Remember when you could raise your hand in a meeting without clamping your arm back down to hide underarm sweat?

And perhaps the saddest part is how easily you can get used to it.

But it does matter.

And somewhere along the way, perhaps you’ve forgotten that you matter just as much.

The hotel ballroom had a carpet in a pattern of gold diamonds and a lanyard on every neck.

A man in a navy suit gave your hand 2 firm pumps, and you gave them right back.

He said he’d driven in that morning, and the 2 of you traded complaints about the interstate for a good 5 minutes.

By the cheese tray you reached over a stranger’s shoulder for a grape, stretching high, and leaned in to catch her name in a room of 80 people talking at once.

She said it twice over the noise, and you repeated it back so you’d keep it.

It came out of the dryer still warm and smelling only of detergent, and you pulled it on over your head, arms up, on your way up the basement stairs.

You pushed the sleeves to your elbows and loaded the kids into the car for the pumpkin patch, with a thermos of cider and somebody’s sneaker on the wrong foot.

Out in the field you squatted, hugged the biggest pumpkin in reach, and stood up with a grunt that turned into a laugh.

By 5pm you were sitting on the tailgate with the kids in a row beside you, pumpkins in their laps like passengers.

The gray was the same dry gray it had been at noon, and the only mark on it was hay dust.

On Wednesday you jogged your loop at 6am past the closed laundromat and the dog that barked at you every single day.

Back home you stood under the water until the mirror fogged and wrote your name in the steam.

At 4pm you bent close over a coworker’s printout and caught a whiff of your own coconut shampoo, and you smiled at the spreadsheet.

When your friend called at 6:30pm to say come over, you were still in your work clothes from 7am, and you said yes from the driveway.

You told her you’d be there in 20 minutes and pushed the car door shut with your hip.

The suitcase lay open on the bed on a Thursday evening, with a stack of folded bright tops beside it like a short stack of sherbet.

Your packing list was on the back of an envelope, and you’d stopped adding to it after the second line.

The cat curled up on the pile of pale tops and had to be moved twice.

In went a coral tank as bright as a grapefruit, a light blue shirt, white shorts, and a paperback you’d been saving for a lounge chair.

You pressed the lid down with one knee, the zipper whizzed around the corners on the first try, and you threw both arms up in a little cheer.

Your keychain had a tiny plastic flamingo from a hotel gift shop, and 3 friends piled in close, 1 up front and 2 in the back.

The leather seat had been baking in the July sun since noon, and you slid onto it in a sleeveless top and drove the first block with your fingertips while everybody laughed.

Somebody had brought a bag of clementines, and the peels piled up in the cupholder.

Somebody pointed at a cow and said it looked just like her aunt, and the car went off like a firework, every arm up in the air.

At the last curb your friend leaned through the window for a hug, cheek to cheek, long enough that the seat belt chime started up.

It was thin cotton with small pearly buttons, and you put it on without an undershirt because the sky looked like a day for it.

You rolled the cuffs up 2 turns, the way you always did, while the radio read out a high in the 90s.

At lunch you ate tomato soup at your desk, of all things, with a cracker in your other hand and no napkin tucked anywhere.

Your coworker pulled her chair up close from the next cubicle, and the 2 of you went through the weekend from her nephew’s soccer game to your tomato plants.

By 3pm the shirt looked just as crisp as it had at 8am, and she tapped your arm and said she loved it.

You’d come down the porch steps with one spritz of perfume at the wrist and a small gold clutch tucked under your arm.

The club had a low ceiling painted black, and the lights swept the room in slow circles of pink and blue.

The DJ switched to a song from your college years, and you threw your arms up with the cheer from the far corner.

A stranger in a plaid shirt shouted over the bass to ask if you were having fun, and you shouted yes.

At 1am you walked out into air that smelled like rain that hadn’t fallen yet, shoes in one hand, your other arm swinging.

The organist started the opening hymn a little slow, and the congregation dragged along behind her.

Colored light from the window fell across the hymnal in your lap in squares of red and blue.

The man in front of you had a cowlick standing straight up, and the little girl beside you drew a picture of it on the bulletin and leaned her head against your arm.

You stood for the last verse and sang the alto line you’d always sung, with the hymnal held high.

You picked it up on a Saturday errand run with a basket on your arm and a coupon in your coat pocket, and walked past the extra-strength sprays without a glance.

The bathroom shelf held that 1 stick, with plenty of room around it for the toothbrush cup and the little dish of bobby pins.

Near the end you tilted it up with your thumb to see how much was left and laughed at how little, since it had carried you through months of Mondays.

Then you bought the same one again, any one off the shelf would have done, and went on with your day.

Arms Up

Vol. 3 · Printed book · by the Girl Playbook Research Team

Price: $12.95

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