Campsite 9: How we survived and thrived during our first camping trip together

I love my birthday. I always make a huge giant deal out of it, and I would honestly make it a national, if not global, holiday if I could.

However, this year has been such a year of stress and strife, all I wanted to do was just get away and spend some good quality alone time with Wes. Which is exactly what we did.

I consider myself quite the outdoorsmanwomanperson, so of course my idea of a relaxing weekend "away" was camping. Wes was totally on board with the idea so we started formulating plans to camp out at Dougan Creek Campground, adjacent to Dougan Falls, a popular swimming hole north of Washougal. In the week leading up to the trip, we planned our meals, grocery shopped, and prepped the food. We had a great weekend planned.

Dougan Falls - Credit http://www.panoramio.com/photo/44990917

Thanks, Google.

Friday night, I headed over to his house with my car stuffed with camping gear and the food I had bought. Wes had also stocked up on food for the weekend, and we went to Winco and purchased even MORE. We had enough meals to last about two weeks, I'd bet. And alcohol, of course. To the tune of one twelve pack of beer, one bottle of wine, and a bottle of Bailey's for coffee in the morning. In the parking lot, there was a brief moment when Wes paused, looked at me, and suggested maybe heading up that night. It was dismissed. To this day, we still argue about who was the actual dismisser. (it was him.)

I wanted to get an early start the next morning, so after we got back and packed the car, we headed for bed.

Saturday morning came bright and early, as I was awake and bushy tailed at 7am. Knowing Wes's night owl-like tendencies, I lay there, vibrating, waiting for him to wake up. Around 8:15 I couldn't wait anymore and I quietly got up to brush my teeth and start getting myself ready. Had it gone my way, we would have been up and out the door by 7, especially considering Dougan Falls is extremely popular, and with it's close proximity to Washougal and the neighboring smaller towns, I was worried we would miss out on a spot. I had done some preliminary research on Friday to see if there were any other camping spots in the area as a Plan B.... there were none.

I finally woke Wes up at 8:30. He was quick to get up, but we were both slow to get everything ready. It's funny, how packed you think you are the night before, but when it's actually GO time, you realize all the stuff you forgot and all the stuff you still need to throw in the car. Wes debated taking a shower, and then much to my chagrin, made the decision to. I tried to hide my impatience, in fact I vaguely remember mumbling "there's a RIVER and a swimming hole." under my breath and at his back as he walked to the bathroom.

Finally on the road at 10AM (cue expletives from me), we stopped at the gas station down the street from Wes's house to pick up ice and fuel up my car. The scene in my head is reminiscent of an old school Three (two?) Stooges movie, as we were constantly running back and forth from the car to the mini mart.

"I got ice"
"Only two bags?"
"Should we get more?"
"I'll go get more"
"Got more ice"
"What about wood? They have wood there"
"Yeah, let's just get it here."
"Got the wood!"
"Crap, we don't have a bottle opener for the wine"
"I'll go look for one in the store"
"I'll put the ice in the cooler while you do that"
"They didn't have one"
"Should we run home to get mine?"
"Yeah, lets do it."
"We need one more bag of ice."

Do we have enough ice yet????

credit - http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2013/01/documenting_the_three_sto.php

After doubling back to get the damn bottle opener, convincing Wes to smoke in the car rather than delay 4 more minutes, and waving a cheerful goodbye to his dad (who thought we left LONG ago), we were FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY on the road to Washougal. Wes had his coffee and smoke, and my anxiety was lessened just a little at the fact that we were making some progress and actually moving in the direction of the campground.

We arrived at Dougan Creek around 11:30 that day and promptly realized we needed a goddamm Discover Pass to park in the Washington Wilderness. The closest place to get that was 10 miles BACK in the direction we just came. Had we any foresight (barring the foresight to remember the damn pass) we would have checked the campground for open spots and THEN doubled back for the pass. Alas, it was not so. We immediately turned around, bought the pass at the Washougal Mercantile (aDORable) and drove ten miles BACK to the campground. We drove one pass around the loop, and my heart sank as I realized every single spot was taken. So many negative thoughts zoomed through my brain at that moment. "We should have left last night", "We should have remembered this stupid pass earlier", "I was afraid of this".

Oh, thanks, cheerful sweater stock image guy. Good info.

We asked a couple of locals if they knew of any other spots to camp, but there wasn't much of anything to suggest. We stopped back at the mercantile to ask the same question, and were pointed East about 15 miles to Beacon Rock. We were told there were two campgrounds, one on each side of the highway, so off we drove off with a tiny glimmer of hope that our weekend might not be ruined.

I'm sure the drive there was pleasant enough, what with the scenery and the foliage and the this and the that blah blah blah. I didn't pay any attention. My stomach was soured with anxiety and all I could think were negative thoughts that didn't help the situation at all. Wes and I barely spoke the entire drive, except for the occasional  "oh hey look at that thing out the window" and the usual "how 'bout that." response. Both of us knew complaining and commiserating would only wear us both out, so we elected for almost total silence. I had tunnel vision, I no longer saw anything that wasn't campground location related.

