Esteem turmoil and Hawaii

I am a curvy girl. This has come with a lot of stigma, pretty much all of it painful and depressing. Sufficient to say, I grew up bigger in general, have always had issues with my weight and have spent lots of time agonizing over it.

A little while ago, I posted about my Great Aunt Claire. She was first to get me to see around the insults and look at it from another perspective. Which since i was a burly kid...usually meant pointing out that i could beat the crap out of them then sit on them and they wouldn't be able to do a thing about it. (apparently i had too many arguments against the old sticks and stones mantra).

So like all women of any size, i have good days and bad days.

I'm convinced my inner goddess
is played by Christina Hendricks

Most days, i am one heckova sultry vixen. I have a walk that naturally sashays and gorgeous chocolate hair, eyes that can change color, and i rarely get pimples. I know many women that would die for natrually clear skin that rarely blemishes. My inner voice defiantly tells anyone who looks down their nose at me - "This is the body i have, love it or hate it, it's me." And it's not like i'm anywhere near record size. Just a size 20 and a DD cup. Oh yeah, and my cholesterol makes my doctor really happy. Really, it's not that bad and Boyfriend Jon loves me unconditionally.

Then there's days when my insecurities get the best of me. Like a stone sinking in my stomach for every single stretch mark and jiggle. Jealousy for romantic scenes in movies where the guy effortlessly sweeps a girl off her feet. Terror when seeing someone pull out a camera that i have to clamp down on and smile through.

Or worrying about wearing a bathing suit in Hawaii.

Yup. I'm going to Hawaii! In a week! With my best friend and lover and favorite travel companion; Boyfriend Jon. It's our first real vacation where we're not meeting up with family. And i'm excitedly counting down the days. We even made a rip off calendar that is right next to the door and we rip off each new day together. How cheesy is that?? :)

I want to go. I've been wanting to go for over a decade. I know, with out a doubt that this is going to be an amazing trip. Also....there's an extremely good chance that when we get off the plane i'm going to revert to a four year old and be bouncing off the walls.

But talking with other (thin) women about tips for going to tropical locations....has the insecurities rearing their ugly heads again. Bikini waxing presents all sorts of challenges that skinny girls don't have to face. Spray tanning... i actually laughed at the size zero girl who told me to stand like this, then like this...be cause there's no way the spray would get into all the crevices. Some of the positions i get into remind me of human tetris!

And...there's more to it than just the suit.
There's the pasty white skin from never wearing anything shorter than capris
There's extra curves, stretch marks, cellulite...
There's memories of taunting calls of cankles (which i most assuredly do NOT have), thunder thighs, whale, and most recently "fat lady" (thank you children across the balcony who don't realize that screens aren't soundproof)

Boyfriend Jon has been wonderful (really ladies...i got hit the boyfriend jackpot with this guy), reassuring me every time i go into bathing suit panic mode, that there will be ample people of plus size around on the beaches...and that they will have clothes in my size. Probably more so than i can find here in Washington.

THEN
I went from feeling completely insecure to the opposite end of the spectrum.

My first crush, who became a long time friend admitted that he'd crushed on me for most of our teenage years. Say what???? Daydreams of him were constant for over a decade. But I thought given his complete inaction that he wasn't remotely attracted to me. Turns out, that i couldn't have been more wrong. The teenager still inside of me has thrown her hat down and started stomping on it. Why? Why now? Why didn't you tell me these things when something could have been done about them?

But that ship sailed long ago. Those daydreams laid to rest. That crush is just a friend on the other side of the world who i can talk about guns with. I care about him and want good things for him. But that's it.

I've been reminding that teenager part of my brain, that my relationship with Boyfriend Jon was a delicate balance of things falling into place at exactly the right moment. Change a single thing, and maybe i would never be with Mister Boyfriend Jackpot. So why dream about what could have been when what is, is perfect?

So what do you do when you swing from insanely happy, horribly insecure, never good enough, to a source of regret because you were more than good enough, to embarrassed, to conflicted, to excited beyond all reason, and back around again? I love roller coasters, but i want to get off this one!

