#946 The first shower you take after not showering for a really long time

Neil Pasricha

Work that lather afro

Sure, the first couple days of not showering have a bit of a dirty-cool, hippieish, roughing-it feel to them. You come into your own, letting the deodorant wash away, the hair get full of scraggly-knots, and the sweat dry into your clothes. If you’re camping, you are at one with nature. If you’re at home, you’re at one with lazy weekend. If you’re traveling, you’re at one with delayed, multiple-stopover international flight.

Either way, you’re at one in your dirty Zen moment. And that’s cool.

But whether it’s a day, two days, or even a week later, it eventually hits you: You need a shower, bad. And you ain’t gonna to get one till you get home. Suddenly, you don’t want to be a hippie no more.

Then you start thinking about it. And you keep thinking about it. You start to notice dirt stains building up on your arms and legs. You smell the thin film of leftover bug spray and sunblock on your skin. You comb a dead earwig out of your hair while collecting sticks for the campfire. Your scalp gets really, really itchy. And let’s be honest: your groin region isn’t in the best shape, either.

Yeah, that’s why the first shower you take after not showering for a while feels so good. You can actually feel the dirt washing off you. The white soap bar turns a bit darker and you use a week’s worth of shampoo as you work your hair into a massive Lather Afro. The shampoo gets in your ears, but you don’t mind. There’s sand in there anyway. Your sunburns and scrapes get washed out. Your tightly wrenched neck gets massaged by the warm water. Your nose gets a good blowing. And you wash all the bits of spider web, campfire ash, and lake algae off your face.

Then finally, you’ve returned.

Fresh, sparkly, and squeaky clean, you’ve completed your soapy metamorphosis back into the old Clean You we remember. Yes, your hair is shining, your skin is soft and streak-free, and your scalp is rehydrated and ready to rock. Plus, let’s be honest: That groin region is now totally…

AWESOME!

Wash it away

Hey everyone,

Gretchen Rubin is a longtime friend and fan of 1000 Awesome Things and I’m excited to announce that she has an awesome new book out this week! It’s called Happier at Home and is a follow-up to her mega-bestselling book The Happiness Project which has been tag-team partner of The Book of Awesome on the bestseller lists for the past couple years.

To celebrate we’re giving away five copies of Happier at Home! Let’s pick a winner from the comments each day this week. All you have to do to enter is leave a comment with one thing you do in your life that makes you happier. There’s no limit to entries! Just make sure you’ve got the correct email address so we can contact you if you win…

Good luck!

Neil

Photos from: here and here

68 thoughts to “#946 The first shower you take after not showering for a really long time”

  1. Itchy groin and zen do not go together well at all!
    I LOOOOVVVVEEEE this post!
    What a feeling to get dirty and then OM clean!

  2. My idea of a real happy day~ ability and wonder:
    Skipping side-by-side, with my grand-baby after her first day of grade one:)
    Seeing sunflowers, “as tall as Jack’s beanstalk!”
    Walking.
    Making up our own songs.
    Sharing stories.
    Noticing signs of autumn in a “very pretty, tiny red Canada leaf!”
    Supper shopping and having an awesome, “Pasricha moment”, over figs in the market.
    Pure blissful happiness:)
    Thank you!

    1. Making up our own songs…that way we at least should know the correct lyrics! LMAO! A friend and I used to make up songs about our cat and whenever he had to visit the vet, I’d sing his songs to him to help him stay calm in the car and at the vet. :)

    1. I’m so with you on this one! I used to live in a tiny town nestled along a river and each summer the town sponsored Sunday evening concerts on a floating stage on the river…awesome times!

    1. Yes! This is a true test of friendship. Casual friends won’t come by, but great friends will drop every thing to be with you.

  6. Happiness: Go-to places, alone. Sacred, serenity spaces In the mind, with nature, on a fun, heart-warming and educational “Awesome” blog:)
    Thanks SOOO much for being here!

  8. Happy foods:
    Coconut Macaroons cookies.
    Lemon cake with an inch of coconut flakes covering the icing.
    Non alcohol Pina Colada.
    Freshly cracked chewy Coconuts!
    Coconut milk.
    Rice noodles smothered in mixed vegies, curry and Prawns soaked in coconut milk!
    Coconut makes me very happy!

    1. p.s. there once was a yogurt made with carrots,raisins,walnuts, pineapple and coconut. I think it was Dairyland.Can you bring it back,PLEASE!
      I’d be so happy-er!

  10. Some very, uh… vivid imagery here, Neil. Haha — gross. ;)

    And the thing I did today that made me happy was to have a nap with my cat — a very unusual thing for me, but I must have been buggered, and there’s nothing like a warm, purring cap on your lap to send you off to sleep!

  11. Swinging on swings and going a little bit higher than you thought and getting the belly flip.
    Accidentally overhearing someone you love saying something nice about you.
    Making your own fresh fruit smoothie (summer) or soup (winter).
    Knowing people so well you know what the other is thinking.
    Big, beautiful hugs at the airport (or anywhere).
    Lazy days in pjs all day.