Once we reached Beacon Rock, we took a right at the first campground entrance down by the river, only to discover both (yes, both, as in TWO) campsites had been taken. They were terrible, anyway. Right next to a parking lot, no shade, gross. Not to be deterred, we followed the signs and took the first left up to what we thought were the other campgrounds. Only group camping and day use areas, as far as we could drive, awaited us there. Not one to admit easy defeat, I flipped a U-turn and drove back to the small lodge looking thing that looked all official and stuff. There had to be someone there who knew of some remote, unknown campsite that no one would possibly know to find except for a small number of people and THAT PERSON would be the one to direct me there. I just knew it. We parked, walked inside, and were told by the forest worker that we had taken the wrong left, we needed to take the SECOND left to the campground, and as about 45 minutes prior, she knew there were five campsites open. We looked at each other, shrugged, and decided to take a shot. We didn't vocalize it on the way up, but both of us knew this was our last shot at the weekend. If we weren't successful, we were going home.

As we got near the day-use area, there was a guy waving hikers in to the parking lot and we asked him if the 5 spots were still available. He thought about it for a second, and then said "Sorry, it's all full."

Those words, they thundered into my skull.

My heart sank, I felt my face fall. I looked at Wes and he said what I was thinking: "That's it. Let's go back to Portland."

I looked down for a moment, and then looked back at the guy with total misery in my face. I asked him if he knew of anything, ANYTHING that might still be open, but I had been totally deflated at that point. He waved down another forest worker in a truck, and I swear to fucking GOD the clouds parted and a sunburst with a rainbow beamed down on her as she said "Oh yeah, I just drove around up there, there's still 5 spots open. Go get one."

The speed limit within the campground was 5MPH. I'm pretty sure I at least tripled that, screaming up the hill to get to a spot before any other imaginary person could. We pulled into the first empty one we saw, got out, and surveyed our new home for the weekend. It was just about perfect. Set way in off the road for a little privacy, nice and big, with room for my giant tent and a huge old picnic table that was basically wood planks mounted on big boulders. Wes suggested continuing on to see if there was a better spot to be had, but after thinking about it for a moment we both decided to stay put, less someone else drove up and took the spot while we were gone.

We had finally arrived.

It was then that I noticed Wes was looking a little green. "I need some water." He said. He didn't want to bring it up, but the last two hours he had been suffering through car sickness and a huge headache. Not wanting to stress me out even more, he suffered in silence. Now that we had gotten to our goal, all he wanted was some water and to sit down on something that wasn't moving.

Once we got settled (and Wes swallowed his initial scoffing when he realized that my tent with the built in poles INDEED only takes one single minute to set up), we cracked open some beers and sat in our camp chairs, staring at a cold fire pit. It felt so nice to finally relax, breathe, and not worry any longer. Our phones got zero reception, except for a tiny sliver up by the car, as long as we were facing left, so we left them in the car and prepared to have an amazing weekend unplugged from the rest of the world.

After an hour or so of beer drinking and idle chatting, we decided to boot up and explore some of the hiking trails that were a few feet away from the camp ground. Well, I booted up anyway, in my amazing Katniss boots!

Katnissssssssssssss

One of the trail names that caught our attention was "Rodney Falls and Pool of the Winds."

POOL OF THE WINDS!! We had to go. It sounded like something out of Legend of Zelda or some shit. We thought maybe we'd find the Lady of the Lake wielding Excaliber. We hiked for a bit, chatting and joking around in our usual way, until we came to a crest overlooking the gorge, with a giant rock jutting out of the side. I *think* this was Little Beacon Rock, from looking at the map, as the name seems to fit. We admired the view for a moment, until I decided I'd get a MUCH BETTER view if I scaled that rock around to the other side. It looked like the view would be totally unobstructed by the trees. Ignoring Wes's hesitations and warnings, I set my water bottle down and climbed to the other side, whispering "Katnisssssss" under my breath. I sat at the top of the rock, totally out of view of Wes and yelled "oh my god you have to see this!". I was just floored by the amazing view I had of the river winding its way through the Gorge. I yelled a few more times, took some big deep breaths of the mountain air, and climbed my way back to where Wes was standing on the trail. He was totally stone-faced. "Oh man, you should have seen that, so amazing." I said, excitedly. Wes was not thrilled. From his viewpoint, he watched me disappear over a cliff face, balancing precariously on some rocks, inches from falling hundreds of feet if I so much as slipped the wrong way. He had yelled a few times, and I failed to respond. Frankly, I scared the shit out of him. I felt really bad, I didn't mean to scare him and I should have listened better when he voiced his concerns over what I was doing. 

We hiked back to the road in silence. When we got back to our campsite, he gave me a big hug and told me he wasn't mad at me, I just scared him, and he didn't want the last thing he ever got to see of me be a water bottle before I fell to my death. He would have had no way of knowing if I did get into trouble, because we couldn't see or hear each other. My bad. Totally my bad. We talked it out, apologized, and the sun came back out for our weekend again. I actually feel pretty proud of us, as a couple, getting through our first real conflict by talking and listening to each other. No yelling, no accusations or attempts to "win". We aren't like that, we are an equal pair, neither of us ever wants to win anything. (except maybe beer pong, which I've never played but I bet I could get the hang of it and dominate. I will win that.)

