Pt 2. The Spice of Life
- Sasha Anderson
- Jul 10
- 9 min read
Let me tell you some stories. I mean that is the point of a blog, right?! HA!
Vancouver, 2024 🙌🏻 Picture this 🙌🏻 :
It's 6:00 a.m., and my head is buzzing; I cannot sleep. We've been here for four days, and I am a mix of emotions. I am sad we're leaving today and I have to go back to real life, but at the same time, something just...clicked. Like, a little light bulb just went off and I am so freakin grateful. I can't take it anymore, I have to move.
I tried to be sly and sneak out of bed to head to the washroom. My cousin and sister are still sleeping. I hang out in there for a bit and try not to make it seem like I've been awake for over an hour at this point. But let's be honest, you can't share a hotel room and wake up early without waking other people up. I hold a little mini dance party to try and get rid of some of this jazzy energy that has lasted long enough, and it's time to leave the washroom. I open the door to two gals slowly stirring - good morning!
I try and wait for them to get ready, but I just have to go! I feel like I need some alone time to just pause and reflect. There's been quite a bit that's been circling in my brain for the last few days, and I need to think. It's been rather overwhelming. I let them know I would meet them in the breakfast area, no rush! I know that the uncles will be around shortly as well, they always beat us....but not today!!
It's cloudy, a little rainy, and a slight chill is in the air on the kitchen patio that morning. It's everything I imagined Vancouver to be, and it really was perfect. This trip kind of felt like the weather on that patio - fresh. Little droplets nurture something new and start to soak through layers of something that is hidden. This feeling is all so meta at this point. I can't really wrap my brain around why these emotions were showing up or really what was causing them.
But it left me curious and excited.
Nashville, 2024, 🙌🏻 Picture it 🙌🏻
It's 8 a.m., and we're rushing to catch our connecting flight. We've been up since 4 a.m., and this time we were smart enough to upgrade to business for the rest of the 5-hour journey. Only four days before, we were just two girls freshly arrived in the big city looking for adventure….oh wait. I thought we weren’t going to talk about what happened in Nashville... The two girls had a lovely, quiet time, with no adventure - a very demure trip. The end...just kidding.
The OGBF and I have completed a milestone, 20 years since graduating from high school, and we booked a trip to celebrate. We also just wanted to travel again together (we really didn't need the milestone to celebrate anything except us), and this city seemed like a great place to go. The rules for the trip:
Minimal plans (we had only two dinners booked, and that was it).
Say yes and have fun.
I feel like when you've spent 20-plus years together, growing up together, things should be easy. But life inserts itself, and you have to bend where the road goes. You don't get to see people as much as you used t,o and life is spent apart. So, you really have to make the most of it all.
The plane ride back was quiet, OGBF slept, and I allowed myself to get in the feels for the first time this trip. 5 hours on a plane, with only a book to amuse someone who doesn't read a lot, can give a girl a lot of time to think. This odd calm washing over me thousands of feet in the air. A feeling of ease to this trip, like in Vancouver, a flow that only existed in pockets before. Pretty sure the flight attendant thought I was drunk as I smiled and chuckled to myself every time I leaned into these feelings.
This trip baffled me a little; I felt more present.
There wasn't stress, besides packing the wrong clothes, that existed. We discovered so many cool places (minus that little bout of food poisoning we got), met some great people, and had adventures. It was a new way to travel for me, but also a way for me to reconnect with a friendship that's been around for a while.
The same feeling as Vancouver was showing up. These feelings of immense gratitude and a reset. A stronger sense of connection, relaxation....ease. I actually felt my body relax, my shoulders drop, and my head tip back to the headrest as I just sat there trying not to overthink things and not try and dissect what my brain was thinking about this (still) meta moment, but just feeling everything.
Edmonton, 2024, 🙌🏻 Picture it 🙌🏻
My brother from another motha and I are sitting in a funky coffee shop that’s just opened, another weekend spent caffeine shop hopping. This visit is a little less adventure chasing than some of the other stories. I'm sitting there listening to updates on his life, and the weird feeling shows up again.
It kind of doesn't make sense to me at the moment. It's a routine we've created; it's time we spend together exploring and hanging out after a busy week. This time strikes me as a little odd. This is going to sound a little wild, so buckle in - but I am able to recall previous stories and connect them together. I remember names and places. I remember past coffee shop dates and bringing up those interactions in the conversation. I'm sitting there listening intently and remembering to ask questions about the stories that he's previously told or is telling.
The reason why I say it’s wild for me is that I've always struggled to recall interactions, stories, and memories. I don’t remember a lot of my childhood or even my adulthood. So this was big for me. Something on my personal checklist that I’ve been trying to strive towards - being able to interact 1:1 or in a group and feel like I thoughtfully contributed.
Once the awe of the realization was over, my shoulders once again relaxed. I am enjoying the moment(s).
Once again, gratitude has rushed over me, but I didn't want to get lost in the feeling in that moment. I wanted to stay engaged in the conversation and keep it going. Keep this feeling of joy and delight present in this situation.
Months later, it's all kind of pieced together as I sipped my americano, spending some time alone in a different coffee shop.
