It's a thing. It happens when you just don't have the energy (or frankly, desire) to shower as frequently as you used to.
I'm not doing anything. So I don't stink. There's no sweat to promote bacterial growth, so there's no accompanying BO. I just didn't shower again. I don't smell 'bad'. Just a little, funky.
I got into bed last night, and noticed it. It was oddly pleasant. Much like a pet's bed, it simply smelled of me. Lying in my safe place, warm, surrounded by my own smell, is very comforting. Yet it made me think about the last time I changed my sheets (not TOO long ago).
While tiring (fitted sheets do that to ANYONE), there had been a sense of satisfaction. I'd achieved something that day. I wanted to shower, not to taint my lovely fresh bed. It was a difficult day, but not a bad one, previously I would have been looking forward to sleeping in my freshly made bed. I wasn't. I kept putting it off. My bed wasn't somewhere I wanted to be. It had joined the ranks of 'things I don't want to ruin'. These things currently include - joining in with people having fun; I'll bring everyone down, and spoil their day - going out and interacting with new people; I'll seem stand-offish or rude - eating dinner with my family; my inability to join in the conversation will seem uncaring.
My bed, once it's funky, is my comfort zone. It's where I retreat when things are too much, and it's where I hide from other people. If it's already funky, being funky in it, is ok.
The times I change my sheets, and shower, the days I lose my funk; I feel exposed. Vulnerable. Newly raw. As though my funk is armor, and now I'm defenseless. More progress happens when you climb out of the funk, but it's scary, and even on the days I DO feel I've made progress, at the end of them, I prefer to get back into bed that has slightly funky sheets. It feels warmer somehow.
Thankfully, the people around me will SO tell me if I actually start to stink.
Caring takes many forms.
Derri.
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