Once that negativity had been banished for good, we decided to look for this fabled "Pool of the Winds". We passed a waterfall that we thought might be Rodney Falls, and were totally unimpressed. It wasn't a waterfall really, more just a slightly downhill area where water happened to fall down. We decided to keep going, and ended up at a different waterfall that was simply breathtaking. At least 50 feet tall, it crashed down into a rock alcove, with a giant petrified tree jutting up out of the water and growing right into the cliff face. Several smaller falls stemmed off of it, and I took my Katnissssssss boots off and waded into the water. It was freezing cold, but so refreshing after our hard and sweaty hike. I sat on a rock in the middle of the river and just let the spray of the falls hit me in the face. I looked back at Wes and he was smiling. We were both totally at peace there. We hiked up a little further and stared at the tree in the waterfall and marveled at how beautiful the whole thing was. We had both left our phones at the site, so no pictures were taken, which was actually for the better. This was our moment, we weren't sharing it with anyone or worrying about composing a picture. We took our moment, kissed for a long while with the falls roaring behind us, and then made our way back to the campground. The paths back were a little hazy, and there were a couple of moments we stood at forks in the path, debating which way we had came. It seemed any time we followed our instincts and made a decision, it was the wrong one and we had to turn back. And strangely, a lot of the time it was making a decision to take that first left.

Pool of the Winds. See the log??

Credit - deviantart.com, couldn't find the original photog.

Since we literally had no agenda, no plans, and were totally unplugged, we were free to just do whatever the fuck we wanted, when we wanted. We didn't even have a clock to tell time, because time didn't really matter up there. Considering this, I decided I wanted to nap, and so I did. It felt great to just make that decision and do it, knowing I didn't have any time limits or any restraints. I woke up to find Wes making some mini pizzas by the camp stove. He looked up when I exited the tent, smiled, and said "I'm just making a snack. Want one?" I swear I've never loved him more than that moment, right there. My heart just dropped. I smiled and said sure, and we spent the next hour or so making our pizzas and eating them, idly talking about nothing and everything. I don't even remember those conversations, but that doesn't matter. What matters is that we were both totally uninhibited, totally at peace and at home with each other. There was nothing I would have rather been doing, then sitting on that old picnic table eating pizza with Wes.

The night brought on the need for a fire, so Wes started cooking his fajitas while I got the fire built. Not to brag or anything, but it took me like 1.25 seconds to build a kickass fire. I'm thinking of teaching lessons. I was basically the fire bitch for the rest of the weekend, building it and maintaining it, and trying not to intervene when Wes would put additional logs on.  After fajitas were the smores and more beers. After assessing our general stickiness from the hot hike and the bug spray we doused ourselves with, we decided a shower was in order.

Oh, but there is no greater test of a relationship than taking a camp shower together. I will now explain why. 

When we walked into the shower room (which was a private locked shower room type thing) the motion sensor lights kicked on and the fluorescent beams shone down upon us in all their glory. Oh, this was going to be bad. Those lights were going to highlight every single flaw we had. Sure, we'd seen each other naked plenty of times, but not like this. Not. Like. This. We showered, paying .50 every 3 minutes and laughing at ourselves, because that's all you can do. In a damp, smelly, poorly (if not overly) lit shower room where you're too afraid to remove your flip flops and the old chunk of soap from who knows where mocks you endlessly because you forgot to bring your own, all you have is your humor. 

It was heaven, pure heaven.

That night, we fell asleep holding hands.

The next morning, as per usual, I was up way earlier than Wes was. I planned to get the coffee going and get breakfast started before he woke up, because I know him enough by now to know that he is a giant grumpy face if he doesn't have his morning coffee and cigarette first thing.

Coffee is almost done, honey. Almost done.

I left with a pot to get some water to heat up on the camp stove for the coffee, and since the bathrooms and water pump were set back into the woods behind our site, I didn't see Wes was up until I had rounded the corner. I nearly stopped in my tracks. He was awake, dressed, and bustling around the camp with his signature hoodie on, hood up, and cigarette in his mouth. Again, it was one of those moments that seemed so simple, and yet when I saw him like that I thought to myself "My god, but I love him so much." Then when he smiled and said "Hey Bunches!!" I died a little inside. I love it when he calls me that.

We made coffee together (complete with Bailey's, of course", I started a fire to throw the burritos on, and we just meandered around the camp, enjoying the morning and enjoying each others' presence. I was already feeling the sting of knowing we were leaving the next day. The previous 24 hours had been so damn great, leaving was going to suck HARD.

After cleaning up breakfast, we chilled for a bit and I decided to experiment with a camping recipe I had seen online. I had a roll of biscuit dough and a can of apple pie filling, and darn it if I wasn't going to make tiny pies with them. I set to work, flattening out the biscuits, putting dollops of pie filling in the middle, and attempting to close them up and around. My thought was I was going to fry them in the cast-iron skillet in butter once I was finished. Wes helped, and actually got a couple of good ones closed. The rest slowly split open, revealing the gelatinous innards like infected vaginas. We laughed, and dubbed them Vagina Pies and we saw that they were good.

Since most people camp for a Friday through Sunday type thing, and we were camping Saturday through Monday, we realized we were pretty much alone in the campground when we got up Sunday morning. So we took that opportunity to explore the other sites and figure out what one we were going to try to get next time. (Because there WILL be a next time!) We found an excellent giant stone fireplace next to a recessed camp site that had A FUCKING WOODEN STAIRCASE on each end!! That campsite had a fucking foyer!!!

Behold, the fireplace.

We realized with glee that many of the campers had left perfectly good firewood behind, so we gathered some to bring back to our site, briefly wondering if that was a "thing" and if it was "ok" we were taking it, and then immediately decided we didn't care.

Later that afternoon, after drinking more beer and eating more food, we decided to try our luck across the highway and visit Beacon Rock. We had seen a crowd there the day before, and wanted to know what the hubub was all about. Once we parked and had our Discover Pass proudly hanging from the rearview mirror, we embarked up the trail and laughed at how easy it was. A small child went skipping by, singing "I LOVE this trail! It's so fun!" The trail was paved in concrete, with metal bars acting as rails to help us along.

