My Three Nights in M.Night ShyamalanLand…PART THREE

Bear (get it, forest, bear…I’m staying on theme, y’all) with me for a sec…I will get to the adventure…but I have to tell you about another adventure  first…

About Three weeks ago, before my ECSTATICALLY ALONE breakthrough moment, I’d been texting with a gent I’d met…well, VIRTUALLY met on a dating app…

SIDEBAR: Though I support and celebrate all the humans who are meeting and have met people on dating apps…me having been one of them…no matter how long I am out in the dating world, even writing “met virtually on a dating app” makes me feel an all round kind of gross that I DO NOT ENJOY AND I don’t think those feelings will change anytime soon. True Story. Judge at will. It’s my reality, please don’t try and make me believe otherwise. It just feels like shopping for boyfriends…which is…just fucking weird.
It’s super weird, right?
UG.
END OF SIDEBAR

…anyHOW…this dude and I had been chatting for a while…though I find the texting with a total stranger VERY odd and the aforementioned all round kind of gross, I quite enjoyed our exchanges and had spent, if I was being totally honest?…at least 6 hours or more in total, communicating with him.
6 hours.
Texting with a dude whose voice I’d never heard. The apocalypse approaches, right?
Both of our schedules were chock-a-block, but we’d made a date for a Monday night in the near future…and were knitting for that future, in real time texting, it seemed.
On the day of our proposed date, though this dude had been VERY effusive and gregarious in ALL of our text exchanges, I texted him, just to make sure we were still on.
An hour went by.
My spidey brain tingled.
Against my newly established life rules of chasing people (because ANYTHING YOU CHASE RUNS AWAY, RIGHT?…I hate that I’ve had to come up rules like this for my sanity in this weird ass, 2021 dating situation) I texted him one more time…because he HAD been so effusive and gregarious.
Nothing.
Fuck.
The.
FUCK.

Then TWO and a HALF HOURS hours before the date we’d planned for almost a week? I got this text:

He: Heya, can we reschedule? I’m exhausted.

That was it. No sorry, no OOPS, no “I cannot believe I am doing this on the day”, no nothing…but those six stupid words.
No sir.

A flag…a giant red flag, bearing (!) the words “GURL, WALK AWAY, NOW” unfurled in my brain, like a GIF.
Walk…because conversely ANYTHING that you run from, chases YOU.
I put my phone down between the couch cushions (my childish/grown up response to texts that I want to wait to respond to…wait, so I don’t lose my shit, uncocked and without forethought), got up and walked away.
I waited for an hour, retrieved my phone, saw that he’d sent one more text asking very simply asking if I’d gotten the first one, and then said the following:

Me: Did something major happen? Is all well?

Twenty minutes pass.
I hear a muted BING from between my couch cushions.
I dig my phone out to see

He: No, I just had a really long day.

Again. No sorry. No nothing.
The red flag in my brain starts to wave like a pageant queen on the June Day Float.

Me: Yeah, I’m pretty booked up. You know what, I actually turned down something else for tonight. I think you’d agree, that, If you cannot count on someone for the first date? It really doesn’t bode well.

He THEN stumbled around reasonings…all of of them shit…and made a half hearted apology…but for me?
That was that.
The thing that made me twig in the end, was we’d had a long conversation earlier about being reliable…and not flaky…and not canceling…and how it’s a red flag.
Um.
Sir, again, I do not have the time for your red flag raising.

My Joyous, Wise and Grown Ass Mind: Sharron, you’re never gonna get that six hours of text time back…you could have been hiking, walking with a friend, learning more about your new kayak, cooking a dinner you’ve never cooked before, reading a good article, writing, sitting on your balcony and staring at the skyline, or EVEN watching Love Island…and yes, the irony of the last one is not lost on me.

It also occurred to me that about two years ago, I would have felt incredibly disappointed that he’d canceled, but I would have made 100 excuses as to why, and would have rescheduled.

If YOU don’t think your time is worthy, why would anyone else? Right?

Sharron, you are not EVER going to spend that kind of time texting with someone you have never met.

I was so close to ECSTATICALLY ALONE thinking…but not quite there yet.

