Hey Y’all!! I hope you’re off to a great week… here’s a little mid-week pick-me-up, hopefully, especially because I forgot to update you with last Saturday’s show!
Welcome back to another episode of Stay in Saturday!
Thank you for joining me on this journey as we continue to create something together! I have so enjoyed getting to hear from everyone what this time is like for them. I have received a lot of great suggestions for the show, some of which aren’t mentioned in this episode, but I’ve taken notes and am already planning things for future episodes. I hope those go you who signed up for a goldfish have received them by now… please send pics, I’d love to share them!
This week not only will we lose track of time and spend half the day trying to figure out what day it is, I’ll introduce you to some of my talented friends and how they are using this time to channel their creativity. We’ll also hear from our friends “across the pond” about what quarantine is like for them, and I’ll try to do a better job convincing my husband to do a workout video with me!
Each week I’ll have an inspirational quotes segment, so if you got one you want to see in a future episode, share it with me!
On a slightly more serious note (Why So Serious? segment), We’ll touch on what it looks like to be a neighbor at a time when we’re technically “avoiding” our neighbors, and how social distancing is increasing our desire to connect. I think there’s certainly more to be said on that, but again we’re in the early stages of this show so that’s something we can bring up again!
I hope everyone has a great week and a happy Easter!
Tune in next week to possibly see me try to cut my husband’s hair. He said if I do a bad job he gets to cut mine so we’ll see how the goes!
Happy Saturday! Stay Inside! 🧡💛💜💙
*** If you still want a goldfish I have some left, just sign up for my email list on my website at http://www.jjbarrows.com See more life happenings and quarantine throughout the week on Instagram: @jjbarrows https://www.instagram.com/jjbarrows/
🎵🎵 Music in this episode:
O Tannenbaum– Vince Guaraldi Trio
I Want You Back– (acoustic cover) by Kenny Bern
Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright (acoustic cover) The O’Neill Brothers Group
As I was about to post a recent update, I realized I never posted some of the most important life-changing updates. This week I’ll be keeping y’all up to date with some of the big stuff that happened this year.
Let’s start with Iceland Part 2, where everything changed…
In December of 2016 I was pretty depressed. This isn’t one of those, “and then I did this and now it’s all better” stories, but I did do something and I have better days in the middle of the tough ones.
I started going to a Stand Up Comedy course. My way of getting “over” depression is to find something I like and something that terrifies me and do that. As much as I hate feeling nervous, it makes me feel alive.
I’ve always loved comedy. Other than T.G.I.F every Friday night and Saved by the Bell every Saturday morning, I grew up on Robin Williams (my heart still breaks), Steve Martin, Bill Murray, Lily Tomlin and Bette Middler, as well as Happy Days reruns so I was quite the Henry Winkler fan. Later in life I discovered Gilda Radner and I thought she was the greatest. There’s more too, but that’s good for now.
It’s not that I’m “over” depression. It never really goes away, even when it does disappear for a bit, it lurks or hides near by. I used to go through these really dark, heavy seasons and come out of it saying “and now I’m finally all better,” each time thinking I was over it, naive to the fact that life goes on and so tough times do too.
By December of 2016 I was 4 months into my depression, some days physically unable to get out of bed. I called a therapist and prayed and pouted and for 4 months nothing lifted.
I dreaded the beginning of the new year, I didn’t want to start it that way, I wanted an ending more than I wanted a new beginning.
I watched a lot of Netflix, unable to laugh but aware that what I was watching was funny. I’d say things to myself about wishing I could do that, frustrated I couldn’t, unsure if it was because of how depressed I felt or because I never really believed in myself enough to try.
I don’t even know what it was, other than knowing something had to change, as I had every reason in the world to be happy but wasn’t. I decided to do something I always wanted to do but was too afraid to do. I decided to sign up for Improv classes, except they were full. I noticed a Stand Up class, terrified of the notion, but feeling terrified at least made me feel something. Depression thrives in our comfort zones.
Desperate for change and in need of something to make me feel, I signed up for classes in January of 2017. I almost dropped out day one because everyone was funny and I was intimidated. But I made myself go back the next week. My teacher told me I had something special, which oddly enough, terrified me.
I realized I tend to want to just get by, do enough to make it look like I’m doing a lot, but not enough to actually take big risks, try hard things or even allow myself to be really good at them. People wouldn’t know, but I know. I tend to tone down JJ for the sake of making people comfortable, or at least to keep any expectation off my back of being better than I was before. Maybe it’s me I’m trying to keep comfortable. It’s lame, but it’s true.
