The Bathroom Mirror and the Three Things Rule

I want to tell you about a thing I started doing in front of the bathroom mirror, and I want you to promise me you will try it for one week. Just one. If it doesn't work for you, you can go back to whatever you were saying to yourself in the mirror before, although I bet none of us would say that thing out loud to a friend.

The rule is: three things, every morning, before makeup, before hair, before I have done anything to my face except splash cold water on it. Three things I like. Out loud.

Today my three were: my collarbones, my eyebrows (Dani trimmed them on the side a little, bless her), and my hands. I like my hands. They are small and capable and they have a little freckle on the left ring finger right where my wedding band sits. Mark calls it my 'extra ring.' I had never said out loud that I liked my hands. Saying it felt strange and then it felt good and then I almost cried, which is becoming a theme in this blog, I notice.

Here is why this works. We have a constant inner soundtrack about our bodies, and most of us did not write the lyrics. The lyrics were handed to us by middle school and magazines and the comments aunts make at Thanksgiving and the offhand remarks of one boy when we were fourteen. We have been singing along ever since.

Three things is a remix. Three things is your voice over the top of the old tape. Three things is the difference, over weeks and months, between getting dressed for the world and getting dressed for yourself.

I did the run this morning — four mailboxes, friends. Four. The Hendersons', the rooster one, the one shaped like a barn, and the one Joanne has been meaning to repaint since 2019. Biscuit is, I think, becoming proud of me.

Tuesdays I work at Miller's but Wednesdays are my 'home days,' which means I do laundry and I work on Lucy's Little Light and I take Noah to story time at the library at ten. We sat on the carpet with about twelve other kids. The librarian, who is approximately ninety and approximately wonderful, read a book about a bear who couldn't find his hat. Noah laughed so hard he hiccupped. I sat on the floor cross-legged in jeans and a soft pink t-shirt and felt, for one whole stretch of minutes, like myself.

Came home, made grilled cheese, fed the dog, started a load of darks, poured two more candles in the laundry room — peach and basil, I'm calling it 'Sunday Tomatoes.' Emma's bus at three-thirty. Homework with juice boxes. Mark called from the site to say he might be late. He wasn't. He was early.

We ate together. Spaghetti, because of course. Emma told us the bear in the library book was 'unwise.' Noah ate four meatballs and one noodle. Mark said the meatballs were the best I'd ever made and Mark is a man who has eaten approximately one thousand of my meatballs, so I will take it.

It's almost six. Tomorrow morning, three things. Out loud. I dare you. I love you. — Lucy