And when it came? Well, if you read the blog (it is a few entries back if you are new to my writing) It was a fucking revelation.
That revelation is what literally sent me to search for adventure, advised me to do something radical, helped me buy that wonderful back pack, and sent me into the forest…into one of the greatest weekends of my solo traveler life so far, no fucking hyperbole.

FAST FORWARD TO Three weeks later, my second morning, third day at the Algonquin lodge, I woke up very softly in my squeaky bed. It was early…early for me, anyhow.

I SLEPT A WHOLE NOTHER NIGHT ALL THE FUCKING WAY THROUGH. AGAIN, I HAD TO DO AN 11KM HIKE IN THE BLAZING HEAT, RUNNING FROM BEAR SCAT AND BUGS…BUT STILL, PEOPLE, IT WAS 52-YEAR-OLD-PERIOMENOPAUSALLY-MAGICAL.

The place was bustling outside my thin, plywood, Camp Wanakita type door…which was held closed by a very small hook-in-eye lock.
The stay was also a bit about trust, yes?
Everyone outside my door seemed to be excitedly getting ready for the day…and I just wanted to stay still, just a little longer in my bed and really appreciate my full night of sleep, the sounds of people living their lives, mixed in with the sounds of the forest, wafting through the little window over my bed.
It was just the perfect audio mix for that morning, you know?
It was…comforting.
I breathed all those lovely humans and their noise in, and snuggled down into my covers.
My breakfast alarm went off (the only good use for my phone at this point besides taking pictures, due to lingering and not unwelcome off-the-gridness) and I got myself brushed, washed and changed BUT after my breakfast plans, I still didn’t know what my last full day at the lodge held.
When I sat down at one of the long wooden dining tables with James and Ashley, I could see a number of bags outside on the porch.
It turned out that EVERYONE was leaving the lodge that day, but me…which kinda of bummed me out, I’m not going to lie.
James asked me what I was going to do that day, and before I could think, I just said…

Me: I’m going to spend the whole day by the lake, I think. Mike (the head chef, chambermaid, hander-out-of-juice-boxes and all round person in charge) lent me a book by Christopher Hitchins called, MOTHER THERESA: THE MISSIONARY POSITION. It sounds pretty interesting, if not just a little inflammatory…which is kind of my jam. It’s not very long..so I’m going to give it a read. I think my body is a bit done in from the heat…and could use a relax.

I guess my body knew what IT wanted, spoke it’s mind and who was I to change it?

He: Well, Jennifer, that sounds like a great day. It was really nice to meet you…do you wanna keep in touch?

Me: Same here! Yes, for sure. Are you on INSTA!?

Then James told me his INSTAGRAM handle so we could keep in touch…twice he said it, and somehow…I immediately forgot it.
It was like when you think of something super smart, wise, funny or awesome when you are driving and tell yourself you will remember it later…and you never do.
So, if you are reading this, James?
I’m not a douche…I totally tried to find you.
Of course, if he’s looking for me, he called me Jennifer for so long, HE probably fucking forgot MY name…so here we are.
Also, this was not a romantic thing, people.
He and Ashley were just cool peeps.
In fact, ALL the people who were there those first three days were cool…and I enjoyed spending time and talking with all of them.
At the camp fires, we all exchanged BEST SONG EVER, BEST TRIP EVER, BEST DAY EVER stories…these are some of my favourite-ice-breakers-for-shy-gals, and it’s always lovely to see people shine inside the recollection of their favourite memories or favourite things.

That second morning, third day, we all sat in the great room and lingered over the remains of blueberry pancakes, tea and coffee until we heard the clip clop of ALL of their horses making their way up the hill, to take them back to their cars.
THEY didn’t have to walk in or out, like me.
Well, fuck.
We all said our goodbyes…I felt like the last kid left at camp…which wasn’t a totally unwelcome feeling.
It came with a bit of space and collected joy from the last few days…and the sudden knowledge that I had the whole camp to myself.

And then just like that?
I was alone.
Again, not unhappily and not totally.
Logan and Mike were going about the business of getting the lodge ready for the new people who were coming later that day, so I went back to my tiny room, got myself ready and went down to the lake that I now had ENTIRELY to myself.
For the WHOLE day.

