By: Jana Greene

I had a good hair day last week. A really good hair day. I took it down from its obligatory summer messy bun (think more Ms. Truchbull from the movie “Matilda” than Lady Gaga) and it just so happened to fall in cascades, wavy from the elastic band that had been strangling it for an embarrassing three days in a row.

At first, I didn’t know what to do with myself. It was a bed-bound day, as many of mine are. I have a connective tissue disorder that causes progressive and chronic pain. I wasn’t leaving the house that day. Naturally, I shared it with the audience I had on hand.

So I say to my three cats, “LOOK at my HAIR!” Two of whom didn’t even bother to wake up (bastards!) but I think the one who was awake admired it a bit. Or was sending me subliminal messages to feed her early. Not sure which.

Then I pulled out my phone and took a selfie to record the event of the Good Hair Day, as I have them with about the same frequency as a lunar eclipse.

And after I snapped a pic, I felt silly. Like, REALLY silly.

I had a flashback to when I was a kid and was riding in the passenger seat. I was about 12, and the person driving – a very influential lady in my life – sneered at me when I pulled down the mirror on the visor to check my hairdo. “Oh, I guess you think you look pretty cute,” she said in a mean tone. I remember my face burning with shame.

My face burned with shame a lot when I was a child, because I really, really wanted to be a good girl and not be “full of myself.”  Being “full of yourself” was a very bad thing, especially in the eyes of God.

Whether by the opinions of others or my own self-flagellation, this creed followed me around: Tone down EVERYTHING.

Tone down your crazy sense of humor. Tone down your expectations. Tone down your confidence, if you had any. Tone down your opinions. Just tone it down, for the greater good.

So the first 40 years of my life I spent trying to tone it down. For many of those years, I used alcohol as the agent to accomplish this. But in 2001, I got sober and something had to give. The journey of self-discovery started in earnest then. It is still in progress.

I give this backstory to segue into a synopsis of self-actualization. Although certainly not all women experience the same things, I believe society at large tends to send us mixed messages, and it starts when we are very young.

As little girls, we are told not to be haughty when we feel cute.

When we are perceived as haughty, we are told to rein in thinking too much of ourselves, lest we actually believe we are acceptable. So we become full of (fill-in-the-blank) instead. It’s easier for other people to digest our existence unmanageable, small bites, lest we be too much for some.

We laugh to cope, and are told we aren’t taking life seriously enough.

We allow ourselves to face our depression and anxiety head-on, only to be reminded to “smile” endlessly, because we’re prettier that way.

We are told to believe we are beautiful just as we are, then we grow up to feel compelled to shave our eyebrows of and paint them on halfway up our foreheads, for crying out loud.

We are told that bodies come in all shapes and sizes, yet are often assumed to be lazy or practice poor self discipline if we don’t have the “perfect” physique.

Articles in the same women’s magazine extol the virtue of loving ourselves as we age, followed by tips to look 10 years younger just a few pages further.

We cry, only to be told as little girls that we’ll be given “something to cry about” if we don’t stop.

We are pounded with the idea that God loves us, only to be told that we’d damn skippy better get it together, lest we be punished. We live our lives under the oppressive weight of his so-called expectations; leaving us no other conclusion but that we are inherently bad.

We are encouraged to go after what makes our hearts happy, but we seldom have any idea what exactly that is. We haven’t taken the time to learn what we love.

When we do discover what we love, we often set it aside as silly or frivolous, as it may not benefit others.

We are taught that “no” is a complete sentence, but often feel shamed when we employ it.

We scrimp on self-care, because what about the needs of everyone else? There is often nothing left of ourselves to give to ourselves.

We are told the opinions of others do not define us, only to let those opinions of others become our very identities, if we are not careful.

We are told to break free of the expectations of our ancestors, but inside we really just want to please our mothers.

We are told we are strong and powerful, while being reminded this is still “a man’s world.”

Oy vey, so many paradoxes are a part of every woman’s life!

I guess I’m trying to say YOU ARE OKAY. You are actually far better than “okay,” because so long as you use your big personality and desires for good instead of evil, it’s perfectly okay to love yourself. Oh my God, just LOOK at you, Lady! You’re a masterpiece whose energies make the world a better place.

No shame necessary.

So, take that selfie. You’re awfully cute!

Be silly on purpose.

Talk to God. He’s not mad at you!

Cry if you need to.

Laugh TONS.

Say NO. And say YES to yourself, you gorgeous creature.

