You’ll never look at Monday the same way again!

by Alice

Nor jump-roping, neither.

jump_rope

…sigh…

There is not a single thing about this .gif that I don’t love. I feel like I could sit here and watch this man jump for hours.

Of course, that could also have to do with sheer exhaustion…? 

After the really rough patch of the last couple months, I feel as though I have reached a few critical insights and, in the process, shed about FIVE THOUSAND POUNDS of accumulated shame and terror. Five thousand pounds is the average weight of an adult white rhino.

I have just lost a rhinoceros of shame.

Which marks this down as a pretty darn good—albeit tired—kinda Monday.

rhino-of-joy
Baby Rhino of Joy! (NOT the rhino I was carrying.) via giphy.com

◊

What about you, my friends?
Tell me something in your world that’s good!

Or, tell me about the rhino still riding your back.
(Let me help you carry that weight.)

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[Missed an episode of your favorite blog series? Not to worry! Head over here to see all past Monday Inspirations with Alice.]

 

 

23 thoughts on “You’ll never look at Monday the same way again!”

  2. I have only one word for this gif. “Ow.”

    I am in a good space. I made a decision to make each day a good one. It is a challenge, and I don’t always succeed because we all know that when we make such a decision, the universe makes us their plaything. But I trudge onward. It is the day I work Chinese Alligators, so it will be good.

    I am glad you have the rhino off your back. Here’s the thing about rhinos. You can wear them out by chasing them. They drop dead of exhaustion. It’s a terrible thing for real rhinos, but it is just what shame-rhinos deserve.

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    1. I think this shame-rhino was equipped with Time Lord technology: whatever kind they used to make it hard for people to look directly at the TARDIS and see it? Once I spotted this sucker for what it really was, it fell away…

      I am glad to hear you are making Chinese Alligators your good plaything today, or at least your good playmates. 🙂 Enjoy! Come back with all your fingers still intact!

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  4. My shame is a sow, as in female pig. She holds many of the words that play on a constant loop in my head: lazy, filthy, fat, disgusting, naked, stupid. The last couple of weeks, while she’s still there, she is eclipsed by the rhinoceros, who is rage. Rage terrifies me; even garden-variety anger, even annoyance, even a stern voice; even my own rage. And the rage I have been feeling the last couple of weeks… almost anyone can be a target. Anyone “normal,” anyone who can’t comprehend that other people might feel something other than what they feel, that other people might have the right to feel, to be. That -I- might have the right to feel and to be. Two examples:

    Two weeks ago, crossing the street to go to work, a car had started to make a right turn at my corner before the light turned red. He stopped and waited as we pedestrians started to cross. The car behind him pulled around him on the left, to make the right turn on a red light in the midst of crossing pedestrians. I made eye contact, and he rolled right past me. So close I could touch his fender. I was carrying a tote bag with, among other things, two one-pint metal thermoses, both full. I swung my arm back, and then forward, to slam the tote into the fender as hard as I could manage. He did not stop. I -wanted- him to stop; wanted him to get out and yell at me, because I wanted a reason to beat his windows out.

    [trigger warning for mention of incest]

    Last week, as work, my co-worker yawned. It caused me to yawn. She said, “What are -you- tired for? You don’t get here till 1 p.m.” (she starts at 9) I said, “My alarm is set for 10, but I didn’t get to sleep until 6 in the morning.” She said, in a stern-mother-tone, “Whose fault is -that-?” I wanted to hurt her. I wanted to do worse than punch her in the face, that wouldn’t be enough: I wanted to answer her with “My brother’s fault.” and when she inevitable asked what the hell that meant, I wanted to say with no emotion, “Maybe if he hadn’t -fucked- me when I was five, I’d be able to get to sleep in less than two hours and stay asleep.” I wanted to watch her face as she realized that other people have lives that she has no fucking clue about, and maybe she shouldn’t fucking judge anyone ever.

    So, uh, yeah, that’s my rhino.

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    1. Bev: Sows are friendly, intelligent, tolerant and tough – and very protective. This is one of the better animals to represent you if you want to become strong, powerful, independent, initiator. Those other words (the negative ones) come from people who don’t know, who won’t ever understand, and don’t deserve your time or words. And your rhino rage, is that the reflection of the world and the way they don’t see or don’t care or dismiss the needs of inclusion? Be part of this (with Alice people) community, share and bare here, with people who will [try their best] to understand and offer whatever they can. Focus on only your own depth and commitment to growth so you can reveal, bit by bit, the real you – to yourself first, of course. Which means: don’t get yourself run over by someone else’s idiocy and impatience and lack of compassion. And watch the baby hippo being carefully guarded by the big mother hippo.

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    2. Oh the rage-rhino. I know that beast well, Bev. I am enough of a Texan (land where gun-racks on pickups is a point of pride!) not to accost folks in vehicles, lest they pull a piece on me, but I fully recognize that instinct.

      Anger does such strange things to us, when we grow up forbidden to feel it. Even the most docile and compliant child is not without anger; she’s just hidden that samurai blade under her mattress, until the day when she feels finally safe (or desperate) enough to pull it out. Teaching myself how to wield now-adult-sized anger in my inept, untrained still-child-sized hands can feel almost overwhelming.

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  6. Aww… Baby Rhino of Joy has totally made my night!! =) =)

    And seriously, Alice, so proud of your taking that big old bitch and tossing her out with the bathwater… not lucid enough to speak coherently, let alone type… love to ya! =)

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  7. Good god, I am so jealous of that hair…and do you see those spikey heals…of course you do… This man has my highest praise, as do you dear one for all the hard work you have been doing, and for emerging rhinoceros-less on the other side.

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    1. The hair, the heels, the outfit that stays in place like a miracle — it’s all exquisite, isn’t it?!! I suspect this “other side” is gonna be comparatively exquisite too, once I get used to it… 🙂

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        1. Since when do you expect ME to know the correct name for a full body thong?? Dear me, Deb, do we need to retreat all the way to the beginning…

          “Hi! My name is Alice! I have all the fashion game of a wet turnip!”

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  8. I think rhinoceros is an excellent unit for measuring shame. Not only is it quantitatively large enough to measure just about anyone’s shame without resorting to very large numbers; it is qualitatively appropriate. See that baby rhino bouncing around in the road? That’s probably just a decirhinoceros, or maybe even just a few centirhinoceroses. If you have a full rhinoceros of shame in you, it would be like that big mama rhino jumping around like that. And IN YOUR HEART! Yeah, that’s what shame in your heart feels like, a jumping rhino, frolicking about among your atria and ventricles. So let it go, people. Get that shame out before it does some lasting cardiac damage.

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