Single Girl's Survival Guide
Things you think about in a bath
Last night, while reclining in the bath staring at my disgustingly dirty feet, I had a thought or two. (As one does when one reclines in the bath.) My first thought, was that I must bath more regularly. Just because I am single and nobody other than me ever sets eyes on this naked bod, doesn't mean that I shouldn't take care of myself. I think sometimes, when we are single, we stop caring about simple things such as a relaxing bath.
Okay, okay, okay. I know what you are thinking but you are completely wrong. You are thinking that I never bath, aren't you? Well, you are wrong. I bath at least once a month, and before you all get on your high horses and put a peg on your nose before you read another word written by someon so dirty and smelly, I shower. Regularly. Like every day. I am a sort of a clean person. What I have discovered, is that showers never manage to clean all the dust and dirt on your feet and it becomes ingrained. (Mental note to myself. Invest in a pumice stone, foot scraper and scrubbing brush.) But then, as I have nobody to suck on my toes, does that really matter? Well, it should matter to me. Looking at the dirt from my feet rising to the surface of the bath, it obviously it doesn't. (Another mental note: Buy different sandals that don't let the sand in.) Like maybe, the five drops of water that drip slowly from my shower are not enough to clean me properly. Ah, for the Power Shower I had in China! If you removed the shower head, and adjusted it to a strong pressured stream of water and aimed it at your nether regions. OMIGOD! But I digress. No Power Showers in Tanzania. But then, I never managed to get dirty feet in China either. Guess you can't have everything!
Lying in my bath (which is actually very small and a tight fit unlike the clawfoot giant bath I had in China) I surveyed the dreadlocks attaching themselves to the sides of the bath. (Mental note: Shave your legs once a week.) Nobody looks at my legs, so why should I shave? Well, for a start when you do shave, the dreadlocks clog up the drain. And you don't want to star in a circus as the freak hairy leg lady now, do you? So, just because I am single, I must not neglect certain things. I must bath, pay attention to my feet, shave my legs weekly and ah, start wearing perfume. My last perfume I received as a gift from a man ran out about six months ago. Sadly, I have never in my life bought myself perfume. That's a man's job to buy it for me. But, alack, alas, there are no men out there, especially perfume-buying men for me in Tanzania. The closest I'd get as a gift of perfume would be a glass Coke bottle filled with zebra urine!
That's when I thought, we really need a Survival Guide for Old Single Women like me. The young girls, they don't have the same problem. They still toff themselves up, layer on the make-up, shave the legs, always hopeful that every time they go out, they might bump into Mr Right. The One. Balderdash and poppycock, I say, with tears of laughter in my eyes. There is no Mr Right or The One. There are just good guys and bad guys. Some of them, might even be somebody else's good guy. But nobody is perfect. If they are, how frigging boring would that be?
So, why are some of us old woman single? With some of us it's by choice, others it was somebody else's choice, circumstances beyond their control. But the end of the day, we are single and need to get ourselves out of the rut. We need to watch what we eat, not to make us look good, but because that is healthy and we need to take care of our bodies as we don't have anybody else to take care of it for us. We need to take more care with our appearance, not to try and attract men like flies to a pile of elephant dung, but to feel good about ourselves. Subconciously, we project to the outside world what we feel inside. We want to show the world we are confident about our singlehood, or is it singleness. Stop waiting for Mr Right to ride into your life on his muscular noble steed, making you swoon and faint, professing his undying love and desire to live happily ever after with you. You're an old single girl now, take some mature steps into the future by making some changes in your way of being, thinking and doing, and love will come. If you want love, that is. Some of us have reached the stage where we enjoy being alone, we prefer our own company. At least, I usually always agree with everything I say. But sometimes i think, wouldn't it be nice to share this with someone? Don't I want some old man to push my wheelchair for me in the dementia care centre? I think the key is to start enjoying life here and now - every second of it.
Plan holidays away by yourself. Experience the world. And if you can't afford it, then rent a travel DVD, close your curtains, lock your door and tell all your married friends you've gone away on a great holiday. Make them green with jealousy. You're not lying! You've just gone on a virtual holiday! And if your friends keep asking you about the man in your life, just tell them you're on a short break as he has to do a little jail time. That'll shut them up. Don't let being single get you down, shave those legs, buy some great perfume and start to LIVE!