"This is basically a rest stop! There's a Flying J up at the top, I just know it. Honey, let's get slurpees!" - Wes

About halfway up, however, the concrete stopped and the switchbacks began. The trail up Beacon Rock is essentially 90-100 or so switchbacks zig-zagging their way up. We huffed and puffed and sweated our way all the way to the top, stopping to admire the view from time to time, but looking forward to the promised "360 degree view of the gorge" that was allegedly waiting for us at the top.

We were a bit disappointed.

There would probably BE a 360 degree view, however the TREES SURROUNDING THE TOP sort of inhibited that view. But hey, we did get a nice view and I was adequately schooled by Wes on the art of the selfie. (see, that's why he went to school.)

After getting back and grilling up the burgers Wes made, we realized with some trepidation we were nearly out of beer. We still had hours left in the evening, and two beers to split between us. We stared in silence at the bottle of Baileys for some time. "Should we? Shouldn't we?" The thought of drinking, nay, swigging Irish Cream directly from the bottle had definitely crossed our minds. Laughing uneasily at our borderline alcoholism, we agreed more beer was in order. We had been to the general store a few miles down the highway earlier in the day to get ice, so I got in the car and drove back for more beer. After beer was another horrendously lit shower (in which I forgot my flip flops, sick.), more beer, and then we collapsed for the night inside the tent. I know for me, it didn't take long to fall asleep, we had done so much hiking and walking around that day my body was just spent.

The next morning was our sad departure day. It was the day that schedules and clocked were reintroduced back into our lives. I lay awake for awhile while Wes continued sleeping, wondering what time it was. I had a job interview that afternoon and was definitely needing to know how much time we had until we left. I rooted around in my bag for a bit looking for my contacts. My plan was to put my eyeballs in and get my phone out of the car to check the time and decide if I wanted to go back to sleep or not. All my rustling around woke Wes up, though, and after a time he huffily got up and put his jeans on, pulling his phone out and checking the time in the process. Of course. Of course his phone was right there.

"What time is it?"
"7:30"
"Shit. Let's go back to bed."
"NOPE. NOPE. YOU WOKE ME UP, I'M UP NOW."

Oh, great. YOU'RE back again.

And with that, he huffily left the tent. I sat there for a minute, the sour feeling in my chest rising as the thought of his being mad at me for something so silly and the fact that we had to leave our dream weekend behind crashed together. I gathered my stuff up and silently walked to the bathroom to take a moment for myself. I was mad at him for being mad at me, mad that we had to end this at some point, and just mad all over. I brushed my teeth and washed my face, and after coming back to the site, Wes once again gave me a big hug and said sorry for getting irritated. He was annoyed at waking up so early, yes, but once he thought about it, it just meant several more hour he got to spend with me. If he had to chose between sleeping and that, he'd choose that any day. We finished our coffee and breakfast, and morosely started packing up camp. We did it in mostly silence, reflecting on the weekend and all the things we did and saw. Once the car was completely packed up, we stood quietly staring at our empty campsite. Both of us got a bit choked up as we said goodbye. We were not ready to leave yet, but we had to.

On the ride home, we laughed and relived the weekend as best as we could, but as the dirt and trees faded into concrete and power poles, we finally realized "real life" was here again. We were once again back in the presence of schedules, clocks, alarms, bosses, and responsibilities.

All in all, there were many great tests of our relationship that we passed with flying colors. We handled conflict extremely well, choosing to take moments to collect ourselves before talking it out. We didn't force ourselves to talk while the emotions were still flying, instead choosing to respect each others' space until we felt like it was time. The initial stress of finding a campground could have ended with us fighting, arguing, and generally being miserable at each other but instead we chose to just stay quiet and deal with the situations that arose as best as we could.

It's been almost two weeks since we've been back, and we are still talking about that weekend because it was literally some of the best times either of us has ever had. I can say it's right up there in my top five best weekends of my life. The whole weekend was filled with us following our instincts and ending up totally in the wrong; those first lefts. But the second lefts, oh those second lefts, those ended up being worth the strife the first lefts caused.

We'll be back again, someday. Whether it's Site 9 again, or Site 18 with the Foyer, we plan on making a weekend at Beacon Rock a regular occurrence.

And when we're going about our normal lives, making decisions like adults do, we'll remember to always second guess ourselves, because our guts don't always lead the right directions.

We'll take the second left. And we'll be so glad we did.

5 tactics to dating a waiter

The world is saturated with dating advice.

All it takes is a quick Google search and one is inundated with Cosmo articles and blog posts about “When to say the big L word” and “How to know if he’s the one”. Which is all well and good, but it’s all stuff we've read over and over again, and it’s really no big news anymore. What we need is real world advice on how to cope with unusual relationship circumstances.

I wasn't able to find any good, relevant information on dating a waiter. I've seen my fair share of advice on how to pick up a waiter or waitress, how to schmooze them, get their number, etc.; but nothing on actually sustaining a relationship with them.

I've been dating my waiter for a few months now, and while the relationship is still fairly new, I've been able to come up with some nuggets of advice for anyone looking to keep the relationship alive.

Get used to their schedule.

