The Burping Bullfrog

I used to have many, many stupid notions.

Until maybe three or four years ago, I carried around a big bag of unexamined beliefs that shaped everything I did. Some of them were planted early—courtesy of a conservative upbringing—but most were simple arrogance – there I said it.

Back in grad school, I went on a road trip with one  (male) friend and three of his friends (also male). I spent most of the trip feeling vaguely guilty. Not because anyone did anything questionable, but because somewhere in my head was a voice going, “Nice girls don’t go on road trips with boys.”

Today, I wish I could give that girl a tight slap

That same trip, on New Year’s Eve, everyone went to a bar in Nashville to ring in the new year. They popped champagne, laughed, and hugged strangers at midnight. 

I stood stiff as a stick, clutching my moral compass for dear life. “There’s barely any alcohol,” they said. “You’d have to drink six glasses to feel anything!” said my very trustworthy friend. But no—I stood on some imaginary high ground, judging merriment like it was a crime.

Years later, when my husband introduced me to wine, I remembered that night.

And I thought, wow. I wasn’t noble. I was just a pretentious prick with a unjustified superiority complex.

But it wasn’t just bars and boys and bubbly.

Somewhere along the way, I had absorbed this belief that anything I did for myself was indulgent, and therefore wrong. Especially if it made me feel good.

My father, who was widowed young, had spent his life being self-sacrificing and stoic. So how could I go around laughing too loudly, or wearing lipstick, or getting a massage?

When someone once tried to rope me into a spa session, I was scandalised. “A massage? I’m not that kind of person!”

Then life did the thing it sometimes does—it threw a serious illness my way.

The kind where the odds are 50-50, and you’re just hoping the cat jumps onto the side of living. (As you can see, It did.)

You know how they say a brush with mortality changes you?

I never used to believe that.

But yes, it’s true.  Something shifted. Quietly, like a door that had been jammed for years finally creaked open.

I stopped judging joy.

I stopped looking down on pleasure—mine or anyone else’s.

These days, I go for a massage every two weeks. I wear kajal and blush (though it makes me break out). I laugh aloud. I would drink wine or champagne, but I’m not allowed to medically. That’s okay. I no longer act like not drinking makes me holier than anyone else.

I’m spiritual, and I don’t apologise for it. I chant, I pray, I believe—and I don’t explain it to anyone.

Don’t get me wrong. I still complain about the small stuff—hot flashes, monkeys messing my drying clothes, my hibiscus refusing to grow no matter how much ever I keep my black thumb to myself. 

But the big things? I don’t complain about those anymore. 

And somewhere deep inside, I know:

I am alive. And that’s the best part of it.