Thursday, December 3, 2015

When Life Give You Lulu Lemons, Make Like a Yogi and Breathe: On Bubble Baths, Fine Wine, and Candlelight

Today is the day. Today is the day that you can finally pop open the Bollinger Rosé, vintage 1999 and delve into the depths of your favorite canonical classic in the comfort of the foamy paradise that is your bathtub. Today is the day that you will allow the water that fills the bathtub to wrap around you and caress you like silks and satins as you lose yourself in between the lines of an enrapturing novel. You will feel the steam create little dew drops on your forehead and you will savor the the wrinkles cast on your unpainted toes. Your skin will glow, the candlelight flickering and dancing upon your face like your own version of a dull and wonderful sunset. You will let all the worries of your day/week/month/year be washed away, you will close your eyes and let the slow assault of lavender vanilla take over. You will relax and you will reopen your eyes, a new and cleansed being. You will smirk and whisper Namaste to no one in particular as you feel your life calming before your eyes. PING! You will be ripped from your reverie by the phone on the counter that you forgot to put on silent. You will lament an exasperation, probably, “Fuck.”

I have 4 screens: an iPhone 6, an iPad Mini, a MacBook Air, and a mounted flat screen television. Many people have some form of these screens and they are all powerfully addictive, enslaving us all with their bright reminders that we are not alone. (FOMO is so real.) Technology is so great and is incredibly lessening the amount of time we have to wait to receive information, but generally we are slowly forgetting what a joy it is to keep ourselves company. People are beginning to become suspicious of the screens they posses; they are realizing that screen time is breaching face-to-face interactions, relationships, and their “me” time.

The solution? Head to the nearest Lulu, buy all the yoga pants, head to your nearest yoga studio, become a warrior in all the possible positions, make peace with your inner self, eat something like an acai bowl or kale chips to refuel, quench your thirst with some kombucha, feel on top of the world, write down your mood and goals in the new journal that was meant to look old, get in touch with your innermost feelings, look in the mirror and mouth some motivational mantra like you are worth it, fill the bathtub with silky, satiny water and foamy bubbles and follow through with the above anecdote sans the part where the phone pings, love every minute of it. People relish in the idea of “getting away” and being individual and being okay with spending time with themselves—it’s just SO hard.

Disconnecting is like taboo now. With all the Did you hears? and the Have you seens? it’s almost laughable to think you wouldn’t feel a pang if social media or Internet use was limited in any way. In fact, a recent study was held that said 53 percent of people said they felt upset and 40 percent felt lonely when they couldn’t go online for even a day. So it’s not surprising that we try to find contentment and solace in things like yoga, calligraphy, knitting, and other trendy developments in order to unplug and deal with the screen stressers. Solitude is so much more difficult to find in an always-connected world. But it is so important. Take some time to detox your mind and spend it with yourself doing something you love to do: you can read a good book, you can spend time with your family, you can learn French, you can try out a new recipe, or, my personal fave, you can practice yoga and then take a lovely bubble bath.
Namaste, party people.


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