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- Sometimes it Takes a Shower
It’s been four and a half years since I last visited Montana.
While I grew up here, by the time my career was well enough established to work remotely, the cost of living in Bozeman had exceeded even robust tech employer salaries. So we put down roots in Utah instead.
Since then we’ve only made the trek back for important events, like reunions…or funerals.
This weekend it was the reunion on my side of the family that pulled us to Montana, to a little school in a little place (though probably not for long, given how rapidly properties are being developed!) called Gallatin Gateway.
Now, I don’t know what your family reunions are like, but mine are populated by a diverse cast of characters. We have rich folks, poor folks, folks visiting from Ghana …four generations of proud Montana stock. We have strict Mormons and purely secular folks, and everything in-between.
And we meet for ONE exceptionally intense day. It’s like speed dating, while spinning plates, dribbling, and chewing gum. You’re talking to people 2 minutes at a time, while navigating from activity to activity, until you just can’t take anymore…and slip off to the car to cry, scream, meditate, or nap. Everyone handles it differently, but it’s clear it’s pretty intense for everyone involved.
There’s pie eating contests, games, talent shows, line dancing, singing, a silent auction, Costco food, and sign-up sheets.
It’s a great time, but by the time we piled the kids in the truck at 11 PM tonight, we all agreed we were tuckered out. Thoroughly exhausted. Part of that exhaustion wasn’t just the physical and mental effort involved in mingling and being active and participating and contributing—it was also being exposed to all the THINGS, all the FEELINGS of everyone else.
Because there was 126 people there, and everyone travels with their own baggage…and it’s impossible not to pick up some of what others put down at events like a reunion. There was the uncle who, when I asked how he was doing said, “…I’m…okay. I guess.” And the aunt, a degree or two removed (I never can keep all that straight) exuberantly proclaiming (with nearly religious fervor) how her beloved husband who had died tragically 12 years before was, in spirit, with us at the reunion. There was the aunt who is a great conversationalist until…she just gets up in the middle and walks away. There were cousins with whom we shared laughter, and others who we connected eyes with… but couldn’t decide if they thought they were too cool to interact with us… or if they thought WE thought we were too cool to interact with them.
In so many small ways, it’s all very dramedy. Like an episode of Friends meets Days of Our Lives.
I find it interesting that I find it exhausting, because I’m very much an extrovert. But even so, I find it exhausting doing the reunion dramedy for even one very full Saturday. I think it’s because emotions and mental stuff can, though ephemeral, be infectious. We like being around optimistic people because it tends to make US more optimistic; we like being around happy people because it makes us feel happier and brightens our outlook. We avoid people who make us feel down (well, mentally healthy folks do, anyway).
But in going to a family reunion we don’t get to CHOOSE who is there. We don’t get to choose how they show up. It’s a rare time in our year when we deliberately suspend our usual selectivity and run the risk of “catching something.” And I don’t JUST mean potentially going home with a flu or cold; I mean, taking home MENTAL or EMOTIONAL baggage. Unless you’re careful to do the equivalent of washing your hands.
I was thinking about this as we wound down for the night at the hotel, and then I realized there were parallels with horse shows… Which are almost like reunions of folks you have something in common with (horses rather than family). You don’t choose them; You can’t choose how they show up. And you get a bunch of characters showing up all the time.
I’d lay money their mojo messes with yours. Just like the mojo of my relations at the reunion messed with mine.
But there’s a solution. And I think this can help. Because it has to do with pushing your processing of the internal into the external, where you can deal with it more tangibly.
Rather than just carrying the mental / emotional baggage of others at reunions or shows, you can use visualization techniques to expel it and dramatically diminish it.
Now, I don’t know how often y’all are carrying this kind of baggage when you get ready for a run (since I’m just the non-horsey husband here), but I imagine it’s quite a lot. So here’s a radical idea for you if that happens to be you, and you’d rather be able to leave it at the gate. Either carry some salt in ziplok bag in your pocket and grab a handful of it, imagining that it’s all the emotional and mental garbage you’ve been infected with… just doing your best to INFUSE that damn salt with all the toxic stuff which is swirling and rolling around in you, and then toss it on the ground. Literally drop it. Feel it fall away from you.
Or, grab yourself some arena dirt, roll it around your hand, feel the texture while you imagine projecting all the stuff that’s bothering you into that dirt. And then toss it away from you. Feel free and clear of all that, ready to ride with a clear heart and mind.
For me, after getting back to our hotel, I realized I desperately needed a shower. Not because I was all that dirty (other than a bit of sunscreen), but simply because I craved the means of clearing out the emotional and mental baggage I was carrying from the reunion.
As I undressed, I visualized each item of clothing I removed as if it was a layer of emotional or mental grime I had accumulated during the day and was easily stripping away from myself.
In the shower, when I felt that hot water blast over my face, hair, and down my body, I imagined pushing out of my pores any and all toxic emotional and mental debris within me and seeing the water carrying it away: Washing down the length of my body, down the length of the tub, down the drain, and far away from me.
When I dried off, I imagined the towel absorbing and rubbing away any remaining emotional baggage…and when I stepped out of the bathroom, I felt not just clean, but also much lighter. I felt free of the emotional baggage I’d taken with me into the bathroom.
Now, as I head for bed, I know I’ll rest easy. My mind and heart are clear, and I can carry the good I took from the reunion with me when we drive back to Utah. The rest? It’s down the drain.
How ‘bout you? Do you ever feel weighed down by the emotional / mental baggage of others? How do you deal with it?
Let us know! We read every response!
Until next time, thanks for reading!
Adiós, Amigos!
Abe
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