What I didn't realize was that I had this need to cling to these other relationships where the marble jars were huge. Like, septic tank size. The idea of trying to fill something that large with something so small painted a picture that you'll never get to see progress in the tank being filled. The marbles just get buried in the shit. Then you end up feeling like shit because there's this sense of emptiness in the tank (relationship). You just struggle to remember or feel the joy of reflecting on or seeing the marbles.
You just see shit.
I felt so much anxiety all the time because everything that we did to fill the tank was never enough. You never saw what or how much effort we each were contributing. Because let's be honest - I wasn't the only one who was feeding into the tank, nor was I the only one feeling the magnitude of the size of the tank. A feeling of a lack of appreciation for what was going into it. We, probably, were each feeling like we were doing the most and the other person was just never providing or offering the same amount of marbles that we felt we were putting in.
What this ultimately fed into was my anxious attachment style. A feeling of dread and being abandoned by someone who I perceived wasn't showing me the love and acceptance that I craved. This is what I sought after in these relationships. This idea that I needed constant validation and confirmation that they wanted to be my friend. That I was good enough to be in their company and accepted whatever they gave, even if it was negative attention, because it was....attention. The overextension of myself made me believe that these tank-sized relationships were true friendships. Where dropping everything to help, or fix, or adjust my values to match theirs to elicit a (hopefully) positive response, was, well, draining.
Let's be honest - I'm pretty exhausted from even just writing that.
For years, I put the majority of my marbles into these tanks, and whatever I had left was plunked into the rest of the jars. This also included the jar that I had reserved for myself. But what I realized when that sweet, hot bean water hit my lips was how much smaller the jars from the stories are. It's not because the relationships are less valued, I believe they are more valued because there's no masking involved. The idea of authentic relationships where I never have to scan the room for emotions or change myself to build the friendship brings.....relief. They're just a regular-sized mason jar as opposed to a septic tank.
A clear jar where everyone can see the marbles and reflect on the joy each one brought. There's no anxiety about what's going in them and how much and who puts in what. To quote the OGBF, it's a ten-year plan that will eventually even out, meaning some times one person puts in more than the other to build support and vice versa. There's no counting, no scoreboards, and no feelings of am I enough or am I doing enough? Most importantly, there's no feeling of needing to dig for attention or feel exhausted sharing it.
The idea of the spice of life isn't about who can be or give the most, but just who you can, authentically, share it with.
This is not a new concept - the idea that people and community are what make the world go round. I find, like most things, when other people say it, it may not sink in on an emotional/soul connection level until you discover your personal flavour of spice. The flavour I needed to discover was recognizing when the marble jar is a tank or a mason jar, and honouring the size. I needed to recognize which people I felt like I could be myself around and add to my spice instead of turning the recipe sour.
That's the common ground between all of these stories, all of these spices - authenticity. I feel like once I was able to wade through the spetic tanks and the other shit that was clouding my sight was I only able to see these relationships (and others) for what they are. It's such an interesting feeling to be present in a moment where your brain isn't trying to anticipate what the other people are thinking. I feel like this is repetitive to say, but I believe it's because I'm still trying to lean into it all, learn about it, and...become comfortable with it.
Hmm, comfortable. Wht another interesting commonality between these stories. I feel like there are three things you can recognize in yourself that will demonstrate when you’re stepping into your authentic self with the relationships:
Your soul is calm. There’s a vibe, a sense of peace around these people. This will show up differently for people but for me it feels like looking at calm waters - nothing is rippled and it’s serine.
Your brain is quiet. You’re not overthinking, your present in the moment and you’re listening to absorb and respond from your current self.
You’re body physically relaxes. I don’t have to remind myself to relax my jaw or my shoulders, or fix my face. I’m sitting back in a chair and my arms are open.
No part of my being is on alert. There’s safety to be me. In all of my stories, the funniest part for me was my noticing that my body was relaxed. I don’t think I recognized how I maintained a limboc response all the time. These spices really complimented my recipe!
I did however notice, there's one other spice that has been missing, a jar I have been neglecting.
I've recently been diving deeper into what self-care looks like for me, and this lady I was talking to about this topic asked, "When was the last time you felt cared for?" Not going to lie, I struggled for a bit. My brain went searching, and then I started to think of all my mint people. I was able to rattle off a dozen acts of care in between the sobs. And it made me even more grateful for my spice friends. Not only did they fill my/our marble jar when I couldn't, but they also showed me how I can take care of myself. I've got some homework to do on this, which reminds me I better get on it. So there's not too much to share right now.
A takeaway for now is that we can spend so much time on other people that we often forget about ourselves. We are the secret ingredient to the spice mixture.
It's been joyful reflecting on this post for the last few months and the meaning of all of this. I've been thinking about when the idea first started for this post, during the Vancouver trip, and everything that's happened since. I'm grateful for my septic tanks, they aren't bad people...just maybe more like anise to my basil. These spices can be paired in a dish together and taste ok (if you like black licorice, yuck), but when planted near each other, they inhibit growth.
And, my love for my mint spice people has grown enormously during this reflection time - to the ends of the Earth and over the cliffs. Don't wait to tell your mint people how much you love them, do it so much you make it awkward (by then it should feel normal).
Lastly, just remember…
🎶Colours of the world
Spice up your life
Every boy and every girl
Spice up your life
People of the world
Spice up your life 🎶
See you on the path to finding joy. ✌🏻
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