LuLu advice

My lululemon waterbottle is covered in advice. Or tips. Or clever little life lessons that the yogis over at lulu want to share…whatever you want to call it. Things like ‘drink fresh water’ and ‘children are the orgasms of life’ and random, worldly things like that. I like to read it during spin class, especially, when I want to be anywhere but on the calibrated spin bike, sweating my socks off as I stare at my swaying hips in the mirror. Yes, a word-tattooed waterbottle is a good distraction at this time. One saying in particular, which I’ve heard before, always catches my attention, and seems to always be pointed towards me when I look down. It says ‘do one thing a day that scares you’. Simple enough, right?

The other day on a walk, the girls and I walked in front of an oncoming car that was slowing down, with it’s blinker on, trusting it was going to turn before it reached us. It did. I counted this as my scary thing of the day. Monday, there was sub instructor for our spin class, one whose fanatical spinning enthusiasm and pure cycling strength scare the socks off me. I vowed to match his resistance turns every single time, and not be a weenie. This was my scary thing. A week ago my women’s small group met for the first time, and I was lost so I showed up 15 minutes late to group that definitely starts on time. Showing up itself was scary; making a late entrance was even worse. Last night, I bravely told the man that has given me flowers three times that I didn’t see a future with us, because I knew it was the right thing to do. That was scary. Tonight I met with my women’s small group from church for the second time. While I was on time, and had met the girls last week, it was still hard to fight the urge to stay home and get out of my comfort zone (note: i did match the spin instructor, turn for turn, but ended up leaving class seven minutes early because I was, in fact, a weenie that day).

I desperately love people. I love to be around them, I love to hear their stories, I love to talk to them and feel their energy and see their faces and just have their physical presence alongside their emotional presence. I love being friends with genuine people, the kind you know you can count on and that will literally let you cry on their shoulder. The kind you can confess something you think that’s totally embarrassing and know that not only will they suspend judgment, they will probably share a story about how they have thought the same thing. I love all people, but those are the kind I love. The kind I desire to befriend and keep in my life. The kind I find few of these days.

In small group tonight, there were only a few of us, so we got a lot of time to talk, and share. Despite my obvious extroversion, I have introversion tendencies in groups, and can shy away easily into the shadows. Tonight, however, I realized that I wanted this group of women to be friends, real true friends- the kind I can share my prayer requests with and talk about my day and how the Lord is working in and through me, and where my struggles are. So, I shared. Heather asked us, I took down a wall and shared my personal struggles and accomplishments. I made jokes. I laughed. I sympathized with a few women with similar stories. I laughed again. I said the first things that came to my mind, without overanalyzing whether I should or not. I noticed that the girls smiled at me, and seemed interested. As weird as it sounds, it’s been a long time since I’ve been in a whole group of loving, accepting girls that I feel like I can trust and share real things with. I shared a prayer request, we prayed for each other- out loud even! It was scary at first; now I am glad I was there.

I was the first to excuse myself to leave, finally giving into desire to hunker down into my nightly rituals (dogs, lost, dinner, etc). Funny enough though, Katie and I were the last to leave, because we kept talking- as we got up, as we put the chairs away, as we walked out, on the porch… and when I thought about it, I didn’t really need to leave anymore. My scary thing of the day had been overcome, and I think I made a turn towards doing life with new people that seemed to enjoy me, and I them. The scary thing turned into the best part of my day. Thanks, Lululemon. Maybe you can put print a story like in it’s entirety on your next waterbottle. It would make great spin class reading.