I'm getting to the point where a good hearty emotion filled cry might just actually solve this crazy web of my feelings.

Learning to live with an Introvert

Boyfriend Jon and I have been living together for five months now. And along with all the normal arguments compromise that goes along with combining resources, tasks, and responsibilities...it's also been a huge learning experience. For me especially, learning to live with an introvert has been a near constant crash course trying to understand what, when and how much the other person needs.

Why didn't I know this coming in to the living-together situation?

Well, I knew he was happy staying at home, and that when he got involved in a project, it went so far as to exclude all else for long periods of time. I've also never in my life lived with an introvert. There is no such thing in my family, though my mom claims to be one. She goes for long long drives by herself, but usually, it's to go see someone. My dad, rarely goes to the grocery store without someone to keep him company and my siblings take up the spectrum in between.

Overall, i guess i fit into the Extrovert category. I somewhat straddle the line, though. While i love having someone there even though i'm not talking to them, i also don't like people getting into my bubble without permission. Empty house means i'm going to turn on the TV just to have the placebo effect of a human voice.

What i didn't know was that The Introversion Flag could pop up at any time, occasionally conflicting with my extrovert needs to have company, interaction, and socialization.

But I've watched him, seen the physical exhaustion that comes after parties, the strain after long periods where he can't work on his projects, and the outright despondence when we've been going going going, for a long time.

He's a strong man; I wouldn't be with him if he wasn't strong enough to support my own weaknesses. And often i wonder at his patience with my constant whirlwind of plans, projects and bouncing from idea to idea in a single conversation as i try to clear out my head for bedtime.

Out of everything we've been through for almost 3 years, this has been the toughest part for me to learn: Boyfriend Jon is an introvert and has different mental needs than i do. But, I honestly don't know what i'd do without my Infuriating Introvert.

Occasionally, in trying to help me understand, he sends me articles, comics, or a few emails that better explain Introversion. The following was one of the most adorable depictions I've ever seen and i had to share it.

My Great-Aunt Claire

Aunt Claire & Uncle Buddy

I have no idea why, but these last several days, my mind has turned frequently to memories of Aunt Claire. I find myself missing her so much. I wish that i could once again be a little girl, and climb up into her lap and tell her all the problems of my small little world. And that she would hug me tight tell me not to worry, then suggest some tidbit of wisdom that would snap everything into perspective and then everything would indeed be all right. And if it wasn't, well, suddenly her crossword puzzle would become too difficult for her and only i would be able to help.

My Great-Aunt Claire was many things to me. She was my grandmother's unmarried sister, my father's aunt, my summertime house guest, my playmate, my enthusiastic audience, my source of infinate wisdom, and role model for how i wanted to live my life.

To look at her, she would make a doctor, fashionista, and hair stylist all cringe. Her hair was dark brown, almost black (and later grey) and she never dyed it. She kept it cropped boyishly close. She wore thick 80s glasses that gave her bug eyes. She was very overweight, so she wore muumuus usually in garish colors like orange, fuchsia, and brown. Beneath them, she wore knee high nylons to hide her varicose veins and what i can only describe as grandma shoes. Her arms had arm fat hanging from them almost 10 inches long and she never work makeup. She was no delicate flower. Not with her brisk and no nonsense attitude.

G-Aunt Claire, Grandma Anne, Aunt Eileen, Uncle Paul

But I loved her fiercely and i would never change a single hair on her head. If i had eons to sit here and tell you about her, i could never come close to truly describing the woman who shaped my growing years in ways that i can't even pick apart until i catch someone staring at me when i'm ranting in "Aunt-Claire-ian" terms. Her enthusiasm for life always amazed me.

Behind those thick glasses were mischievous and sparkling with a hundred unspoken jokes. Her arm blubber was an endless source of entertainment and she never ever felt shamed about it. She wore the muumuus because they were exceedingly comfortable, not giving a damn about fashion. I learned how to count because she would have me count out her pills in her weekly pill reminder case. She made up words collected from Italian, Ukrainian, Yiddish, and Tarzan (no i'm not kidding, she loved Tarzan's language of the beasts and used several phrases on us children) She knew how to improvise just about everything from card game rules, which spontaneously changed mid-game, to the left hand while playing piano.

