Today was a tease. The warm air brushed my skin on my lunchtime walk, and it felt so warm that I shed the zip-up sweatshirt halfway through. I am now used to walking in 30-40 degree weather on my morning walks, so the sweat beads on my forehead was a welcome change.
It seems like in a blink of an eye, summer turned to autumn. Long, sunny days are quickly turning into shorter, cooler days where heavy sweatshirts, and sometimes even winter hats, now layer those tank top workout shirts on morning walks. Sounds of Sunday afternoon football fill our living rooms while the alluring smell of homemade chili and apple pie marinate in the kitchen. We stow away our beach chairs, and welcome the familiarity of that crisp autumn air, the reemerging sight of yellow school buses, and the crunching sound of leaves beneath our feet.
Every year as summer turns to autumn, I think of my mother’s words growing up. On the eve of the first day of school, she always said, “It’s time to wash away the summer dirt.” It was a ritual that her mother began decades earlier. My brothers and I excitedly hopped into the bathtub and washed away dirt from long days playing in the grass at the local park, bug spray from those nights we hunted fireflies in the backyard, the smoky scent of campfire in our hair, and that caked-on sunscreen that protected our young skin. We washed away memories of carefree summer days and prepared ourselves for a new year of growth. As the years went on and I grew out of the bathtub and into the shower, the ritual remained. In fact, even after I became a teacher, I found myself silently repeating my mother’s words and washing away all of that summer dirt, reflecting on the many wonderful memories of summertime, on the eve of the first day of school. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I could truly appreciate the significance of this ritual. It was a way for me to reflect on the good times, while cleansing myself of any impurities before starting afresh for a new school year. It was an opportunity to reinvent myself, to cut my hair, and to leave that bad procrastination habit behind. (If only…sigh)
This summer was different. There were no family weekends at the lake, 4th of July parties, or campfires with the neighbors. There was no family vacation to Scotland to visit my brother who was supposed to be finishing his studies in Edinburgh, because he had to quickly move home in March before they closed the border. Instead, there were meat and toilet paper shortages, normalcy in anti-social behaviors, and rising tensions between the mask-wearers and the anti-maskers.
But, despite the halt on normal life and the disappointment of unfulfilled plans, this summer was…well, life changing. When the world stopped turning in March, something magical happened: The sudden shock of the halt brought every one of us to a stop. We stopped working, stopped wasting, stopped busying. We stopped missing family dinners, stopped carting kids around, stopped fighting over whether we would watch basketball or hockey, and instead found ourselves gathering to watch stone throwing competitions because there were no other sports to watch (true story) as we laughed at ourselves for actually enjoying stone throwing. (What?!) But, despite how much of our lives stopped, we also began. We began to gather for family dinners. We began to spend more time outside. We began to finish those home projects that we never found the time to begin. We began to slow down and make time for the important things. We found new ways to connect with family and friends, and we began to realize what matters most.
This year on Labor Day, I repeated my mother’s words as I lathered my loofah with coconut body scrub, hoping to make the scent of summer last a little longer. I scrubbed extra hard as I hadn’t realized how much dirt had accumulated in my life.
“Wash away the summer dirt, Candice.”
It wasn’t until I was stripped of busyness and constant obligations that I even noticed the dirt. I washed away layers and layers of sweat from walking and running 312 miles over the summer, successfully completing the One NY Challenge. I washed away the excuses that could have kept me from finishing. I washed away the desire to lose more weight, and replaced this with admiration of my newly chiseled calves. I washed away residual feelings of confusion and pain from a relationship that had taken just about everything I had, but it left me with the most important pieces of me, because it wasn’t until I was stripped down to my core that I realized my strength. And damn…I’m one strong woman. I washed away self-doubt, excuses, busyness versus fulfillment, and achievement versus happiness. I’ve spent way too many years of my life looking for that next achievement or career advancement. Does the title really matter? It used to for me. I washed away caring what others think of me, as well as the need to achieve simply to achieve. And you know what I found beneath those layers? Fulfillment. Joy. Indifference to playing by the rules. And…love. I found so much love from new friends that I would have never met if I hadn’t endured the pain of my last relationship. I found love and support from women all over the country who follow this blog (Thank you! I love y’all!), and most importantly, I found a deep sense of self-love. I opened myself up for love, and guess what? I found that, too. But I’ll tell you all about him in another blog post. 😉 When we wash the dirt out of our lives, we begin to attract what we deserve.
Ms. Independent, what dirt would you scrub away from your life? More importantly, what would you find hidden underneath that dirt? What changes do you want to make in your life, but you’ve never had the courage to make them?
As we enter this new season where we will layer heavier clothing, try shedding a few layers first. Get out that scrub brush, Ms. Independent, and start scrubbing. As Mom would say, make sure you get rid of all that dirt. ALL of it.
-C
The C-Word 