AND I made the very most of it.
I swam for forty five minutes, back and forth to the very centre of the lake.
I tread water for at least thirty more minutes.
I got out and read the whole essay/book…it was VERY interesting, to say the least. Oh, Mother Theresa. UG.
I swam some more.
Tread some more.
Listened to the newest Stephen King book on audio…in front of an empty lake…in a forest with no wifi or cell service.
Don’t tell me I’m not brave.
I swam some more.
Tread some more.
Around and around…it was the most relaxed I have been…I think…in my life.
I my whole fucking life.
No hyperbole.
I was 100% happy.
I was content.
I was so grateful that I’d come.
I was so grateful that I’d immediately let the ninety minute slog with my pack on the first day, go.
I was just so fucking grateful that I’d not let the fear of being alone, walking into the woods with no real picture of my destination, being off the grid and/or carrying in that big pack, scare me off.

Then, with all that contentedness, joy and gratitude oozing around inside me, I looked at the canoe that was floating at the end of the dock…just bobbing in the water…and considered it, with the reverence of an astronaut thinking about piloting a rocket.
The day before, Logan had shown me how to get in and out a couple of times, as I’d never been in a canoe by myself.

He: Don’t worry if you tip it…it happens all the time.

Well, I own a friggen kayak…only for a month or so, really…but still.
I know how to get in and out of that…how much harder could this be? (I know)
I took fucking ballet…I have balance…I can do this, right? (Yes, I know)
I wanted to blaze around that lake by myself…like those Hudson’s Bay dudes…wait, were they assholes? Well, like an adventurer of SOME description.
So, I found a paddle in the boat house and approached, sizing up the canoe, calculating my entry, building up my confidence, mentally vision boarding my success in advance.
And I gingerly stepped in.
And the whole thing just tipped over so quickly that I could barely register that it was happening.
One minute I saw my triumph, the next I was underwater, AND the next I was up, sputtering, gasping and watching my favourite hat float away. (I got it back)

Do any of you (and I am sure some of you do) know how hard it is to get water out of a canoe?
Well, let me tell you…it’s fucking hard.
I was laughing for most of the trying.
Oh my god…I AM glad I tried to get in that fucking canoe…I WISH I had paddled the fuck away…but it was not to be, on this day. And that was okay. I don’t have to be good at everything, right away…or…as Lyza reminded me in the comments below…I don’t have to be good at everything, EVER!

 

After struggling for what seemed like forever to TRY and get the water out of the canoe, I claimed defeat and yelled up the hill to Logan

Me: LOGAN!! I FUCKING FELL IN!! 

After a minute, I heard his voice, coming from the top of the hill where the main lodge is

HE: I HEARD!! YOU OKAY!?!? YOUR LAUGHTER MADE ME THINK YOU WERE OKAY!!!!

ME: I’M FINE!! BUT THE FUCKING BOAT IS FILLED WITH WATER!!!

He: DO YOU WANT TO TRY AGAIN!?!?

Me: FUCK NO!!!

He: OKAY!! LEAVE IT. I WILL DEAL WITH IT LATER!!

So, it just sat there, sunken, right in front of me, mocking me…so I moved.

I gathered up all my things including my happily recovered favourite hat and wet tshirt, (you will see them above, drying on the dock) and moved all my stuff over to two Muskoka chairs that sit on top of the dam, in front of the waterfall…and it was there that I finished out my solitary day on the lake.
I could literally feel the time slipping by and wanted to enjoy it…enjoy every minute…and suck the marrow out of the centre of it. I watched the water plunge down the falls for a long, long time.
I did.
I did enjoy it.

After dinner, which Mike served me early so I would not have to share the room with the three very small, very NOT WELL MANNERED children who had just arrived…OH!!!

