Chick Learns New Tricks

There’s a saying “You can’t teach old dogs new tricks..” Well I don’t know if that’s true or not, but this Chick can still learn new tricks.

Sharing my healing and growth journey as it happens has been pretty deep lately as I have been going through major loss and life changes.  It has been an incredible journey over the past few years and my personal and spiritual growth has come about through physical and emotional pain and deep reflection.  I am grateful for the pain and growth because I feel like I am really settling into who I am and I love who I am becoming.

Along with this deep introspection, I have been learning some interesting facts about myself and little ways to deal with those annoying things in life that make me wonder how I lived this long without learning them earlier.

Brushing my teeth…I hate it, always have.  Not so much the actual brushing, but it changes my taste buds and even my Diet Coke doesn’t taste right after brushing my teeth.  One day as I was finishing up I absentmindedly put the clean brush back into my mouth and started brushing again.  Wait!  What am I doing?  I already brushed them.  But voila!  The second brushing with the clean brush helped clean the toothpaste taste out of my mouth and subsequently things tasted better.  Huh.  Wish I would have figured that out a long time ago.  Now it’s a part of my routine.

Toilet Posture…Sometime in the last six months I became aware of the fact that I just perch on the edge of the seat, not ever fully sitting on the seat.  I suspect that is in deeply ingrained habit from the first 10 years or so of my life, as we didn’t have indoor plumbing.  I don’t know how many of you have used an old-fashioned outhouse on a regular basis (not a satellite).  But I’m here to tell you that one does not cover the whole seat.  You need room for whatever may crawl out from behind you.  Having Mr. Jones in my life taught me something about that.  This cat follows me everywhere and has to be involved in whatever I’m doing.  That gets challenging when you’re sitting on the toilet.  I very quickly learned that if I perched on the seat, he climbed up behind me.  So, in self-defense I found myself sitting on the whole seat so he couldn’t get behind me.  I learned something.  When you sit on the whole seat, things just seem to flow better, if you get my drift.  As an older woman with pelvic floor issues this seemed amazing.  You never know what even a cat can teach you.

The ride of your life…riding a motorcycle has always been the ride of my life.  Recently I learned that there could be more to that.  One night as we were discussing the fact that our motorcycles were our true love, even rivaling spousal love if we were ever forced to choose, I learned something else I had never run across in 45 years of riding.  Apparently there is a vibrator that can be installed under the passenger seat so the person on the back of the motorcycle can have the ride of their life.  My reaction was Really?  I don’t believe it.  We looked it up online.  Sure enough it exists.  My first thought was, how arrogant and sexist that is, as it’s usually a woman on the back of some guy’s bike.  I guess I never had the opportunity to learn about that since I don’t ride on the back of anybody else’s bike except in a in emergency.  But, then we wondered…why don’t they make them for the front seat?  What if the “biker bitch” is the driver?  Why can’t they get the ride of their life too?  Interesting concept.

Stepping out of my middle class, baby boomer life and hitting the road is a major change I am embracing in my life.  I’m finding my crazy and loving it. I actually experience moments of pure joy and sense of freedom similar to what I felt at 17.  Hopefully I’ve learned a few things since then and won’t be stupid about it.  At least I won’t get pregnant.  Another joy of getting older.

One final note…I’m still running those 10 roller coasters of grief in my head.  But, fortunately for me, a couple of those roller coasters are kid size and fun as hell.  I am grateful for those moments as they wrap around the chaos of the other roller coaster.

Love and Peace,

Chick