"Wash your face . . . Say a prayer . . ."

So, I have to admit something that will shock most all who know me …

When I was a little girl/teenager/young adult I was WAY emotional … shocking, right? I know it is difficult to imagine because I am so level headed and emotionally removed now and am able to stay completely emotionally detached in basically all situations especially those I feel passionately about but dig deep and see that it is true, I used to be what people would call – over sensitive.

Just even sensing that someone was about to use the s-word on me (and by that I mean sensitive folks, not what we all normally think about when the s-word is mentioned … supercalifragilisticexpialidocious) I would go postal and get even more emotional and sensitive, "How dare they call me sensitive?!" I would think and sometimes exclaim, " I am not sensitive! The rest of the people in the world are just dead zombies without feelings!"

Now, while I still hold true to my stance that the rest of the world could be without feeling :), I will concede that I could be a tad reactionary …

I mention this only to allow your empathy to be heightened for those poor people that had to live with me during that time – my family, especially my mother. To be fair to young, little, overly emotional Mia, I think anyone would be sensitive to their "loving" brothers breaking into the chorus of  "Let Her Cry" by Hootie and the Blowfish, every time it even looked like tears would come :) We all laugh about it now, after my years of therapy to get over it (haha – jk) However, given that I can now see that I must have been a joy to live with, I can give my mom leeway when I remember the two most hated phrases she would use when I would get too emotional: "Wash your face. Say a prayer." Now, unless you read those phrases in your mind with a proper Latina accent (think Gloria from Modern Family) you cannot appreciate their full power so go back and read them again … I'll wait …

To this day my blood pressure rises and my pulse quickens at those words and I remember that 99.9% percent of the time they only worked to get me even more upset and I would usually end up calmly **cough cough angrily cough cough** saying back, "Don’t tell me to wash my face or say a prayer!!! YOU wash YOUR face, YOU say a prayer!" … Oh, my poor dear mother … Now, she would give that advice to me for any emotion  - if I was sad and crying – if I was rude and fighting with my brothers – if I was justifiably angry at anything – if I had just woken up from a nap and looked like I might, at some point in the next day or so, feel any of the above emotions – she would say, "Mia, go wash your face; say a prayer." Before yesterday, I have never understood why she continued to use the phrase when she always got a negative response from me; but maybe there was a method to her madness because yesterday … yesterday, those words came back to me …

In one of the cosmic jokes of life, I don't often do well when I have extended periods of time without somewhere to go or something to do; even though, when I am in my busy normal life, going places and doing stuff, I wistfully dream of the time when nothing will be exactly what I have to do. So, as you can imagine, the nothing that spring break has given me has had its ups and downs – yesterday was a down. I didn't hardly sleep the night before because my mind was busy thinking over every horrible thing that had even happened and every horrible thing that could possibly happen … it annoyingly does that from time to time (ok, fine - all the time), doesn't yours'?

I had been awake from the early hours just lying in bed feeling the types of things that come when your mind has just finished one of those lovely states of positivity I just mentioned above, and I thought, "I am never getting out of this bed. Life has nothing for me (dramatic, I know …), nothing good will ever happen ever again …" After a couple more hours of laying there I decided if I had to be depressed today, at least I would do so with clean teeth … As I stood in my dark bathroom with my hands on the counter supporting myself - like it took effort to just be standing there - I heard the words I always hated … Wash your face … Say a prayer … and for the first time that morning – I smiled.

I thought back to all the times my mom had said that to me and I laughed as I remembered how angry I would get … I thought back to my mom and her life and how with all my supposed trials, she had grown up in far worse circumstances … I thought about what difficulty would have meant to her and why she would have continued to give me the advice I never ever wanted to hear … I thought about her strength and love and how that strength had to have come from somewhere …

As I thought all those things I decided to put her advice to the test: I washed my face, then walked into my living room, knelt down, and said a prayer. Now after, I didn't miraculously feel better or feel overcome with relief like my overly TV watching/movie going brain was expecting but at least I was up – at least I was beginning to shake the dark fog I had fallen into and think about what I could do that day to help someone else and in the process I knew maybe it could help me.

So, I got ready for life and went outside and did things; the weird part being that the dark, depressing fog never lifted. I felt it all day long but you know what – its ok. I'm fine with that because to me that's life – not everyday is awesome. I used to expect my trying to get me immediate results. Old Mia would have come home at the end of the day and thought, "Well, mom's advice didn't work. I washed my face AND prayed and the feelings never left – she was wrong, God didn’t help me, I'm never doing that again …"

New Mia knows that my mom never washed her face and prayed when life got overwhelming because she thought the results she wanted would come, she did so because she had faith in the process. The process of real life – not the TV/Movie version that gives immediate results to actions; the process that we become who we are in moments, in minutes, in hours … in just continuously trying and not giving in or getting upset when we fail.

So, today I am going to wash my face, say a prayer, and go do things. You should too ...