Finding Zen

I Graduated From The Hooch

This is a story about kayaking.  It may be boring - if so, just pretend like you give a shit because its the right thing to do.

I'm not much of an adventurer.  I whine like PAT during a geriatric grade hike.  I always manage to get stung, bitten, caught in a field of nettles, or trip over holes, twigs and sometimes my own two feet.  More often than not, my mis-adventure is self-fulfilling prophecy - compounded by the fact that I have not paid attention, worn the right clothing (ie: flip flops and talus fields are not compatible), or that the wildlife just so happens to either abhor or adore my Ralph Lauren Glamorous body lotion.

Most sports/hobbies/activities I have picked up in my life have been because I:

A) wanted to impress someone(s) (aka: show-off)

B) wanted to be cool

or

C) wanted to win a prize

With the exception of knitting.  And I only do that because its a more productive alternative for me to being stoned. 

I am known by my friends as the OFF THE COUCH ________ (fill in the blank).  What this means is that off the couch (and with little preparation, experience, or commitment) I can excel to a level that most people have to work really hard at.  Which is cool for a minute.  Until the more dedicated of my friends (all of them),push through the level that I am typically unwilling to work for and I am left in the kiddie pool doing somersaults with my swimmies on, while everyone else is synchronizing swimming in the Olympic pool. 

I am an anxious person.  I don't like heights, speed, pain, danger.  I'm not interested in testing my 'ability'.  I don't want to learn how to 'trust myself'.  It's enough that I have get on the interstate some days.  I don't like to be uncomfortable.  I don't get the whole climb risking life and limb to get to a nice view - thing.  The one out my bathroom window looks fine to me.

I will boulder (but not highballs).  I will strike a yoga pose.  I can knit a row like nobody's business.  I'll throw my legs behind my head in a minute to pluck an ingrown hair.  I can curl 20lb free-weights (or rather...there was a time...).  I can take pictures, and float down a river on a raft - while towing a beer cooler.  I can do lots of things - and some of those things I actually enjoy because they make me feel strong.  But there comes a point - when I'm kinda over it.  And that point usually means I'm uncomfortable.  Game-over.  In the words of Cartman - Screw you guys.  I'm going home.

I miss out on my potential.  So they say.  I don't get to see the greatest views.  I don't get the satisfaction of ever realizing my true limitations.  Whatever.  It drives Zack crazy that I sell myself short.  But thats just how I roll. And I'm okay with that.  Until everyone is having fun but me.

Enter kayaking.  Wow, was there a point here?

So this past Sunday my husband and his friends gagged, blind-folded, threw me and my kayak and gear in the trunk of their car and drove me 3.5 hours to North Carolina's Nantahala River where they dropped my ass right in the middle of the fastest moving rapid I'd ever been in and hollered PADDLE PADDLE PADDLE PADDLE!! 

Approximately 20 feet later I was washed out and swimming in 20degree water doing my best not to get thrashed into a rock.  It was total carnage.  (thats paddler lingo for - SUCKS TO BE YOU)  I had 7 miles to go, and I was NOT A HAPPY CAMPER.  I wished the plague on my husband, and my friends Travis and Maxwell. 

My only experience in the kayak up to this point had been a few runs down the Metro Hooch (short for Chattahoochee - aka NASTY ASS PISS WARM RIVER with some fart bubble rapids.)  According to my mentors - the boys - I had a 'bomb-proof roll' (more kayaker lingo), had somewhat nailed the back-deck roll, and was totally ready for something more exciting.  Something more brain-freezing.  Something more...paralyzing.  Like...

4 hours of ass clenched so tight you'd need a sledgehammer to get a straw up it.

Sick man-fun.  Bastards.

But guess what?  I washed up all crying and pissy and angry, and cold...and pissy...and I got back in that DEATH VESSEL they call a kayak - put my skirt on nail in the coffin and paddled my little ass off.  I was miserable for about 30 minutes, and then not-so-much.  I didn't roll (unintentionally) - I didn't get caught up in any holes...I was right on my husbands tail the whole time, and I had fun.

The best part?  So we get to the end and there is the Grand Pooba ahead.  At least, the Grand Pooba of that stretch of the Nantahala.  The falls.  We got out so I could take a look at it and decide if I wanted to run it.  I was scared shitless.  But I really wanted to do it - and what settled it for me, was the fact that similar to the roller coaster rides at amusement parks, they take pictures of everyone going down the falls.

And all I could think of was - A PRIZE!  I can show all my friends how I went down the falls.  Even if I got hosed - at least I'd have a picture to prove I tried.  And that was motivation enough.  I committed.

So before the falls its a bit technical.  Most people 'eddy out' (get out of the moving water in to still water) to 'set up' for falls.  But not me.  I wasn't EDDYING NOWHERE ON THIS RIVER.  The rapids are strong and fast, and there are two large 'holes' (DEATH PINNING PITS) you have to paddle around.  Its all about keeping straight (easier said than done) and maneuvering.  And of course....PADDLE PADDLE PADDLE PADDLE!!!  So, I told Zack, if we could just run it straight without stopping and I could follow him, then I would go for it.  And get my picture.  And never kayak again.

I'm positive I left a small turd in that boat.  I followed my husband, and he led me through it, and I made it.  It happened in 2 seconds, neither of which I remember - I was a complete ZOMBIE.  But I didn't roll.  I made it.  HOORAY! 

And then I smoked a big fat joint on the side of the river.  Kidding.

I have to say - those guys were like having 3 big brothers on the river all day.  They were so awesome - so doting - and so encouraging of me.  It was great. 

