Snaking Drains and Self Acceptance

I am a 32 year old woman and last week was the first time I snaked my own drain and no, that is not some kind of metaphor, I literally snaked my shower drain.

The real shock of this to me is how I went so long without doing so. I moved out when I was 19, and aside from a few months at a few different points in my life, I've lived outside of my family of origin. With roommates for 9 of those years, 4 on my own.

Doing this was not hard. In my head it was going to be very hard, somewhere more in the territory of making a soufflé on a campfire. Then I did it, and it was easy. Like, really fucking easy. Literally the easiest task I've tackled in so long.

Then I thought back to why I had such an aversion to this monotonous chore. I have definitely played up the 'help me I'm a girl and my uterus means I can't do gross things' lie to have men be more inclined to help me out and then give so much appreciation it became easier to have them do it again. Which, is that cool of me? No. Is it healthy? No. Is it advisable? Still no. It is and was a gross tactic to use and I've grown as a person since then, but I did do that.

As I'm snaking the drain, unclogging it, and reflecting it dawns on me - my aversion to this particular chore had nothing to do with the chore itself. Sure it's not a pleasant way to spend 10 minutes, but I don't have any tactile issues or sensitive gag reflection, there's no physical limitation. It has been entirely psychological and shame based.

I am a hairy lady. Some of that isn't true and stems from sexist societal double standards that grown women should be hairless in specific ways, and some of that is factually accurate in that I have course, thick hair throughout many parts of my body. Sometimes I shave it. Sometimes I don't. Some of it goes rogue and sluffs off as it so chooses and that is how, every so often, the drain of my shower requires attending to. My body hair was the second thing I ever recall being insecure about. The first was that I'm fat. I no longer feel shame about either of these things and genuinely love myself physically, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually.

Then the drain clogged and in being single, and not enjoying ankle deep shower stew, I did the damn thing and realized some damn truths, which is that even if I am accepting and loving of my round, large, soft, short furry body and recognize it for it's appeal, worth and value, the emotional memories that were ingrained into me through magazines, friends, family, TV, comedians, ads, movies, songs, etcetera etcetera those feelings; those wounds, are still there.

The exceedingly dull action of literally snaking my shower drain ended up providing some deep healing for the lies I'd learned as beauty gospels and a new, deeper, level of emotional amelioration. There's an important observation to be recognized here, that our lives, our days, can in mundane and unexpected ways give us insights and opportunities to unravel threads we've been consciously or unconsciously weaving throughout our experiences.

In a time where many, maybe close to all of us, are feeling depleted, stretched past our breaking point, the notion of engaging in any kind of personal growth, especially about something we've gotten so used to carrying we don't even notice the weight it's adding to our day to day lives, can seem laughable, indulgent even, but if I may humbly offer a slightly different perspective: It's more critical than ever. Not so long ago, in fact at the beginning of the pandemic, I was working in a place that so used and abused me as a product and never saw me as a person, I had no energy for any of it. By any of it I mean life. I was in survival mode all of the time until it hurt enough that I had to emergency lever, launch myself out of that job, and find something else, anything else. Thank God I did, because it wasn't so long after, when I started being able to sleep through the nights again, that I understood how much trauma that workplace had been giving me and then wondering why I wasn't more grateful and getting everything done. I saw how they used my struggles to set and uphold boundaries against me. That was something I swiftly started addressing and am doing much better at now.

So with all genuine sincerity I hope you too find yourself in humdrum situations that release a wave of balm to whatever lies have hurt you and give you freedom from their grasp. I hope if you need to emergency lever yourself out of jobs that are crushing you so you can get to the important work of snaking drains and finding healing that you do that, and above all, I hope you, dear reader, are well.