Big Girl Panties

There's a saying, I'll repeat it here: Pull up those big girl panties. Or put them on. Or whatever the saying is: I repeat that to myself when I'm in line at the grocery store, behind someone paying for an apple with their checkbook and also pennies, or just getting out of bed, first thing, craving coffee and a different personality.

I told my husband that I went to therapy and asked my therapist if I was a good person. My husband pulled out a pretend cigarette and pretended to take a long drag. "That's what your therapist did, internally," he said. I wonder if asking that question is somehow a faux pas, a cringey moment of "me me me." No one should think about themselves that much, I guess. But then I'm behind that women at the grocery store, paying for her apple with her checkbook and pennies, and I lock eyes with the cashier: in that moment, I have the option to lose my s___, or just carry on, being the "bigger person" - and is that when I'll know if I'm a good person or not? Do we ever really know for sure?

I wish I smoked cigarettes, but instead I'm stuck with big girl panties.

Anne Sexton wrote a poem about suicide, and in there is the line "me me me." When I think about a bad day, or being a bad person, I remember that suicide is really a way of making it all about me, and I think existing in that headspace is toxic and unproductive, ultimately. I think about my therapist, and how if I mentioned suicide, she might put down her internal cigarette, and really lean in to listen. But wasn't I already insinuating that I think about death, already, with my question as to whether or not I am "good", a person worth their oxygen and time on earth?

This life is an endless death march, if you really put your mind to thinking about it: every day you're older, closer to death, fading away slowly with each step forward. But then I get out of bed, pull out my big panties, and live.