  13. Long, hot baths make me happy. As does singing the Rubber Ducky song from Sesame Street while I prepare my bath.

    1. I adore long, hot baths! It’ll soon be bath season here (fall-winter) when I love to take candlelight baths…mmmmm!

  14. Here’s something I do that makes me happy: walk down our tree-lined driveway to get the mail from our rural mailbox.

  17. I like to go camping. I do. I stay in a tent and I pee in the woods. I don’t shower and I get really gross. I love coming home and jumping in the shower. Its always the first thing I do.

  18. The thing that makes me happy Monday-Friday mornings when I get to work… sipping on a hot cup of coffee while reading 1000 Awesome Things and reading the comments. It always puts a smile on my face.

  19. What makes me happy? Returning to my first day of teaching and realizing how much I really do love my job!

  20. “Soapy metamorphosis” love it!

    Talking to a friend you haven’t spoken to in a couple of year.

  24. Happiness: watching an old classic movie wrapped up in blankets with a cup of hot cocoa in the deep of winter with a best friend.

  26. Doing something after someone tells me I’m not able to do it. Especially if they say I can’t do it because I’m a girl.

  32. To make myself happier, I make something with my hands – food, crafts, home repair – as long as it’s creating.

  33. I think showering in your own shower after being away (on vacation or otherwise) for a long is awesome…. your own soap, scrub, towel…. ahhh

    To make myself happier I read this blog. It reminds me that there are small things in life that we need to appreciate.

  34. Very vivid and discriptive. I feel like I’ve just gone on a long forest adventure and have finally returned home. Could just be me though. I always get sucked into books and their worlds of adventure. I just love reading.

  35. Making plans for betters days; it gives me something to look forward to even though I might be having a not-so-good day :) :)

  39. Girl’s night out with my best friend-eating at a new restaurant, walking around at night at the outside mall and window shopping and dreaming of all the trips we want to take. That makes me very happy!

  40. It happened to me this morning but when you are walking around a market area of your city- in this case Ottawa- just as everything is starting to get going. The fruit and veggie vendors are setting up their stalls. The cafe’s are getting their coffee going and the bakeries smell terrific. The retail stores aren’t even open. The smells are different in the streets. I have the sensation of being part of action backstage prior to the curtain opening. I don’t walk around the market every morning but when my schedule allows for it, I’m there because it always makes me happy.

  41. Sue reminded me, girlfriends are awesome! Soooo looking forward to my girlfriend vacation in Oct.! A bunch of girls with a bunch of wine at the beach..such fabulous-laughing-dancing-eating-drinking-relaxing-more-laughing-swimming-in-freezing-water-walking-game-playing-joking-even-more-laughing-talking-plan-making fun!

  42. Finding a new tv show starring one of your teenage crushes: Darryl Hall! He’s still looking fine and playing great music! It’s great when you had no plans, but just happen to turn on the tube and make such a marvelous discovery!

  44. Oh, and I know I mentioned it the other day, but since I can soooo relate to today’s post, I’m mentioning it again! Back in the spring I had surgery that for two weeks prevented me walking upstairs, where the shower is located. I could still use the half-bath downstairs, but it’s just not the dame as taking a full-on shower. My first shower was an amazing life moment…no kidding! I never felt so scuzzy crusty in all my life! It was one of those wash everything,including my hair, at least 3X! The poor occupational therapist had to sit in the bathroom and wait as I spent an inordinate amount of time enjoying body wash, shampoo, face scrub, etc. It was a huge deal not just because I finally felt really clean, but because I managed to walk up/down the stairs, maneuvered into the tub, and moved around rather smoothly. I felt like a whole new person after that! Just writing about it makes me feel good all over again. :)

  45. Oh boy! Kathy, I have also mentioned what I am going to mention many times before, but it also sooooo relates to this post!! Two words: OUTWARD BOUND. Haha yes this again. My face was grimy/ oily/ had specks of dirt all over, and all over the back of my neck. Not to mention my nails, and my feet that hadn’t been bare in 8 days, so were covered in fluff and abundant with toe jam (sorry guys). My head was soooooo itchy- I didn’t even care if people thought I had nits, I just wanted to scratch from all the dirt! And by the end I didn’t even care if the guys saw me in my underwear when I was changing, as the sides of our tarp-tents (bivvies) were open for the world to see. I was really annoyed the girls had to go off to a separate part to change before we did the swim test before rafting, and we had to swim in our thermals- if the guys could show their stomachs and keep their thermals dry, why couldn’t we? Stupid rules. My friends and I had planned for weeks that when we got home, we’d have a shower to wash everything off, then have a bath to soak, then shower to wash the rest off. I only ended up having a shower, but it was best 40min ever!!

  46. Oh and what makes me happy… realising what friend you would go to when you’re upset, categorizing your friends (my angry friend, my travelling bffl friend, my motherly friend, my intelligent nerd friend, my arty friend, my funny friend, my foreign friend, my popular friend, my Lit friend…. etc.), skipping and acting cute, DnMs with the mum, chocolate, sleep-ins, listening to my old favourite Aussie jazz-folkie Liz Frencham on Itunes, getting a reply from a person you really like or admire/after a heart-felt letter

  49. This is indeed one of the greatest pleasures. I agree that the satisfaction is huge when you haven’t taken one for some days, but even after a long day of sweaty sporting, working in the garden, after swimming in the sea (when the salt and the sweat makes your skin stick…) . Yes Yes Yes

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