Transcript:
Take a Bath by Kate Learson
Waking up to start the day has been a struggle for me.
I think it has been a struggle my whole life.
Sometimes I don’t want to face the weather, or work
Sometimes I hit snooze for an hour.
Sometimes it’s myself I don’t want to face.
Another day with Kate.
I hear a lot of phrases like,
The most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself.
If you don’t love yourself, how the hell are you gonna love somebody else?
But first, love yourself.
I know that it’s not a wrong way of thinking, but sometimes I am like, Kate can you just leave me alone for a while! I don’t hear much on this idea. Maybe I do hear it but it is in the form of people saying we should be meditating. Meditation takes you out, maybe also drinking. But I am not drinking this January, which has actually been surprisingly easy.
I was drinking a lot at the end of the year, from October through the holidays. I had a bloody mary the first thing on New Year’s Day.
Because what happened was, I was dating a guy I thought I really liked. But then he ghosted me. So that had me drinking a bit. Mostly by myself. And then the holidays.
Then I listened to some radio stories about dry January and decided it was what I needed. And honestly my body looks so awesome at this moment I’m like maybe I should quit drinking.
We’ll see. I don’t know. Maybe.
Sometimes I think I want to find a new job. But what I really want is to make money from my creative abilities so I could get up every day free and working for myself.
Maybe this is a fantasy.
There was a story in National Geographic that I think about all the time, and I tell everyone I ever meet about it. It was about the Tuvan people who live in Mongolia.
Their perception of the future is that we are all falling backwards into it, and the past is in front of us. The western approach makes me think I am in the driver’s seat.
Mostly I feel I am falling through space like Don Draper. A person tied to a place and time.
You have to move forward.
I have a dog and mostly she is the reason I get out of bed. Having responsibility to my dog and to my plants helps guide me out of sad periods of time.
I can’t really remember how I started my days before I got Charlie.
I got Charlie when my relationship with my best friend was failing. Or maybe it failed because I got Charlie-Girl. I know it had been in decline. And then I got the puppy and it blew up.
I still think about Clare a lot. She is always showing up in my dreams.
Last night I had a dream about the guy who ghosted me.
I the dream he told me he had disappeared because he had contracted an STD that made him poop his pants.
I told him we could figure it out together.
My relationships with men have not been great, and I am trying to reprogram myself to not put so much importance on romantic relationships.
Because the other relationships in my life have been very fulfilling and intimate.
I see a lot of people sacrifice a lot for crappy romantic relationships, and I find myself bring very judgemental which is not the place I want to be either.
And then there is the fantasy of being chosen. Like having someone choose you to spend their life with. And then having a great big party with everyone you love.
But the more I think about it I would never want to put the pressure of forever and a government license and a large declaration to the world on any of my other relationships. So why do we want to do it romantically?
I guess because you have been chosen. And having someone to help you raise babies. Jealousy. Ownership.
And so you can have a great big party with everyone you love.
I suppose that’s why I feel defensive. I have not been worthy of being chosen. Which is not exactly true. I honestly think my wife is in this room right now.
I’ve dumped a lot of guys. And maybe only want guys who are unavailable to me.
My therapist says this comes from childhood relationship patterns.
But also I think guys are kind of .. not that great .. I feel like they are always taking.
A lot of people I am close to are having babies.
I don’t think I particularly want a baby, but I have the feeling that I am behind,
And like I might never be enough.
But I guess that’s why you have to love yourself, because if you are enough to yourself the rest falls into place?
It seems like an impossibility.
Ditching the Tub
My friend was planning the design of her bathroom and shared some research of bathtubs on Instagram.
She polled us on how we feel about baths, and I said, “I rarely take baths, but I like to imagine myself as a woman who takes a lot of baths.”
And ever since I made that statement I have been taking more baths!
Maybe if I imagine myself as a woman who is content to wake up early and go for a long walk with my dog in the dawn, someday I will be that woman most days.
fin
