to think clearly. There were no ways to avoid feeling filthy and no way to hide from the face of evil.
And there I found it. My little mind had brought me back full circle to my cute turkey. My $6 turkey had become a necessity to remind me of where I stood. I no longer live in those deplorable conditions. I no longer live in fear that my shower will end with a beating. I can have toothpaste and soap, lots of fruity smelling soap. I can have a $6 turkey to sit on my table for a month every year. Those little things remind me of the big thing. I am thankful for the things I do have and that I have a time in my life when I do not have to live without those things which are necessary to survive.
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