Aunt Claire, my brother Michael, Grandma, Me, Dad, Mom,
Grandma T and my brother Johnny

And she would sing. Off key, tuneless, and able to be heard through the whole house. That's how i knew everything was right in the world, when Aunt Claire was singing or shuffling her feet in a silly little dance.

When everything was not all right, the whole neighborhood heard about it. Her and my grandmother would get into screaming matches over who had more cookies at tea time or if Perry Mason or Columbo was a better show, which generally ended up with them screaming at each other in Ukrainian about fifty or more past arguments. But so help you if you jumped into the argument, they would both turn on you like savage dogs, defending the other for the very thing they had been yelling about seconds before.

She died just before i graduated, on May 21, 2005 at 84 years old. I very badly wanted to go but with school coming to a close and the trip to the other side of the continent, we held our own memorial at home in the form of an UNO card game marathon proclaiming PURPLE PEOPLE EATERS, and YELLOW CANARIES and TAKE 2 when dropping a regular 2 card and the infamous ACCORDING TO HOY-LEE proclamations. It was my aunts favorite game even though she would cheat against us children. So many of my memories revolve around a deck of well worn Uno cards.

Uncle nick, Michael, Random person,
Me, Margaret, Johnny, Noreen,
and Aunt Claire, clearly plotting some uno scheme

I found recently that my upper arms are starting to develop a little droop when i hold them up. I began to freak out. I loved my aunt and admire every detail about her, including her complete disregard for mainstream beauty. But at 25, i'm not ready to have her arms, I hate dresses in general, i love my long hair, and well, just...damnit i'm to young to have blubber arms!

Part of me has always wanted to be like her. Until Boyfriend Jon came along, it wasn't entirely unexpected (by myself and my family) that i would become the unmarried caregiver in this generation of our family since it seems there's always one or two. I wanted to be the one whom all the kids gathered, so i could pass on my unconventional wisdom that comes from not being a typical woman. To show them that its not really necessary to live according to main stream, to have the latest media and toys to entertain yourself, and mostly that life is a wondrous thing and we should enjoy it.

It's my philosophy in life even now; not conforming, doesn't necessarily mean you can't be happy doing it. I wish now that i had asked my aunt why she never married. There's so many things i wish i could talk with her about. I regret that in the last few years of her life, she was barely even a shadow of the incredible dynamic woman i grew up with. Dementia saw to that. And that even as a teenager, i didn't make time to talk with her on the phone. Mostly i regret that my future children will never know her.

Some day, the Uno cards will come out, and i'll teach them about purple people eaters, Hoy-Lee, dig a little deeper, let me call you sweetheart, scosheeboshee and Ungawa Nichcha (most of those are aunt clarian terms that still float around our family). Who knows what's in the cards for me. I could still turn out to be very much like her.

But the blubber arms have to go.

Post Redwoods

So we're back. From five glorious days (more like three full days and two partial days cause we were driving) in the Redwood forests of California.

First off, I had a blast. Boyfriend Jon's family was fun, the Redwoods were breathtaking and we didn't have a repeat of Deception Pass Tent Floods. So I'd say this was a first class camping trip.

We played a variety of board games, made fires, roasted smores, told stories, chased the kids around, cooked, hushed the dogs, did some hair braiding, and most importantly, relaxed.

Our drive down was beautiful. In the past we'd listened to audio books from the Ender series. This time it was to be Xenocide. However, the quality of the audio was so poor we quickly turned it off. The drive, while beautiful, seemed longer as we pulled into the campsite after dark despite having left at 6:30am. It wasn't until the drive home that we realized Google Maps LIED. There is no way we could possibly have done the trip in 11 hours. Even with minimal stops it still took us over 15. I'm convinced that most of this is due to the fog and twisty windy turns where there's no way to go the speed limit. So now we know for future reference that we need to leave earlier and plan on at least 15 hours.