I forgot!
As I sat at the lake, just at the end of the day, a family drove their bleeping bleeping blooping LEXUS up the logging rode that EVERYONE ELSE either walked up OR rode a horse up, because THEY decided they did not want to do the walk.
Why in the name of all that is holy would anyone pick a vacation spot that advertised a twenty to twenty-five minute hike UPHILL to get to, bring three children under the age of five…and then decide FUCK IT they would drive their bleeping bleeping blooping LEXUS up a VERY rocky path…not road…path.
Why?
Logan pleaded with them to take the car back down, because it was against the rules to operate any motor vehicle on any of the logging roads or hiking paths in Algonquin Park, besides an ATV.
He literally had to beg them, before finally the father drove it back down to the parking lot, loudly dragging his expensive muffler over part of the Precambrian Shield as he went, as an firey and expensive exclamation point.
They also wanted Logan and Mike to change their room (at 6:00pm) and asked if their five friends (with kids) could come up the next day.

Maybe it was best that it was my last night, huh?

As the three children ran around the grounds like they had a death wish, Mike, the head chef came to me and told me that my dinner would be read in 10 minutes…if I wanted to eat before anyone else.
Magic.
There truly are angels everywhere.

: )

After my quiet dinner, I sat on the porch, as the sun went down.
And after they tidied up, Logan and Mike came out on the porch, and told me all about their lives.
At least twenty dragonflies were swooping over our heads as we chatted and then watched the moon come up.
It was another lovely night, different, but lovely.
I went to bed early, again…and felt a little melancholy rush over me.
I didn’t want it to end…but I also was almost ready to go.

I woke up at 3:00am.
WIDE awake.
Of course.
So, I put on a sweatshirt, got my flashlight so as not to have to turn on any lights and disturb anyone in the lodge, unhooked the hysterical door lock…and made my way out to the front porch.
I stared up at the sky, hearing nothing but the warm, humid wind blowing around me and creatures moving around in the woods…which did not scare me at all, even with the Stephen King book still in my head…and thought about being ecstatically alone.

Okay.
Okay.
When someone leaves you…leaves long before they physically leave…leaves you confused and trying to do the math of the time you spent on them, while they were already pointing their life boat towards another life, while spending your time, at the same time…your VERY valuable fucking time…there are lot of things to contend with in the aftermath.
Internal things.
Quiet things.
Things that last.
Things that last FAR past the time anyone wants to admit…far past a time when others are comfortable with your…things.
One of the biggest lasting things, has been this need, this compulsion I’ve felt to get someone beside me, in my life.
Not all the time…but when it hits? It’s overwhelming.
And don’t get me wrong…I dated a number of people before the pandemic hit.
I spent time with, hung out with, talked with, learned about, ate dinner with, watched movies with and listened to music with…well, I will not qualify how many…this is not the Dating Game…let us just say…a few humans.
But sometimes, it felt like I needed a fix of men.
I was jonesing to have someone…someone to show the world that I was worthy…to remind MYSELF that I was worthy.
I’ve written about this before, but never really understood that compulsion till this month…till the moment I realized that ECSTATICALLY ALONE was a goal…and further understood that very friggen moment, that quiet moment with space in the middle of the forest, far from anyone besides the few people at the camp.
AND that understanding came in the form of an answer to the meditation on the Maya Angelou statement I’d been letting roll around my spirit this whole time…a statement that I discovered listening to Brené Brown’s BRAVING THE WILDERNESS…

Belonging.
If you don’t belong to yourself?
You will constantly search for someone else, or someones, to belong to, to take up the slack. To confirm you worthiness in the world.
BUT, if you belong to yourself…well, letting a person in, the spending of your precious time, is something to be considered, like that fucking canoe.
When you belong to yourself…letting someone in your life is a joyful addition, not a desperate answer.
When you belong to yourself…you live…you don’t wait. .

AND as I stood on that porch, in the middle of Algonquin Provincial Park, in my ONTARIO, YOURS TO DISCOVER sweatshirt and flip flops, thinking about all the places I want to go and see, all the people whose stories I want to hear, all the things I want to experience, all the new humans there are to meet, I thought about feeling ECSTATICALLY ALONE…about belonging to myself…and remembered a lifetime of trying to fit in, or just simply fit or make things okay, of trying to desperately belong to others, at the cost of my own wants and needs…and spending my precious time on people who didn’t value it…I said out loud to the fucking forest, something I’d said to myself quietly in my bed the night before…

I belong to me

And I heard the forest move in answer.
I swear to the fucking goddess.