Those in the service industry work offbeat hours. They may work early morning, late at night, graveyard, or a combination. Fridays and Saturdays are typically the busiest nights of the week, and therefore the most profitable, so your waiter is usually going to be working and not available for Date Night. The fact of the matter is, if you have a regular 9-5er, you two are likely not going to have matching schedules. It’s been my biggest complaint and my biggest challenge so far. I sometimes go an entire week without seeing him, and that SUCKS. However, we make it work by really putting forth an effort to make time for each other. I’ll go over to his house after he’s off work at 11, knowing full well I need to be up at 6 to go to work and that I’m going to be dead tired the next day. He lugs his overnight bag on the train for his full hour commute to work on weekends, just so he can come see me after. Conflicting schedules require communication, inconvenience at times, and a little bit of sacrifice on sleep.

Don’t visit them at work.

Oh, it’s tempting. Trust me, I know. You haven’t seen them in a week, why not grab a friend and head down to the restaurant so you can see your sweetie in action? Here’s why: your person is absolutely at their worst when they are working. They are stressed out, in a hurry, distracted, and irritable. The last thing they need is the added pressure of knowing you are seeing them this way. Imagine them sitting and watching while you get lectured by your boss or screamed at by a customer. Even if you don’t sit in their section, they might feel like you expect them to talk to you even though they don’t even have a second to shove some food in their mouths.

Get your own hobbies.

This is a bit of a piggyback on the first rule. A lot of your life as the significant other to a server is lived waiting. Waiting for them to wake up (If they work nights), waiting for them to get off work (most of the time they can’t use their phones during their shifts), just waiting a LOT. Find a hobby or an activity you can do in the meantime to distract you. Especially at first, when the relationship is still new and you don’t live together. People in new relationships tend to get so absorbed into each other that they forget that they are their own individual person. Keep a hold of your identity, and find stuff to do while you are waiting for them. I've caught myself just holing up in my room while he works, not doing anything productive, and just waiting. I've had to pull myself out of it from time to time and call up a friend or go shopping… something… anything. This will help you retain your independence, and in turn will make your relationship stronger because you are not relying on the other person to make you happy.

Don’t take it personally.

Everybody has bad days at work, and waiters are no exception. The only difference is bad days in a restaurant are a special level of hell. Your person will most likely come home in a piss poor mood every single night, and it has nothing to do with you. Don’t get offended or upset about it. Instead, let them smoke, hand them a beer, and feed them. The person you fell in love with will return eventually. Most waiters deal with these bad days in two ways: they either come home and whine and bitch and scream about it, in which case you just follow the above advice. Or they refuse to talk about it and suffer in silence until said beer, cigarette, and food have been utilized. In that case, don’t force them to talk about their day and relive it all over again, and don’t get offended that they don’t want to share. Again, it’s not about you. They just don’t want to ever think about what happened ever again. These bad moods are fleeting, and they’ll be grateful to you for being so understanding. Bonus points for you.

Accept that you just don’t know.

You love your waiter, and therefore you want to be involved and supportive in their life. That is great, and for the most part you’ll be able to provide that. However, unless you have been or are currently a waiter, you are never going to fully understand that part of their life. Don’t take offense. My guy has no idea what it’s like to be an office admin. Waiters have a culture all their own, and it’s one that you just won’t “get”. That’s OK, though. You have plenty of other more important and interesting things to talk about anyway.

How leaving my husband made me love myself again

I've got quite a butt.

And my hips are, shall we say, very conducive to child bearing. 

I play roller derby, so my thighs are nice and thick. I'd like to think they're all muscle, but I'd be kidding myself.

I've also been pregnant once, so I've got a bit of a pooch, and my boobs are huge (30F) and no longer glorious. 

But hey, I'm actually ok with all of that. In fact, I let the entire city of Portland see my naked body during the World Naked Bike Ride last Saturday, and I was damn proud of how I looked. I wasn't ashamed, self-conscious (well, maybe a tiny bit at first), or embarrassed. For the first time in my life, I was proud of my less than perfect body and I was ready to show it.

How did I get there? How did I, someone who has always either been on some kind of diet or wracked with guilt and shame for not sticking to one, finally feel good about myself and proud of myself enough to stop hiding my body?

It's been a very long time coming, and all it took was one afternoon watching a model get body painted to turn my whole view around.

I spent the last 7 years of my life being in a relationship that was not good for my self-esteem. I tend to be air-headed, flighty, forgetful, and a bit messy and disorganized. I can't cook for shit, unless I have a recipe in front of me, and even then the food is palatable at best. Unfortunately, I was married to a man who had very old-fashioned ideals about what marriage should be like, and I tried my hardest to fit into that mold he set for me. To him, I was continually failing to live up to the standards he set for me. I was expected to keep the house clean, meals cooked, and have sex with him whenever he wanted it. I did not belong to myself, I belonged to him. In his defense, he was never abusive. He didn't physically hurt me or call me blatantly horrible names, and for the most part he was loving and treated me well enough, but he was still controlling and manipulative. Years of constantly falling short of someone I loved started to chip away at what little self-esteem I started with. I hated looking in the mirror; I hated taking showers and having to wash my disgusting body. Attempting to dress up and feel better usually ended up in me dissolving into tears and changing back into my pajamas. I was a mess. This spring, I left that relationship, and shortly after, entered into a new one.

