Little Can Be Big!

It’s the little things that can make the difference.  

It’s the little things that can help you see the bigger picture.

It’s the little, tiniest of things that can end up mattering the most.

A few days ago, our doorbell rang later in the evening.  At any other time of year, I would have wondered who it was.  But it’s the holidays, and I knew it was going to be the UPS man.  He has a routine in our neighborhood, and he generally shows up at our house around 7:00pm.  

Olivia (who begins her Christmas countdown every year on December 26th by declaring “364 days till Christmas!”), ran to the door.  She also knew who it would be.  By the time she got there, the UPS guy had already dropped off the package and was walking down the driveway toward his idling truck.

As she picked the package up, I heard her yell loudly enough for the deliveryman to hear as he got into his truck, “Thank you!”

It was the littlest thing, but it made my heart do a little happy dance.  

The UPS guy never waits for us to open our door.  He’s in a hurry.  He drops the box on the porch and runs.  He’s got deliveries to make and a schedule to keep and probably a family to get  home to when he’s done.  

Even though he never actually hands me the boxes, I have always, always, always yelled “thank you!” to him, even if I thought he couldn’t really hear me.  

Because maybe he can.  

Maybe he reads lips.  Maybe he has bat hearing.  Maybe he runs away so quickly because no one ever says thank you.  I don’t know.  But just in case any of those scenarios are true, and because it’s just plain old polite to thank someone when they give you something, I have always yelled “thank you!” to the UPS man.  

And now so does my daughter.  

For all the times I doubted whether anything I was doing was sinking in; 

for all the times I felt like I was banging my head against a wall; 

for all the times I was absolutely positive that my kids did not hear a word I was saying; 

for all the times I was beyond sure that they were not even trying to listen; 

for all the times I thought they were missing the point; 

for all the times I was convinced that setting a good example was perhaps not going to pay off in the end run--

just the simple act of my daughter screaming “thank you!” at the top of her lungs into the darkness to a person she couldn’t see who probably couldn’t hear her felt like the biggest, most gigantic little gift in the world.  

Naked Shopping

So, yeah, I know a few posts ago I wrote about "running naked".  And now the title is "Naked Shopping".  But this one isn't metaphorical.  It's actually about shopping.  While being actually naked.

Hah.  

Didn't see that one coming, did ya?

So here's what happened.  

One of my favorite stores, Title Nine, advertised a "blowout sale" today in downtown Sacramento.  I was pretty excited.  Love their stuff--it's clothing for people who move a lot.  Sort of REI, except all women's clothing and slightly more fashion forward.  Their catalogs are full of women who look athletic and powerful and wildly stylish.  I want to be in their catalog.

So off I go to the "blowout" sale.

I arrive at the Convention Center. This is where they are having the sale.  It's a HUGE place.  I mean, really large.  They hold actual conventions there!  So I am expecting a convention-center-sized sale.  

It was in a Costco-sized room for sure, but it amounted to rows of tables on which were cardboard boxes full of various types of apparel.  The boxes were labeled with size, and the tables were labeled by apparel-type (tank tops, running shorts, dresses, etc...).  A respectable amount of tables and boxes, but hardly what I would call a "blowout".  With all the empty space in that room you could have still had a full-on convention in there amidst the sale.  I was disappointed.

But there I was, so I decided to at least look through some boxes and see what I could find.  

I found a pair of pants, a dress, a running bra to try on.  

So can you see it coming yet?  Figured out the naked part?

Turns out that when you hold a sale in a convention center, it's a BYODR (bring your own dressing rooms) affair for the retailer.  Their solution was to slap together some PVC and some black fabric and create one giant dressing room.

So...

There I am.  Standing in the middle of this somewhat shaky looking structure (and I use the term structure loosely) with about a dozen other women.  All in various stages of naked.

Did I want to be naked with them?

Of course I didn't.

First of all (and I apologize to any of my male family members who are reading this but I am going to have to ask you to skip the rest of this paragraph, possibly even the next one as well--you'll be sorry if you don't, I promise),
I was (seriously, stop reading guys)
wearing (this is your final warning)
a

thong (I warned you; I even skipped a line to give you one last chance).

Frankly, I don't even like looking at my butt (apparently I don't like having panty lines even less).  I certainly didn't want to subject anyone else to looking at my butt.  How was I going to try on a dress and a pair of pants without fully exposing my derriere to this room full of women?

There was no way around it.   I was going to have to get naked.  And, not only did I have to expose my butt, I also had a running bra that I wanted to try on, so apparently the girls were going to make an appearance as well.

I reluctantly entered the room and backed myself into a corner (literally) and began undressing.  Even though it was rather cold in there, I made the crucial decision to take my socks off, because ladies (I know you know this) there is nothing, and I mean nothing, more unflattering than standing in a fluorescent-lit room in your underwear and your socks.
Word to the wise: lose the socks.  You'll feel better about yourself.  I can't explain it, but it's true.

Anyway, the sides and corners of the room (where the fabric walls would hide half of you) were conspicuously more populated than the center area, where you would be visible for 360 degrees.  We were all trying to put our best body part forward and keep the rest as out of sight as possible.  

But of course when you're naked, or pretty much naked, there are parts of you (the naked parts) that you can't hide. 

Now I'm not in terrible shape.  I'm in what I'd call "reasonable shape for 45".  And while I aspire to it, I certainly do NOT look like the women in the Title Nine catalog, which is who I imagined would be shopping at this sale.  I imagined coiffed, toned, muscular, athletic women who had flocked to this sale because they had worn out all of their workout clothing due to their grueling yoga/running/cycling/triathlon regimen.

Who knew I'd have to disrobe in front of these goddesses?

Frankly, I don't think I would have showed up had I thought the possibility existed that I would have to try to squeeze into a disappointingly snug dress while simultaneously trying to hide all the reasons why that dress was snug AND having to endure all this while comparing myself to what I was sure were all the overly fit workout queens who would be surrounding me.

I didn't want to look up.  I was sure it would only confirm that I was surrounded by women my age who looked much younger and much more in shape than me.

I kept my eyes lowered for as long as I could, but finally I couldn't help but sneak a peek.  

I was pleasantly surprised.

I found myself surrounded by women my age (and older) who looked just like me.  Not a perfect body among us.  And while we were all different shapes and sizes and clearly none of us were going to make any Victoria's Secret models nervous about losing their jobs, I thought we all looked pretty good.

It was kind of liberating.

Like the time I participated in a triathlon.

Stay with me here.  I know this seems super tangential, but it'll come back around I promise.

So I'm at this triathlon.  They made me write my age on the back of my left calf.  In ink.  I was sure people of all ages would see my age as they sped past me and silently marvel at how slow I could actually go and still be technically moving.

Or even worse, I would get the dreaded "You're doing great!  Keep going!  You can do it!" cheer that really means "Wow, you look like you're really out of shape--good job making it this far!  You'll make it to the finish line eventually..."

But really what happened was that as  (much older) people passed, they would yell "Go 43! You rock!"   And as I passed (much, much,much older) people, I would yell "Keep it going, 78!"

It was supportive.  It felt good.  It felt like there was nothing to hide and absolutely nothing to be ashamed of.

That's how the giant dressing room full of naked women felt.

We were all out there doing our best and giving our all, and in search of some fun clothing to support our efforts.

We were all willing to fully bare ourselves (literally) in front of complete strangers in the hot pursuit of fashion.

I think that takes a bit of confidence that comes only with age and experience.

After all, I didn't see any of those Victoria's Secret-type women or Title Nine catalog models in that giant dressing room.

All I saw were athletic, powerful women in search of wildly stylish clothing.