You Bet Your Bob’s Burgers I do!

“Act your age.” Other versions are, “Turn down your light. No one lives this way or acts the way you do.”

While I was watching the TV Show, Bob’s Burgers, with my granddaughter Lucille, I was inspired to write about the episode when it is Linda’s birthday. Linda is the Mom and the episode is called Eat, Spray, Linda – Season 5, Episode 18.

Linda wakes up and remembers that it is her birthday. She tries to bury her head under the pillow and stay in bed to avoid the day. The family tells her they are working on a surprise, and she has to leave the house. Linda goes out to the grocery store where a series of mishaps occur: her keys get locked in the car with her cell phone and purse; her pants rip in the butt; no one in the grocery store will help her; she catches a bus going in the wrong direction; and she gets sprayed by a skunk, twice. It is a day of total chaos and Linda digs deep to conquer one challenge after another.

At the end of the day, soaking in a bath tub filled with tomato juice, her husband (Bob) tells her, “Sorry your birthday was horrible.” She says, “Hey! Don’t be sorry. This was the best birthday ever!” She goes on to tell him that this is a new tradition. “Every year on my birthday, you blindfold me, drop me off at a location with no cell phone and no money, and I have to find my way home.”

I love Linda! She has this way of seeing the sunshine in adversity. She finds the humor in everything that happens. Linda made the best of the chaotic situation and ignited a part of her that had been dormant. She came alive! Her light was shining.

That’s how I choose to live life. I go on the ride with all the ups and downs, and highs and lows. I feel everything. What if we all embraced adversity and challenges with this exuberance, the way Linda does? What could we create in our lives and in the world? Isn’t this the best way to live? Feel alive. Shine your Light. Reach deep and wake up all the parts of you.

Like Linda, we have a choice. To embrace the experience and find out new things about yourself, or to shut down and give up.

So, when someone says a 62-year-old woman doesn’t do things like “that”, I say, “Why not?”

Written by: Andrea Hylen; Heal My Voice