And about that self care? Indulge yourself with a bubble bath. Read that awesome book. Eat three square meals a day. All the lovely little things you’ve been doing for everyone else all these years?

Do them for YOU!

(Oh, but don’t expect your cats to appreciate your efforts…)

God bless, sweet, strong, and sassy sisters. ❤

By: Jana Greene

Well, well, well….if it isn’t the day I’ve been dreading for decades – the colonoscopy.

Were it not for one of my dearest friends’s 30 year old son getting an aggressive form of colorectal cancer, I’m not sure Id have the balls to go through with the colonoscopy.

Now, that being said, there is 100% NOTHING funny about colon cancer, but there’s a lot to the procedure that IS, in fact, pretty damn funny.

So if you’re turning 50! Congratulations, you are now required to take a garden hose up the butt once every 10 years – or, if you are like me and f*cked up the entire prepping process – you may be lucky enough to need another one in just ONE year! (My butthole just involuntarily sunk about two inches up into my body, when it heard that news. I may never find it again, what with its ifeeble attempt to hide from the inevitable.) “You’d better man up,” say I to my asshole. “Stop being such a drama queen.”

What to expect when you are expecting to have your old dirt road explored by some man in a white lab coat and suspiciously chipper attitude. I guarantee you, if I had to look up butts all day, I’d plotz.

So a few days before the “prep” ( I guess “prep” sounds better than “having you drink mass quantities of what I’m pretty sure is the urine of satan…) Your prep will start off well enough. “I can drink Gatorade!” You think, full of hope and determination. Ok, next, take four Dulcolax. Wash THAT down with more Gatorade. Now mix AN ENTIRE 238 g bottle I to yet more Gatorade. Stir for what seems like 45 minutes. Next, slap your ass on the toilet because this is your new HOME for the foreseeable future.

I have never puked so hard in my life. Projectile vomited every last drop of that damn half GALLON of mirilax Gatorade. I threw up for hours, which means it never even made it down to the necessary bits. Oh wells no problem, because there is this abomination called “mag citrate,” and it solely exists to make you wish you were never born. It’s some kind of formula containing apparent jet fuel (you’ll figure you this out later…)battery acid, a fair amount of TNT, and “grape.” Yes, on the label it has a darling little illustration of s tiny bunch of purple grapes. I assume the nasty stuff is SUPPOSED to be grape-flavored, but still tasted like jet fuel. I DID make it to the toilet in time; but which was also mondo gross because it’s the same toilet aid been, um…”emptying my bowels” in all night, which made me puke even harder.

At some point, I remember telling my husband that I’d come up with a new slogan for colonoscopies…..”But WAIT! There’s MORE!”

THERE IS ALWAYS MORE. Holy shit, you think you are a mere shell of a person when in a split second your butt has decided to share its contents without any notice at all. It just shows up like your Great-Aunt Clara or something.

Some things that are NECESSARY to facilitate your best colonoscopy experience. (Wank, wank. There IS no best experience.

Aside from making sure you have at least 10 ounces of satan’s urine, 300 bottles of Gatorade, and a pile of Miralax so enormous, it looks like you’re expecting Cokehead Larry from down the street over any minute; it’s time to show your butthole the extra attention it so deeply (and I mean DEEPLY deserves. At first, standard baby wipes will do to gently clean yourself, but by the time it’s all said and done, you will not want anyone even coming NEAR you with so much as a feather. Get. that. Shit. Away. From. Me.

So finally it’s time to do this thing. The Thing ain’t bad at all – I took a rather refreshing nap when I was under.all of the doctors and staff were amazing, although when the proctologist bright pictures from he procedure to show Bob and so, I really could have done without the graphic rectal photos being shown to bob. WHERE IS THE MYSTERY?! At any rate, the doctor points out that my “cleanse” want clean enough and they could only see 80% of my colon so I need to have it redone in A$&£#% YEAR.

Apparently when I barfed so hard all night, the miralax never got to my intestines, this rendering my painful, embarrassing prep inadequate. Next time they are giving me an anti nausea so I can complete the prep properly.

So this is why I implore you, friends, old farts, countrymen….make sure your prep is top-notch. Also, please try not to stare because I am currently walking as though a corncob is up my butt. Please and thank you!

Silver lining? I lost five lbs today. TODAY.

Oh, and I had a nurse who was a riot, cracking (see what I did there?) jokes like, “The bathroom is back in the rear,” she said. “No pun intended!” Guurrrrl, we both know you intended that pun. Own it.