I assisted my new fella, the creator and editor of a Portland-based magazine, in securing an interview with a body painter I had met during one of my derby league's fundraisers.  Being the self-conscious person I was, the thought of volunteering myself for this project was brief and fleeting. I figured there was no way my body could look good being painted like that, as it requires the model to be naked. (i.e. no Spanx to hold everything together!) However, over the 6 hours it took to paint her from start to finish, I started thinking very heavily about what I was seeing and feeling, and my epiphany started taking shape. The model being painted was gorgeous; she had an amazing, athletic body and talked with pride about how much weight she could squat in one set. She was tight and toned all over, and clearly had the perfect body for being painted up. To my surprise, as the afternoon progressed, it became clear that she still had her own hang ups about what she looked like. I got to thinking, how could this beautiful woman have the body most people would envy, and yet still not feel "perfect"? We are all so critical of ourselves, and we manage to find flaws where there are none. Why is that? What are we afraid of? Why are we hiding? I decided that day that I would not hide anymore. I broke up with the diet I was on. I stopped obsessing about my weight. I decided for myself that I am good enough for me, and I was done trying to impress people I would never meet. I was done killing myself to make others feel more comfortable with my appearance. I emailed Matt and said I would love to be a body painting model, and in return he said he would love to paint me. He said everyone has a perfect body for painting, because in the end, it's all art and bodies are beautiful.

My fella truly and honestly sees me as beautiful, not only physically, but he sees my potential, my drive, and my personality as amazing and inspiring. He encouraged me to participate in the Naked Bike Ride, and is thrilled that I want to be a body painting model. He's watched me grow from someone who would cover parts of herself with her arms to hide her flab, to someone who proudly struts around the streets of Portland naked, with nothing to hide. That confidence and pride is incredibly sexy. Breaking free of the relationship that broke me started me on this path to self-discovery. Don't get me wrong, I still have hang-ups from time to time, but I can laugh at how ridiculous they are now. I take care of my body. I eat what I want, in moderation. I stay active by playing roller derby, belly dancing, riding my bike, and going on walks with my kiddo instead of busting my ass at the gym. I am worth more than my looks or my housewife abilities. This life is a wonderful life, and I am done wasting it worrying about my body fat percentage and counting calories.

The end? Or the beginning...

Eyes.

Curtains.

Breathing, stabbing, shallow.

Over a month ago, I left home and didn't go back.

Our marriage had been slowly declining for a matter of months. There were some big issues that neither of us could get past. We just couldn't do it. The pieces of our lives that made the marriage good, solid, and workable, were falling like leaves off the trees. Slowly, quietly, but ever faster, until there was nothing left.

We tried. Goddammit we tried.

When I first moved back in December of 2012, I was so hopeful that we were going to make it work. THIS was going to be the best marriage on the planet. And for awhile, it was. We communicated, we listened to each other and respected each other. We went on date nights. Mo completely stopped playing video games. I lessened the amount of outside activities and stayed home with the family more. Christmas that year was amazing, I would even venture to say it was magical. It was to be the beginning of our new amazing life together.

Over the next year, I got a car with Mo's help, and I got a job. I started working full time and felt like I was finally contributing to the household. Four years of raising Rowan at home and I never felt like I was an equal contributor. Part of that was due to Mo's constant criticism of my work. The house was never really clean enough, I napped too much (with a newborn), I wasn't great at cooking. All of these shortcomings really drove my self worth down the drain, and made me feel like I needed to do more to make things equal. My answer to that was a full time job, and hopefully I could finally get approval from the man I loved.

As 2013 drew to a close, I started feeling those same feelings of foreboding. Mo was gaming more, I was leaving the house more. We were fighting more, talking less. Tiny nitpicking arguments turned into all out fights, with neither of us wanting to hear the other's perspective. Entire days of silent treatments would ensue, and ultimately one of us would break, start talking, and we would act as if nothing had happened. I was still failing to meet his expectations around the house, and I was working just as hard at it as I was before, but now also working full time during the day. It had been a year since I had come back, and he was no closer to trusting me outside of the house. Any time I left to see friends, or go to derby practice, I was riddled with anxiety, thinking he was at home wondering what I was *really* doing. I texted him constantly, in hopes to ease his mind and also to ease my own worries that he was mad at me. I had to frequently turn down invitations to social activities by my friends and derby league because I knew he wouldn't want me to go and I didn't want to anger him by going anyway. He wanted me home, every night, spending time with the family. Any time outside the house was stressful for me. He never physically banned me from going anywhere, or forbade it, but I could always expect a fight when I got home.

After the New Year, things really started sliding downhill quickly. My depression had come back, I was having trouble with my derby league, I was attempting to start a new business, and I started having neurological issues similar to MS that I was in and out of the doctor's office for. I was stressed, sad, angry, overwhelmed, and helpless. Not to mention, I was having some pretty severe doubts about my relationship. I didn't think we were getting it. We both seemed miserable and unfulfilled. I was walking on those proverbial eggshells again, afraid to talk to him about the negative energy I felt radiating from his body. I constantly wondered how he was feeling, because he was hiding his emotions again.We halfheartedly tried to go out together but usually just ended up fighting on the way home. Mo felt as though I had lost interest in the relationship, I felt like he had just given up trying. I think we were both right.

One Friday evening in April, a week before Easter, we had a huge blowout fight and Mo spent the night on the couch. As I lay there, curled up in a ball and crying, I made the decision to leave for the weekend. I knew that a couple of days away would clear my head and I would be able to know for sure if this time, I needed to leave for good.

That Sunday, I got my answer.

After a furious and ugly text conversation with Mo, it was pretty much decided that we were both done. I was the initiator, but he was done with me after I left. He would have been willing to keep trying, but I was positive it just couldn't happen. I stayed gone.

