Over the weekend due to situations that shall remain anonymous invented mostly in my head, my internal codependent ACOA needy fix you fix me I’m OK if you’re OK self emerged from the dead.
Over the the weekend I’d given myself the unpleasant but nonnegotiable gift of doing nothing other than reading, napping, and playing Bejeweled.
But by Monday, my internal rocket was ready for takeoff. To fight the crushing disappointment of rain on the first day I could go to the pool, I decided to take myself to the movies. I go to the movies by myself about once every three years and always have the best time.
I chose to see the Amy Winehouse biopic Back to Black at Cinebistro where I ordered fried green tomatoes AND popcorn and was so excited when my order arrived I blurted out OH BOY! The waiter laughed at me and said oh girl.
I’d never listened to Amy Winehouse much before, but her story? I knew it would reach in and grab my guts out and it did. Alcoholic love addict Jewish girl with Daddy issues. Come on. I’m lucky not to be falling down drunk in the pool halls of London or dead at 27 after my ex-boyfriend broke up with me from jail. Amy reminded me of a deep part of me, a part that will always be there, but a part I love now and keep swaddled up safe and sound so she can’t puke her guts out and break her face on the pavement.
By the time the movie ended it was sort of warm enough to go to the pool and cool enough that the pool was almost completely empty.
As I pulled on the size extra large eleventy million bathing suit over my hips for the first time this year, I remembered the curvy bodacious juicy girl Stan and I saw playing volleyball on the beach in a teeny tiny green bikini. The jiggle. The bounce. We stared in awe. She was fucking gorgeous. Go out and get it, girl, I told myself.
The difference between understanding the present moment and living it is the difference between seeing a picture of a baby and having a baby pulled out of your body. Intellectual understanding is meaningless. You want the goddess? You are the goddess. You want be here now? Go to the pool. This is as good as it gets.
As they say, if you want a bikini body, put a bikini on your body.
Unsolicited advice is criticism.
—ancient Alanon proverb.
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