A new way of doing things

I was a freshman in college when my RA was in the bathroom while I was washing my face.  She saw what I was doing (filling the sink with water) and she said, "so that's how you do it."  It sounds crazy but until that moment I don't know that I had considered that there were other ways to wash a face (some other day we can talk about my freshman RA Bridget--though I will probably need to work through it with a counselor first.  Worst. RA. Ever.  She dropped out of school the next year and I heard that she became a crack whore.  I'm not using that term in any kind of metaphorical way.  From what I understand she literally was selling herself to cover the cost of her drug addiction.)

I thought of that conversation two weeks ago when I was washing my face.  For years I have been splashing my face with water, putting on soap and then splashing the soap away when I'm done washing.  I normally don't wait for the water to warm up because I feel like such a water waster.  There is something about growing up in the desert that stamps you forever in the way you use water.  It's all I can do to not harass the hubbs when he lets it run in the morning to get warm so he can shave.  I feel like the tap is on forever and it takes control to not run over to the tap and turn it off because he is wasting so much water (I feel like people who didn't grow up in the desert don't have this compulsion.  The hubbs (who grew up in Oregon) used to leave the water running while he brushed his teeth.  When I asked if he had just skipped every elementary school assembly about saving water he looked at me like I was a crazy person.)

With the colder New York temperatures the whole splashing my face with water wasn't working for me and I found myself just not washing my face at night (which was leading to some serious breakout problems).  So I changed. I picked up a wash cloth, got it wet, put the soap on an rubbed my face.  When I was done I rinsed the cloth and wiped my face again.  Easy, no drip, no cold.  maybe not as effective as the way I used to do things but so much more likely to happen which, in a round about kind of way, makes it actually more effective.

That's it.  A mundane story acting for a somewhat mundane metaphor -we can change.  There are different ways of doing even the simplest tasks and we have to find what works for us.

And moisturize. Which has nothing to do with this post but is always good to remember.