We finished the day with a undercooked, gelatinous, pulled pork sandwich (pickled skin and all) - and a beer (thank god for acidity) - and headed home praying we hadn't gotten worms.

As soon as we got back to the house - Zack ran to the computer to look up our pictures online.  We clicked, clicked, clicked....found Zack and backclicked (because I was right behind him), we must have missed me...oh look there was the dude right behind me.  But what?  No number 924?  Where the fuck is number 924!! NO STELLA in her shiny new helmet.  No Stella handing it to the falls.  No nothing.

They fucking missed me.  It's as though it never happened...

But I'm still reeling.  And I'll do it again.

Where I'm At

Sorry guys, it's been awhile.  I figured if you had to come here and see anything for 11 straight days, Ryan Gossling and his Cherrios wouldn't be so terrible.

To put it mildly, it's been a real stressful few weeks and I haven't had the energy to say anything nice - or articulate anything beyond the world of obsessing over my ability or INability to conceive.  I don't want to bore you.  This is Finding Zen, not Finding My Fertility.  This place is typically fun/funny, and I have been neither fun or funny lately.  I have been bitchy, moody, weepy, and down-right gassy.  I have had little time for writing, let alone for lending my attention to anyone but myself and the community of women I have adopted in the last month.  Thank goodness, for my husbands patience and understanding.  He is probably relieved to have kayaking and rain lately. 

I can tell you this.  It does not matter how ready you may ever decide you are, or are not.  I had never really gone beyond considering, that independent of my or Zack's willingness to open ourselves to this place, my body would have its own independent agenda.  I have believed all my life that it just takes one condom breaking...aka, have unprotected sex = voila, make a baby!  I had no idea how many variables went into this equation.  I had no idea about 'annovulatory cycles', or bum ovaries, low progesterone, or short luteal phases.  This is no wham-bam-thank-you-maam.  I thought you either get pregnant, or your husband has shitty sperm. 

I have waited for this moment, almost 30 years, thinking that if we just fire-hosed enough of the goods up in there, we could have a Brady Bunch in no time.  WRONG.  If you happen to be one of those people who got knocked-up from a one-night-stand.  I'm sorry to tell you this, but you must have done SOMETHIN' seriously wrong (or right, depending on how you felt about it) in your previous life. 

The other day I related it to Zack in this way.  And I really believe, not only did it help him feel closer to this process, he could genuinely empathize for the first time.  And I needed that from him.

Imagine a route, or a rapid.  It is the Big Kahuna.  The Grand Pooba.  The greatest feat of your sport.  You have approximately 29 days to train and one day to execute (and sometimes not even that, because a annovulatory month Hurricane will blow through and fuck up your whole perfectly-orchestrated plan).  You have watched all the videos.  You have invested in the best gear.  You have taken notes and consulted the expert forums.  You have practiced - boy have you practiced!  You have checked all the levels, your gauges, waiting for the perfect weather and the perfect conditions.  You have watched others do it.  You have studied their patterns, their behaviors.  You are prepared.  You are READY.  You are confident.  And the day arrives, and you are excited and optimistic, and certain in your ability to DO THIS THING THAT IS SO IMPORTANT TO YOU. 

And you fail.  You are wiped out.  A hold breaks.  Your foot slips.  You can't roll and are forced to swim.  You have fallen.  You have had to bail.  You are bruised.  Defeated.  And worst of all, you have to wait another 29 days to try again.

And he got it.  At least long enough I think, for that moment, to understand just how difficult this is, and why I'm not 1/2 as cool as I was 6 months ago.  So now, before you go on saying all the things you might feel compelled to say to me right now.  Like "its just not your time yet", or "its only been 'x' months", or this is the best one "JUST RELAX, it'll happen as soon as you quit worrying about it."  Before you start throwing statistics at me, and telling me about your sister or friend who miscarried like 8 times.  That I should be grateful I'm not her.  Or that I don't have to give myself injections - yet.  I KNOW.  I've read the stories.  I have googled more shit in the last 11 days than you have in the last year.  I have heard it all.  I walk around with a thermometer strapped to my vagina (might as well), and Zack has to bring me food and water to the office and sponge bathe me every other day so I don't have to leave the computer. I probably have an ulcer.  And the next time my period shows, I might just grind up all my xanex, mix it in with some Calgon Take Me Away, have a cigarette, a mojito, and never get out of the bathtub.  JOKING.

I know this is all relative to a bigger picture I just can't see yet.  I know.  It's just that it doesn't make it any easier.

So.  I have been trying to keep my hatefulness towards all the young cute women with babies...and all the women who are pregnant to a minimum.  The ones next to me on the road, in the grocery store, in Target, at the gas station, at my work - they are everywhere as though they have conspired to exist if only to remind me that my body is hormonally retarded.  But I just have to say this, because it might make me feel good for just one second.

To all the Fertile Myrtles of the world.  You are a rare breed.  You may think its cute, or funny, or ironic - that you just can't seem to NOT GET PREGNANT - ohmygod.  But it's not.  I am happy for you and your 5 children.  I am happy they are all beautiful and healthy.  I am happy that you never had to emotionally and physically LABOR the experience of not getting pregnant that so many have to endure.  But to you...fertile lady.  And please don't take this personally - I'm just hormonal. 

BITE ME. 

And I'm NOT SORRY your breastfeeding nipples hurt.  Unless of course it turns out I am in-fact bitchy AND PREGNANT, in which case...I take it back.  Kind of.

*To all the women out there who are struggling, or who have struggled to make and keep a baby - I admire your incredible strength and courage.  I am inspired daily, by those who have overcome and continue to face month after month, the challenges of fertility.