I almost didn’t go back the third week because I didn’t know if I could be as good as I was the second week, but I began to learn it wasn’t so much about being good as it was just being true to yourself and having fun.
I began to just enjoy it for the sake of enjoying it instead of trying to become the next Gilda Radner. I think depression creeps in when I’m trying to be someone I’m not, when I’m hiding in my comfort zone, or when I forget that the little things matter, like doing something just because it makes me laugh. Or eating the cookie dough before you bake it.
And then, there was this…
After a few weeks into my second session of classes, I got to be an opener at The Comedy Store in La Jolla.
I’m not saying life is all better now and the dark days are gone. Truth be told, today is Good Friday and it has a reputation of being a really dark day, which was the case for me. But it doesn’t mean there aren’t still good moments, ones that make me feel really alive, even if only for 10 minutes… it’s totally worth it.
The little things matter, so does each little minute, and that’s enough to keep me going.
The story isn’t over, Sunday’s coming.
I think I think too much. I think this because I think all the time. Think, think, think, it’s always happening no matter what I’m doing, even if I’m doing nothing, I’m thinking.
I’m thinking about everything all the time and maybe I can’t hit on everything at once, but you’d be surprised just how much I can hit on in a short amount of time and space. Even for a woman, I’ve heard our minds be compared to that of a plate of spaghetti, all over the place, I think I think more than that. Even in places where thinking need not apply, I’m thinking…
“Be present,” I tell myself, and for a few sweet moments I am, until the thinks creep back in and I’m too in my head to notice the wave that is about to take me out.
And it’s not always life changing stuff that has me thinking so much, sometimes it’s the mundane, the small and insignificant. What starts out as a small thought in the morning is a full blown attack on the front lines of my mind by lunch. Perhaps this is often why I need a nap after lunch, not so much because of the food baby in my belly but because of the incessant thinking that has me exhausted.
I was recently picked up by a Lyft driver and after a few minutes of what was meant to be small talk he turned around and looked at me and said, “you’re very strange.” I laughed and said thank you in the form of a question. “I don’t mean it in a bad way,” he said, “I just mean that you’re cut from a different cloth and I’m trying to figure out what that cloth is.” I agreed that I myself was trying to figure out what that cloth was. “I can tell you’re a thinker,” he said, “a deep thinker.” I laughed and agreed that in fact I was, sometimes to a fault. “And you think differently than the rest of the world, but that’s a good thing,” he continued. “Until it isn’t,” I said.
“Well, it’s good until it’s dangerous because if you think on everything that gets thrown at you, you’ll end up confusing yourself.” I agreed with him and told him there was a lot I was definitely confused about. I told him I was confused by my own truths on top of people throwing their truths at me. I told him I felt lost. We talked for the next 20 minutes of our ride and by the time we arrived to where he was dropping me off I didn’t want to get out of the car. It felt more like he was taking me to church than a music festival. If there had been an altar call option in the Lyft ride I certainly would have gone to the front. That 20 minutes will certainly be a longer story for another day as it might have changed the course of my life in a way I didn’t see coming. So naturally, I tipped him.
“If you’re confused,” he said, “go back to the basics. The only way you can know the truth is to go back to the basics of knowing there is nothing you can do or learn or be in order to be loved, you already are. Once you know it is the One True God who loves you, you will know the One True God. And in knowing God, you know yourself. People keep trying to find themselves when they already are themselves. You are fully you and you are fully loved, it’s you who has to believe that.”
I shook his hand and told him I thought he was an angel. He said he could say the same about me, but I think I was too confusing to be an angel, plus I didn’t tip that good.
And so I’m trying to go back to the basics, in a lot of areas of life, like riding in the white wash knowing it’s not that impressive but it brings me joy…
But mostly I’m going back to the basics in realizing I can’t earn my worth or value, and no amount of praise is going to fulfill the love that I lack.
I choose joy. I choose freedom. I choose mastering the basics before trying so hard to figure everything out all the time just so I can feel worth something to somebody. I’m already loved. It’s me who has to believe that. And the same is true for you. You are already so very loved, should you have forgotten, just go back to the basics.
Oh, and should you need a ride somewhere, I recommend getting a Lyft.
……
Photos: Gary Linn
jj barrows 