I’m fucking perfect. RIGHT FUCKING NOW. We are all perfect at EVERY STAGE OF OUR FUCKING LIVES. FUCKED UP OR NOT FUCKED UP.WE ARE FUCKING ENOUGH. WE ARE THE RIGHT AMOUNT. I BELONG TO ME.

So, Sharron, no more half hearted attempts to find someone to fill my time with, when I can fill my time quite well and happily on my own…with people I love, already…and some I like, even.

No more. And all the yes.
AND I just felt so fucking full.
I breathed.
And breathed again.
The forest seemed to breathe back, too.
Sure, it may be very hubristic (wow) to think that the forest was mine for that moment…but fuck it. It was. Actually…I think we were each other. JUDGE AT WILL!!!
After all…if you have been reading my stuff for a while…you might remember…WE ARE THE FOREST.
And then, I went back to my squeaky bed…and after a fashion, fell asleep.

WHAT A FUCKING THING, RIGHT!?!?!

The next morning, I repacked my big old pack, put on another pair of inspirational socks, said a hearty goodbye to Logan and Mike…who served me breakfast 30 minutes before the LEXUS people, because they are good humans…strapped on Daniel…which is the name for my pack, maybe I will tell you the story of THAT one day…covered myself SPF, as well as my beloved, toxic bug spray and started to walk back down the road.

There is something really exciting about having everything you need RIGHT on you, people.

It was hot as blazes again and after 30 minutes DOWNHILL (god, I am glad that ATV showed up for me on the first day) I made it to my car.
I did it!
I FUCKING DID IT!!

I sat in the joyous air conditioning for twenty minutes before I even moved.
I drove myself to my pal’s cottage in the Muskokas (with WIFI,  THANKS BE TO MY PALS,  THE BABY JESUS and THE KITTIES…but not probably not Mother Theresa…read that book, people) and had a wonderful three days of swimming, kayaking and soaking up the second last week of August.
I was alone at my pal’s cottage…they were in the city…and I was writing before I went to bed the first night…and I realized that when I used to stay there, and they weren’t with me, I would be a bit scared and nervous…but no more.
No fucking more.
It was a fairly joyous discovery.

The forest no longer seems scary to me.

On the last day of my sudden and epic vacation, I decided to honour the experience, and do my own version of a triathalon.
I know.

I paddled my kayak for about ninety minutes on the lake. It was fucking Glorious.

I packed up my kayak and then swam laps in the warm, August water, for 30 minutes. WONDERFUL and the water was fucking heavenly.

And then?

Packed up EVERYTHING into my car and went for a short loop ( 3kms) on my FAVOURITE HIKE…the Hardy Lake Trail, just up the road from my pals cottage. EXHAUSTED.

 

 

…and while I was MORE THAN just a BIT exhausted (you can see it in my face) …it was still totally WORTH IT!!
For the last ten minutes of my hike, I kept telling myself how nuts I was to do this…my joyous, wise and grown ass mind countered with this

Joyous, Wise and Grown Ass Mind: You are going to feel so accomplished when you get in the car. WHAT a way to honour your vacation! What a way to honour your new beginning, as it were.

And I was NOT wrong.

Then, I drove home.
As I watched the sun fall in the sky, as I navigated the cottage traffic on the 400, I felt…everything.
Tired, happy, grateful, exhausted, sad…and one hundred more emotions I cannot even think of.

I am SO glad I took a chance on this adventure…and on my strength.

And without being too trite and wrappy-uppy?

I am so fucking glad that I am making myself…my own.
That I will spend my time belonging to myself…everywhere, and nowhere…no place at all.
I could say one more million things on that subject…but I think you get it, by now.

Thanks for reading.
Thanks for writing.
Thanks for subscribing.
And thank you for your kind words, interest, and inspiration to keep doing things like this because, indeed, when you write me? YOU inspire me to do more and more.

WE make each other braver, right?

If you wanna subscribe? Fill in the little box below! I would love to have you along for the ride!

All my love to you, humans.

August 26th, 2021 -S.M.
Toronto, ON