With cooler weather around the corner, I decided I wanted a long-sleeve cotton Dolly Mama T-shirt for myself.
That was it. One shirt. For me.
So I started going through years of Dolly Mama artwork, trying to decide which one I wanted to wear.
And then I came across this saying.
Put Your Big Girl Panties On and Deal With It.
Something about seeing it again just felt right. The old girl deserved a second chance. Don’t we all?
And this one had history. It was one of my very first Dolly Mama sayings and a best seller for many years.
So I created the long-sleeve shirt.
I loved it.
And because apparently I have absolutely no ability to leave well enough alone, one shirt for me turned into an entire new line of long-sleeve Dolly Mama T-shirts.
Sixteen of them.
So much for one shirt.
But bringing this particular saying back reminded me why I always loved it in the first place.
We were the “suck it up” generation.
Nobody asked us how we felt about the situation. Nobody suggested we take a mental health day. Nobody told us to remove ourselves from toxic situations.
We drank, dealt with it, or shoved it so far down we forgot what we were upset about in the first place.
We basically said, “It could be worse.”
And moved on.
Were we emotionally healthy?
I wouldn’t go that far.
Did we get shit done?
Yes, we did.
We were trained for this...
We dealt with pantyhose.
We willingly stuffed our entire lower bodies into something that came inside a plastic egg.
We wore high heels everywhere. Hell, I could practically run a marathon in them. A very short marathon, but still. Now I put on a pair, and I'm one wrong step away from a hip replacement.
We waited three days for photographs to be developed only to discover our eyes were closed in eleven of them and at least one was a picture of someone’s thumb.
We drove places with nothing but handwritten directions and a Rand McNally map the size of a dining room table that would never fold back up.
We dated before dating apps. If we wanted to find out a man was completely wrong for us, we had to do it the old-fashioned way—marry him.
Haven't we worn the big girl panties long enough?
Nope.
If anything, they're getting bigger.
There are parents to worry about, bodies that have started making executive decisions without consulting us, passwords we're supposed to remember, technology that changes every fifteen minutes, and a growing list of things that apparently require a “portal.”
I don't want another portal. I just want to call a number, have a human answer, and not spend the first 20 minutes screaming “REPRESENTATIVE!” into my phone.
But once again...
Big girl panties.
Deal with it.
Funny thing is, after 25 years, I think I've finally figured out what this saying really means.
The panties haven't changed. I have.
Sometimes dealing with it means fixing it.
Sometimes it means accepting it.
Sometimes it means laughing about it.
And sometimes it means saying,
“Nope. I'm too old for this shit.”
I think we've earned that one.
Life is never going to stop handing us things we'd rather not deal with. But after all these years, I think we've gotten pretty damn good at knowing the difference between the things that really matter and the things that aren't worth ruining a perfectly good day over.
We have officially earned our granny panties.
And when something really does matter?
We'll do what we've always done.
We'll put our big girl panties on and deal with it.
❤️ joey