The Redwoods. Just wow. I can't get over how big some of the "small" ones were. We climbed up over 20 feet into the air on one of the felled trees. And i spent most of a long walk in the woods with Boyfriend Jon's family thinking about how they filmed Star Wars Return of the Jedi amid tangled roots and thick underbrush.

Things i learned about the redwoods:

• Often, the trees grow from not from seeds, but from sprouts off of the stump. And they form living cathedrals in a perfect circle around the original stump.
• The reason they survive so well is the fog i mentioned before...comes in off the coast and absorbs high up, so they don't have to move the water all the way up from the ground.
• Physics says it's impossible for a tree to grow over 450 feet
• The tallest tree is 379 feet tall. Only slightly less than the height of the Great Pyramid as it stands today.
• The Redwood Forests that we have left is only about 10 percent of what was once there. Most of it was brutally cut down. 
• There was violent protests to stop this all the way up into my own lifetime when they finally got the picture that clear cutting was a bad idea during Redwood Summer in 1990.
• Now they've learned more responsible ways to grow and harvest Redwood lumber. 

And personally, i can attest to the constant moisture. We had full sun most of the time we were there, but our sleeping bags were constantly damp, and there was a massive humidity. 

We're off to see the Redwoods

I've only have a brief encounter with the California redwoods aside from dreaming about racing a speeder through them. They were easily the biggest trees I've ever seen. That includes the cross cut on display near my first house in Tacoma. Which was huge when i was a toddler, but even i know that cross cut is dwarfed by some of the "small" redwoods that i saw when i first went to California.

That was my first time being able to drive through a tree. Even though our rental car was small, it was such a big novelty.

Now, we're off for another road trip to California. This time it will be 11 hours instead of 14. Not too much of a difference, but a bit more manageable. It will give us a little breathing room on our drive. But it's going to land us smack dab in the "Avenue of the Giants" so these will be really really big redwoods. That's going to be exciting.

Why are we going?

To meet up with Jon's family for a camping trip near a river. It's the first camping trip we've been able to organize all year because I've been obsessed with unpacking we've been too busy setting up the apartment to be home.

I love camping. My first camping trip was when i was 7 and i still remember a lot about it. Incidentally it was my first rendezvous, but that's a story for another time. We met up with my dad's brother and his family. We were prepared fairly well to camp in general since my parents had been boy/girl scout leaders for 20 years so we had enough gear. But we were not prepared for a thunder and lightning storm. That was the one and only time that i remember my mother joining us on a camping trip. After that, it became a bonding experience with just my dad. I went camping with him several times a year until i was 18.

Looking back, i realize that those campsites had only the most basic of amenities. Port-a-potties. But at the time, i thought they were awesome. Catching lizards in the rocks. Walking into the woods to get firewood, playing in the woods with my cousins. There was limited supervision....and by that i mean everyone in the entire campground knew who's kids belonged to who and they'd just a soon give us cookies and let us play in their camp as smack us when we got out of line. I walked other people's dogs, helped with dishes, ran errands and messages across camp. And for some reason, i remember it being fun. It's amazing that so many people come together and can form a brand new village mentality for just a weekend.

Personally a fan of log cabin/pyramid

It was here that i learned how to make and use char cloth, flint and steel, build fires, learn knots, cook over an open fire, keep a fire going through the night, as well as what rock lizards taste like cooked (they're edible, that's all i'll say) which was probably one of the more stupid things we did.

Now i'm going to state campgrounds. And I laugh that they have running water and hot showers. So this is how normal people camp? I thought we had everything we needed when we had port-a-potties. Sure we'd come home and have to do rock paper scissors to see who got the first shower, but I don't remember every turning down a camping trip because of that.

Regardless, i'm excited to go. I have a urge to test some survival skills i haven't had to make yet. I'm going to try to make a fire with sticks. And also i get to hang out with Jon's dynamic and interesting family.