The First Backwards Night

A lot of people have messaged me and asked me why the backwards life?  It’s hard for me to explain, with just a short reply, so I’ve written this for you all to help explain what I’m trying to accomplish by using The Backwards Life.
 
Have you ever just been stuck or in a rut and just felt like if you didn’t do something, right then and there you were going to lose your mind?  That things could not stay at status quo anymore in your life, you need more?  I was there and, as a creature of habit, I have found that I am there constantly.  The first time this happened, I was single and had just graduated with my Bachelor’s. I had moved back home and was contemplating my next move while working as a teller at our local hometown bank.
 
Every day I was doing the same thing…up at the same time, wearing the same clothes, running the same transactions, eating the same foods, going home, going to sleep, then repeat.  You get the picture.  My soul became restless and I yearned for adventure-Any kind of adventure at all to get me out of this rut.  One Friday evening before getting ready to head out to the same hangout, I looked at my roommate and declared that tonight I was going to do everything backwards of how I usually do it.  I meant to say opposite, but it came out as backwards and so it just stuck:  the backwards night.
 
The rules were simple:  whenever I am presented with a choice, I’m going to choose the opposite of what I usually would choose and see what happens-disclaimer here, people, if you’re going to do this, please keep in mind to do this within reason! 
 
Everything started out as it normally did back then. In our small town there wasn’t a whole lot of trouble we could get into.  We all had a favorite local hangout, so we would meet there, talk, do some karaoke, eat, then head home.  The backwards decisions started small: do I want to sit with him, do I want to go out front, what do I want to order, what do I want to sing?  Progressively, the decisions were bigger until the best one: On this particular night my roommate had given me a ride downtown thinking that she would be able to give me a ride home…not realizing her boyfriend had planned on her giving him a ride home in the totally opposite direction.  This became my first decision: did I want a ride with them for that long, or wait… or just grab a taxi? 
 
Usually, I would just hang out and wait.  This time, I decided that when I was ready, I was just going to get a taxi…why not?  This doesn’t seem like that big of a decision, I know, but for this small-town girl stuck in her ways, it was my first time in a taxi. 
 
I made the phone call and about half an hour later, a blue taxi-van showed up.  Our taxis were not at all like the Uber’s and Lyft’s of today. This van had seen much better days and had a suspicious smell of puke, but nevertheless, I jumped in the front seat and the taxi driver immediately asked me in her sweetest voice if I minded that she picked up a couple other ladies- her “regulars” she said, on the way.  Whenever I thought about even taking a taxi, I always thought I would want it to be only me, but this time, in the backwards spirit, I told her sure, lets pick these gals up!
 
We pulled up in front of one of the bad parts of our hometown and one of the rougher bars.  Two older ladies loudly bounded out of the front door laughing loudly and stumbling. One opened the passenger side door where I was sitting and yelled aww, you’re in my favorite seat-can I sit there?  In the backwards spirit, I got out and moved into the back of the van and shared the bench seat with the other lady.  Both ladies seemed to be having the night of their lives.
 
Both ladies also seemed to take right to me, within minutes I was their best friend-they loved my hair and kept trying to run their fingers through the curls and getting their hands stuck, they also loved my outfit…and they simply couldn’t handle that I was single.  So, every red light we hit, the lady next to me would roll open the sliding door and yell at guys in the cars next to us- “hey, are you single??? Want to meet her???”  
 
My shy self would slide down into the floor of the van waiting on the light to turn green, so we could move.  Of course, we hit every red light that night on the way home and of course it landed us next to the same big blue truck at every light.  Also, of course, every time the van was stopped, the sliding door was flung open and the lady sitting next to me almost fell out yelling at the guys next to us- “Hey!!!!!” She would scream over their music.  The volume on the music would lower and their windows would slowly roll down and she would start her diatribe about how they need to meet me.  At this point I was basically a liquid on the floor of the van. 
 
Then I heard a guy say “okay, I’ll meet her.”  I jumped up and waved and shook my head noooooo behind the screaming lady.  It was too late, she screamed, “Meet us at the American!!!”  Then she turned and looked at me and said, “You are going to the American with us, right?”
 
At this point I’m not even sure that I could’ve said no to these ladies, so The American it was.  The American was a local restaurant of great lore.  I don’t ever remember eating there during the light of day, but at the stroke of midnight, the food magically became edible and everyone would eat there before heading home.  These two ladies told me they had to have a hamburger, I made small talk about an omelet and they cackled at me.  I was really beginning to take a shine to these ladies, they always laughed at what I said.
 
We made it to the restaurant and it was packed. They opened the door and the room was suddenly quiet.  A lot of people I knew were there and they just kept looking between me and these two ladies, trying to process the situation. I gave them all a shrug, as if to say, yeah this is happening, and they got back to eating their food.  We muddled through the crowd to find a place to sit.  The lady that had tried to set me up kept peering at the door as though she expected the boys to come in, I didn’t have the heart to tell her there was no way they were coming.
 
After finding a booth, I slid in and both of them sat across from me and right next to the checkout wall that held shelves of candy.  One of the ladies stood up and went over and grabbed two fistfuls of Butterfinger candy bars-I remember this so vividly because she held both fists up wherever she went.  At one point, she was walking excitedly outside the restaurant and then back in repeatedly with Butterfingers in both hands (I’m talking at least 5 bars in both hands).  Then she walks out and red and blue lights begin flashing through the front windows of the restaurant.  I can hear her screaming…she is still screaming as she opens the door, Butterfingers still in hand, and screams we’re all getting busted!!!  Next thing I know, the lady still sitting across from me is out the door in seconds along with every single person in the restaurant.  There I sit, the only person in the restaurant at 3 a.m. with a cup of coffee.
 
I’m sitting there in a daze when our server shows up with two hamburgers and an omelet.  This lady has probably seen it all before. She looks at me and looks around totally unfazed and refills my coffee. I sat and ate the most amazing omelet I've ever had then I pay for all our food and take two hamburgers to go.  I walk out to where we left the cab and it’s gone.  Can’t say that I’m that surprised, what I paid in hamburgers, I saved in cab fare.  A friend came and picked me up.
 
Flash forward 14 years to 2016, I was stuck in a rut again.  I was overweight, sick, exhausted, and unhealthy.  I joked around with my husband that I didn’t need a backwards night to get out of this monumental rut-I need a backwards life!  I knew then that this was the key for me.  I had become too comfortable and complacent and I knew that applying the backwards philosophy to my life to get myself healthier would work. 
 
The changes started slowly-normally I would eat junk, but instead I’m going to have an apple.  The old me would sleep most of the day, the backwards me is going to walk laps around my kitchen island or park further away from the store.  The old me refused to go to a doctor or take care of myself, the backwards Sarah is proactive.  100 pounds lost later, there is no more backwards Sarah, she is me now, just Sarah.  I have a lot more to lose, for the first time in my life, I know that I will do it.

XOXO
​Sarah