Yesterday was The Longest Day. It happens once a year when we come back from our trip to Tobago. We fly in to JFK, then drive back up to Albany, and no matter how wonderful the weather is or how smooth the drive, it seems to take forever.

This time, everything went nearly as well as it could have. We made it through the whole process and home sooner than we’d hoped, on a beautifully clear sunny day.

At a rest stop on the drive home, I ended up stuck in a bathroom stall with a two-year-old who was terrified of the toilet, and discovered too late I was in a stall with no toilet paper.

The commonsense thing to do here would have been to ask the person next to me to hand me some TP. But the baby and I had just bumped heads, which was about all the confrontation I could take at the moment, and I just couldn’t form the words.

“Hey, you with the blue sneakers. I’m on your left, black and pink sneakers. Would you mind just handing me a wad of TP? Thanks so much!”

Instead, I waited until my five-year-old’s little pink sneakers passed by the door and asked her for help. Apparently, a lot of the stalls were out of TP, and one had a roll that refused to turn. It took a long time and I was thoroughly flustered by the time it was over.

Part of the reason I was flustered is because at Almost Forty, it feels like I should no longer be embarrassed about something like asking a stranger for toilet paper. I would be happy to help someone else if they were in that situation. Instead, I crouched in the stall paralyzed, rehearsing what I could say while shoes paraded in and out of the neighboring stalls.

I see a lot of ladies in my Insta feed and in real life these days who are in their 40’s and up, really growing into their skin, and feel like, Why haven’t I grown into mine?

I AM growing. In many ways, I’m a new person. I’m doing things that scare me, being creative in new ways, and asking for what I want.

Except when I need toilet paper in a public restroom.

At a time when I have literally nothing to lose, I’m unable to speak up for myself.

I understand the midlife growth process is organic and everyone is different. I do think of myself as a late bloomer and there isn’t much I can do if my heart and mind throw a tantrum while I’m trying to drag them forward. The problem is when I hijack myself like I did yesterday.

While we were in Tobago, we went out for dinner and drinks more than I go out the entire rest of the year. In the course of the two week span we were there, I ended up with two drinks that were so bad that I knew after one sip I’d be unable to drink them.

My sister-in-law, who was with me both times, matter-of-factly told me to ask for something else. The first time, she did it for me, and I ended up with a much better drink than I started out with. The second time, I spoke up for myself with her encouragement, and ended up with a second drink that was as bad or worse than the first, and I just couldn’t make myself complain a second time. My sister-in-law spoke up for me again and the establishment comped my drink.

At times like that, rather than have a confrontation, I’ll mentally hash out all the reasons why the thing was my fault. It must have been a misunderstanding on my part – I don’t understand local ingredients or regional word choice. Nevermind the fact that I’d just had an amazing smoothie at a roadside stand a few nights before when nothing was lost in translation and local ingredients were used.

Stuck with no TP? My fault for not checking before peeing, never mind the fact that I was under duress with a toddler, and it is the job of an attendant to make sure all the stalls are stocked up.

When you’re a perfectionist, your brain will find a way to make Everything Your Fault.

It often feels like there’s so much personal work to be done that it’s hard to know where to start. As a list maker, it can be bad particularly because when we start thinking about what to do, we automatically start compiling a list, adding things and then trying to come up with more things when we run out of bullet points.

Accept aging self.

Don’t be an apologetic pushover.

Don’t be so self-conscious.

Exude confidence.

(Mind scanning for more list items….)

Just now I was reminded of our last day in Tobago.

I was coming out of the water at Grafton Beach, what we call a Rough Beach. The waves are bigger and the currents stronger than the gentle beaches we typically visit while we’re there. The Rough Beach trip has traditionally been for the guys. I’ve always stayed home with the Littles, but this year I spoke up and asked to come.

The Chaplain came along to watch the kids, and was recording video unintentionally. The dialogue is the kind of dialogue you hear on a mistaken recording, wind blowing, muffled dialogue and a “Oh! It’s on video!” and the recording abruptly ends.

In the little movie, I was glowing.

I had a huge smile on my face and my eyes were bright. I was unapologetic, dripping and happy, my hair  plastered down on my head.

When I think about who I am, too often I go straight to the me who was crouched in the bathroom with no toilet paper, vocal cords frozen, instead of the me who was flying high after being smacked around by the ocean for two hours.

When I think of that me, the bathroom stall me, too often I’m judging her for not speaking up, not being the confident person you’re supposed to be when you’re my age, instead of having compassion for her in a weak moment.

And the smile and freedom she was feeling at the beach, swallowed by an ocean that made every other concern seem as small as it it really is, feels so far away that No Toilet Paper seems like the more real version than Wave Jumper.

In my better moments, I know that both of those versions of me are equally me, and I can accept and love them both. And in the other times, well, that’s what I’m working on.

Photo credit: Kimona Paramour Photography. Pigeon Point, Tobago. All the kids in the background are my own except for one, who is my nephew.