I feel as thought every aspect of my life that had become so familiar to me has been completely upturned. Roller Derby, which used to be a place of solace, had become a place full of drama, disappointment, and heartache. (Again!). My business, which had all my hopes and dreams firmly invested into it, was not panning out the way I had hoped in the slightest. I finally walked out on the horrible job I was at and started a new one, which had it's own set of stressors involved. And now my relationship of 7 years was ending for good.

Over the years I've dealt with my fair share of tribulations. A lifelong battle with depression and self mutilation, starting at 15, has left me with physical and emotional scars I'll probably have forever. I got married right after high school, and divorced less than two years later. I've lived in my car. I've attempted suicide. I've dated men who treated me horribly, who used me to fulfill needs and spaces they were lacking, then dumped me when I was no longer of any use to them, or I became to attached. I married Mo because I was in love with him, I didn't care that I barely knew him. But this is quickly becoming the most challenging life lesson I have ever encountered, and I constantly am asking myself how the fuck I'm going to get through it.

So now, here I am. I am renting a room from some dear friends who were kind enough to open up their home to me. It's become my sanctuary, the place I can walk into and breathe a sigh of relief, because I know I'm home. It's where I know I'm welcome to share my thoughts and feelings openly, without judgement, and I know I will get the support and love I deserve. This is a rejuvenated feeling for me, one I haven't experienced in a good long while. I can close my eyes, and breathe deeply, knowing that there is a wonderful, fulfilling, happy, and exciting life waiting for me.

And I can't wait to get there.

I'm not going back.

The plight of being female in this crazy, fucked up world

The public bathroom...

This is the world's most awkward location in a girl's life. She goes in to the bathroom for her daily afternoon constitutional to find it pleasantly empty. Good. She can now poop in peace. Most of the time, she's able to finish her business, wash her hands, and be on her merry way. Occasionally, however, the situation changes drastically, and has the potential to totally ruin her day and possibly many days following.

1. There is someone already in the bathroom. This initiates the poop standoff. How long has this person been in here? She doesn't know. So she enters the stall, sits down, and patiently waits for the other party to finish. This can be troublesome, however, because if she waits too long to get started, the other party hears the deafening silence that indicates she is waiting for something. It becomes painfully obvious what she is about to do. Not to mention the rogue toot that may escape, due to the seated position she is in, that will only further her embarrassment. She can only hope that person is almost done and will exit the bathroom quickly, never the wiser of the disgusting action about to take place in the adjacent stall. The standoff happens when the first person is already in there for the same reason, and neither one of them wants the other to know what she is doing.

"GET OUT ALREADY!"

2. There is no one in the bathroom, hallelujah! She begins her deed, but to her dismay, someone comes in halfway through. Now what? She can't continue, no way. The other person will HEAR what is happening, and god forbid SMELL it. All she can do is fervently wish that the other person will get in, get out, and get going so she doesn't have to hold it in any longer, and hope they other person doesn't get a good look at her shoes, thereby confirming her identity. She can try to force out the rest, exit the stall and wash her hands with lightening speed, intending to get the fuck out of there before the other person is done, but this is rarely successful. In a work environment, she now has to LOOK at the person who just heard her pooping, every day, and pretend like nothing unladylike ever happened

"Seriously? You had to come in NOW?!"

3. The last awkward situation here is when a girl enters the bathroom to discover, with horror, the person who is already there is pooping. Most girls are sensitive to each other, we don't want to embarrass or humiliate another female if we have no previous qualms with them. There is a silent, mutual agreement that happens here. The non pooper should not look at the shoes of the pooper, and in so doing discover who she is. She should also conduct her business as swiftly as possible to give the pooper a chance to pretend she's only in there peeing. The non pooper knows, of course, that's not the case. But if she doesn't know the pooper's identity, the pooper can remain safely anonymous in the work place. Occasionally, we run across that one woman that has abolutely no issues pooping with other women in the bathroom. That woman is awkward. Always. I hate it when I'm doing my thing while the other person is in the other stall, loudly and unabashedly eliminating yesterday's dinner, and then I'm having to awkwardly avoid looking at her while we're both washing our hands. I have to cauterize that image out of my brain, as it is.

And yet another ignorant statement is released to the masses

Hahahahahahaha.....

Ha ha

Excuse me, I'm laughing so hard. **snorts** Hahahaha

OMG.

Okay.

So, last week the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Congress of Obstetrics and Gynecologists released a joint opinion on the use of water births in hospitals and birth centers. This has caused a wave of subsequent opinions all over the internet, starting from MD's and ending with first time pregnant moms. I read through the entire thing, and this is the basic gist of it:

"Water birth has not been proven either way to be safer or more dangerous for mothers or babies and has a list of potential complications, therefore should just not be practiced anywhere unless it is under very specific medical supervision"

"come again?"

Okay, I mean, that sounds bad, right? If something can't be proven as safe, why go forward with it at all, especially when considering the health and well being of the mom and baby?

Let me just put some stuff in perspective for you:

risks of water birth  according to this opinion:

• Higher risk of maternal and neonatal infections, particularly with ruptured membranes; 
• Difficulties in neonatal thermoregulation; 
• Umbilical cord avulsion and umbilical cord rupture while the newborn infant is lifted or maneuvered through and From the underwater pool at delivery, which leads to serious hemorrhage and shock; 
• Respiratory distress and hyponatremia that results from tub-water aspiration (drowning or near drowning); 
• Seizures and perinatal asphyxia

Yikes. That is quite the laundry list of potential complications from giving birth in the water. I can understand a person's concern after reading that.

