Enough, already!--Month six and Improg word: Sassy

Isn’t it funny how sometimes certain words or themes will keep popping up, almost as if the universe were whacking you over the head, trying to tell you something very important?

Last month I did a calendar journal in which I cut out a word or two for each day. As the month drew to a close and I looked over my calendar, I realized that my month had been kind of boring. It’s not that it was a bad month or a hard month. It was just a rather serious month, and on many days I was hard pressed to think of anything that defined that day other than work.

One of my favorite days was a Saturday late in the month when, without any forethought, I bought a small mountain of blueberries and made jam for the first time in at least a decade. So by the time the month and my calendar were done, I had already decided that in August I would declare “Enough already!” to seriousness and make at least a little bit of time every day for some kind of simple pleasure. Nothing huge, both because I don’t have time on most days for huge and because I do believe that it’s the small things that make for a happy life.

Then, on Sunday, the second day of “Enough seriousness, already!” month, two of the funnest people in the world came to stay with my mom: an old family friend, who is in her 60s, and her 40-year-old daughter. My mom and I hadn’t seen this friend for over 30 years, nor had we been in close contact with her, and we’d never met her daughter, so we didn’t really know what to expect from this visit. As Child One said, “I expected two ladies to come and sit around Oma’s kitchen table for days. I didn’t expect to have so much fun.”

One of the daughter’s favorite words is sassy, so on Monday, I laughed out loud when I saw that this was the newly posted improg word. Oh, Universe, you’re not subtle with your ways of getting your point across, but you are funny.

Over the last five days, we’ve done all sorts of sassy things, from dancing at a free bluegrass concert to stuffing five people—including my 75-year-old mother—into a photo booth in the mall for a raucous picture-taking episode. I’ve laughed more than I usually laugh in six months—the kind of laughing where your legs go wobbly and you think you just might pee your pants. And despite several late nights due to long conversations and despite more than one trip to Dairy Queen, I’ve felt more rested, relaxed, and healthy than I have since I don’t know when.

I was sad to say goodbye to these friends, who are now on their way home. But I’m determined to keep some of their sassiness in my days from now on. Thanks, Universe, for whacking me over the head and reminding me of when I used to do fun things just for the sheer joy of it. Enough seriousness, already. It’s time for some sassiness.