So, I went camping over the weekend. Surprising, right?

Wait, allow me to elaborate. Over the weekend I slept in a tent at an event attended by an overwhelming (for me) number of people, in a place where I was never alone, it was never quiet, porta potties were a thing* and there was naked swimming with strangers. Oh and I did this all with a gentleman who I have taken to referring to as my “boyfriend”

And I loved it. All of it.**

WHO THE FUCK AM I??!!!

All recent evidence points to the situation I just described being a panic attack waiting to happen for me (and, full disclosure, the lead-up to it did include one) but somehow it all worked. I took a walk this morning and thought about it. I realized I’ve been operating under some not-so-right ideas about who I am. So I took stock of who I am now  and who I have been previously and what I’ve picked up along the way.

I tend to treat changes in the direction of my life as absolute as in “I was that way, now I’m this way”.  As I age this has started to feel a little silly because I have amassed a small collection of obsolete “versions” of me. I think about it a lot with my professional identities –  the theatre techie, the yoga hippie, the hot trainer, the sex geek writer… there’s a lot of us and every time I had changed my path I had thought that the last version was no longer useful to me. Looking back at the weekend  though I realized that each version of those identities showed up a bit and they all pitched in. Because the theatre techie, the yoga hippie, the badass trainer they aren’t people I left behind when my life changed they are all still me and, frankly, they are still helpful. Leaving behind the things I didn’t like about the lives I had in those professions doesn’t leave my time in them devoid of benefit. Further, doing things I used to do when I lived those lives won’t rocket me unhappily back to them – I can just take the good parts and leave the rest behind. I can still focus the hell out of some lights, stretch like a pro and look good naked without giving up the progress I’ve made in my life…

I often fail to grasp these concepts.

I have been struggling with this on the personal level lately because I have, in the time since my divorce, forged a very definite identity. I have created a persona if you will – I’m attached to no one and do everything on my own terms. I don’t “do feelings” or show weakness. I take care of my shit and don’t need anyone to handle anything for me. Consequently I never have to put up with anything less than comfortable because I’m calling all the shots. I will tell you this persona was conceived in direct opposition to the person I felt I had become in my marriage. I had, like with the career “versions” of myself, decided that this change was absolute and the old version was gone completely.

Then I started seeing someone 3 days after I moved into my place in Portland. We are now together almost constantly. He wants to do things for me, which was a huge adjustment (and I’m still not terrific at allowing), he wanted a (admittedly open and mellow) definition of our relationship, which was terrifying for me because I didn’t want to go back to who I was (I tap-danced around it as long as I could) and he wants to actually know me- like even when I’m cranky or crying or vomiting or whatever  (that’s not me being funny, he took me to the ER with a migraine last week and dude saw a lot of puking) This has resulted in me saying crap like “This isn’t supposed to happen, I don’t cry on guys’ shoulders anymore. I’m a badass now”

Yes, I hear how silly that sounds.

It took this weekend, though for me to make the connection. It took me seeing the ways the former professional identities that I try to exile are still there, are still helpful and don’t destroy my current life for me to get that I can engage in behaviors I have engaged in in the past without going back to the past. To get that the circumstances are different, that I’m different. I can let someone be there for me without spiraling into the depths of massive clinical depression because now isn’t then. I’m seeing that letting go of my death-grip control is not going to automatically and necessarily lead to me hurting someone horribly.

I’m not terrific with uncertainty,  I tend to like control. I tend to think in absolutes. But seriously, if you had told me a year ago that I was going to spend the weekend of July 19-21 in Oregon sleeping in a tent, skinny dipping with strangers and calling some dude my boyfriend and that I would be happy about all of it I would have told you that you had the wrong girl.

What the hell do I know?

It may be time to let up on the control and forget about absolutes.

Who knows where I’ll be next year…

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*Yes, I know actual camping doesn’t come with any bathroom facilities at all and requires pooping in a hole in the ground or some other such nonsense. Let’s not get crazy here people.

**Okay, I didn’t “love” the porta potties but I did learn to peaceably coexist with them which was a really big step for me. My bladder was thrilled. 

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