So why is it still my opinion that water births are safe, effective, and should be offered to every pregnant mama as a choice for her birth plan?

Because childbirth itself is a risk. There is no 100% safe way to deliver a baby. Period. Water births are elective, and they have a list of complications just like any other elective during childbirth, such as epidurals and pitocin. Case in point:

risks of an epidural 

• Seizures
• Anaphylaxis
• Neurologic injury
• Persistent paresthesias and limited motor weakness
• Neurologic injury
• Cauda Equina Syndrome (nerve cell damage)
• Spinal Hematoma
• Spinal Abscess
• Hypotension
• Cardiac arres
• Accidental subdural injection
• Not to mention, epidurals essentially paralyze the mom from the waist down, which introduces a whole host of other potential complications from not being able to move around freely and choose a birthing position that is most effective. It reduces them to giving birth on their backs, which is the least effective and most difficult way to birth. Also, you are injecting something DIRECTLY INTO YOUR SPINE. WHYYYYY WOULD YOU DO THAT?!

"guh head and just jam 'er right in. It's just my spine. No big."

Risk of Pitocin 

• Anaphylactic reaction
• Nausea
• Postpartum hemorrhage
• Vomiting
• Cardiac arrhythmia
• Premature ventricular contractions
• Fatal afibrinogenemia (blood not clotting)
• Pelvic hematoma  
• Bradycardia (extremely low heart rate)
• Premature ventricular contractions and other arrhythmias
• Permanent CNS or brain damage
• Fetal death
• Low Apgar scores at five minutes
• Neonatal jaundice
• Neonatal retinal hemorrhage
• Contractions also come harder and faster, putting stress on the fetus and rushing the labor, and the end result is ultimately a cesarean because of risk to the baby.

Risks of normal vaginal delivery:

• Premature rupture of membranes
• Umbilical cord prolapse
• Umbilical cord compression
• Amniotic fluid embolism
• Pre-Eclampsia
• Postpartum hemorrhage
• Still birth
• Vaginal tearing 

Since cesarean sections are not always elective, I won't list the dangers associated with them here, but I will say that US rates are currently at 38.2%, which is ASTOUNDINGLY high. Are they safer than vaginal birth? Most of the time, no. Yet, we are still doing them at an alarmingly high rate. Not allowing a mother to make her own birth choices, move around during labor, and choose a position that feels the best and is most effective is the most dangerous thing an OB can do, in my opinion. Letting pride and ego get in the way of safe birth options is far more dangerous than a water birth. Despite these dangers, it still happens to thousands of women all over the country and most people don't even blink an eye. But when they "put themselves and their babies at risk" by choosing a water birth, everyone clutches their pearls and says a quick prayer that those poor babies don't drown.

"Heavens!! Someone call the CPA!!"

Unfortunately, this opinion has given internet trolls more fuel for their arguments against water birth. "It's dirty", they say, "It's unnatural", they say, "mothers who choose them are narcissistic, uneducated, selfish, and gross." they say and say and say. I don't know where these people are getting their opinions, but they are certainly not evidence based. My own water birth was amazing. I labored both in the tub and on my back on the bed, and ultimately I chose the tub and you couldn't get me out of there if you paid me. I used no drugs during my labor, and being in the water helped significantly. When I was on my back (and even on all fours) on the bed, the pain I felt was significantly increased. When Rowan came out, there was no "grossness", the water was crystal clear. I didn't choose that birth because I'm a narcissist (though I'll openly admit I am, haha!), I chose it because I knew that was the best option for myself and for my kid. Does that mean every water birth is as amazing and complication free as mine? Not by a long shot. It only takes one google search to find multitudes of women who have had great water births, and some that ended not so great. Most of the "not so great ones", however, don't blame the water for their complications and I'd bet money you'd see the comment "It would have happened in the hospital too" on 98% of them. As for the unnatural comment (this was a real facebook comment, saying that because apes didn't give birth in the water, so shouldn't we...), please tell me what IS natural about epidurals, OB/GYNs, IV's, scales, vitamin shots, and vaccines? All of those are unnatural and we still do them at almost every birth. 

"No babies here!! Look away!!"

Every woman has the right (and I would go so far as to say obligation) to research all the possible options for giving birth, and weigh the risks and benefits of each one. Water birth is not for everyone, some women are skeezed out by it and that is totally ok. If they decide an elective cesarean is right for them and their baby, despite massive evidence against it, that is their right and they should be freely allowed to exercise that choice. If they want to have a natural child birth out of the water, more power to them. My problem with this opinion that has been released, is that it states water birth should not be practiced because of the risks associated with it. This is madness. If we really needed to cease all practices that posed a risk, we really should just stop having babies.

We have a website!

My goals this week were to pick up some store fixtures, finally pick a name, and get a website going.

DONE, DONE, AND DONE.

I picked up some naked mannequins at City Liquidators, and browsed the other stuff they had to get an idea of how much money I'm going to need for everything.

Hint: It's a lot. But not as much as I was thinking.

"Hey, whitey, ever hear of sunscreen?"

nyuck nyuck nyuck

Also, I finally, after many MANY MANY name deliberations, have settled on a name:

Wonder Skates!

The basic theme idea is a comic book inspired theme. I don't want it to be too over the top, to where it looks like a joke, but the store will be bright and fun.

Now that I have a name, I also have a website AND a facebook page.

Check 'er out: www.wonderskates.com or www.facebook.com/wonderskatespdx OR BOTH.