Hot Tub Time Machine

Guest Blog by Chrissie McCauley, Founder of JUST WHAT WE NEED

Happy Thanksgiving Eve, all! Do I have a turkey treat for you?! My friend Chrissie McCauley, the comedy genius behind the newish blog JUST WHAT WE NEED, is sharing her first guest blog below. JUST WHAT WE NEED is a collection of thoughts, impressions, and stories from a semi-working professional and wannabe writer who moonlights as a mother and wife. Be sure to subscribe, so you don’t miss a single one of her relatable and unapologetically honest posts.

For background, Chrissie had me at “wanna do ‘make-your-own-jewelry’?” It was the first thing she said to me from behind black frames and upon living down the hall from my dorm room at Penn State. I knew it was the start of a beautiful, silly friendship. Over the years, I’ve been grateful for our many Hot Tub Time Machine moments where we still act like idiotic, college freshmen. Anyhow, enough from me. Let’s hear from Chrissie.

There’s an unexplainable phenomenon wreaking havoc on my fellow millennials, specifically millennials in the young child rear-phase of life. Despite extensive research conducted by the sciences, the humanities, and the fraternities – no one can determine its origins. The phenomenon I’m talking about is the full body transformation that happens when we enter any bar. Or step foot on a college campus. Or have a night out with best, old friends. Or visit the place we spent summers in the coming-of-age years. Or if we’re with the people (you know who; the people you did all those things with “once upon a time”) at a wedding, reunion, or other gathering.

Put me in a bar packed to the gills with sweaty people, a floor that’s sticky with spilled beer, a loud DJ, cheap drinks, and I am Sleeping Beauty awakening from a long slumber. Like a snake, I shed my current identity and step quite seamlessly back into my old skin. I will weasel my way into the tiniest sliver of an opening at the bar, watch as my friends claim a high top in the center of all the action. Someone will take a lap to ensure we’re in the right spot. What is the right spot? No one knows, but it’s part of the drill.

What do we order? Tequila shots with a Natty Light back for the group? Sure! Not once do I remind myself that I haven’t taken a tequila shot for the better part of a decade … Do I consider that I will regret it for 3-5 business days? Not for a second. Do I contemplate that too many carbonated drinks flare up acid reflux? Absolutely not. Is a man (boy?) flirting with me? No? Well, why the hell not!?! Forget the fact that I’m happily married for 10+ years. This is the old me, and I want some poor schmuck I don’t care about to buy me a drink. RIGHT NOW.

Is it muscle memory? Is it sad, desperate, pathetic? Is it people just cutting loose and having fun? WHAT IS IT??!? Does it even matter??

It’s like time traveling. Except instead of going back somewhere, you’re actually going back to someone. It’s not pretending, or faking, or denial. It’s like slipping into a familiar skin, one that fits so perfectly you almost forget you had ever outgrown it.

Just look to internal family systems—a therapeutic treatment modality that’s entire bedrock is the idea that we are multiple parts of one whole person—to understand what I mean. Put differently, in the continuum of YOU, the bar rat, shotgunning beers at a country concert in the stifling July heat, is the same exact person who packs backpacks and signs forms and talks about Roth IRAs. The person that danced at the Rusty Rudder in Dewey Beach is the exact same body that changes diapers and fetches snacks. Maybe your knees creak a little more, or you have some extra laugh lines, it’s still you.

Distance from that person gives us perspective and nostalgia. The thing about nostalgia is that she’s not a reliable narrator. Nostalgia filters out the hard stuff and leaves only the best parts – genius, really, but it is an incomplete picture. Because right alongside that freedom, adventure, and spontaneity I felt back in those days, I also knew there was a longing for the kind of life I have now. When I was anxiety-stricken, insecure, and lonely all those mornings after big nights out, I’d daydream about how I’d ever get to this place. When? And, with who? The insecurity and doubt and worry don’t get remembered, but I know they were there.

While the majority of this post focuses on Hot Tub Time Machine moments revolving around nights out – it is also applicable to a million other scenarios. It could be that you’re a 38-year-old working professional, fully independent with a mortgage and responsibilities but suddenly you’re home for Christmas, sleeping in your childhood bed, and you find yourself secretly hoping Santa has left something under the tree for you (wait, is that only me?). You come downstairs and your parents offer you breakfast, coffee, and a general sense of security so you find it easy to slip into the role of kid. What a GIFT.

So when you find yourself revisiting your old self, in your old stomping grounds, in a twin bed somewhere in your hometown, remind yourself: “Hey, this is fun. This is fleeting. Let’s enjoy every second of it.” Mindfulness – if you will. Maybe we call it a backslide, a time-warp, a regression, a Hot Tub Time Machine moment, whatever. All’s well that ends well.

My only cautionary advice: remember tequila shots are best to be avoided on Thanksgiving Eve (and Christmas Eve for that matter)… Multiple generations of family don’t need to bear witness to the aftermath of that. You. Are. Welcome. Cheers!!!