The night I went skinny dipping with a stranger and realized I had no idea who I actually was
I was not the adventurous type.
I followed all the rules. I was overly cautious. I didn’t have sex until I turned 18 and I married the second person I ever dated at 22…someone I met in class at a dry college. I was so sheltered growing up that I genuinely did not know people actually met strangers at bars and left with them…to have sex!
Fast forward. I’d been with the second person I ever dated for 12 years, married for 9. We’d recently decided to open our marriage and I was out on my own for the first time at a bar trying to find a stranger to go home with 😈
It was a very hot, humid summer night and I was a little flustered and sweaty when I got to my favorite bar. As I ordered a bourbon on the rocks, I caught the eye of someone just my type: tall, messy hair, blue eyes, great smile. We talked over a few drinks and he casually mentioned he had never been skinny dipping. Neither had I, obviously, but I knew a place that would be perfect…
Before I could overthink it, we were in my car driving to a flooded quarry to go skinny dipping
The quarry closed at dusk. It was very much after dusk 🙊Trespassing with a complete stranger, alone, in the dark, getting completely naked, swimming in water with no visible bottom, the only light was from the full moon overhead… Sooo many things out of my comfort zone.
I should have been freaking out.
Instead I felt nothing but completely, inexplicably free.
We stripped down on the dock, got in the water. It was cool and still and the moon was so full it felt like you could reach out and touch it. I turned around and caught the way he was looking at me and thought: holy shit, who am I?! I had no idea I was capable of being this person.
Here's what I know now that I was only starting to realize then: sometimes the lifestyle doesn't just open your relationship. It opens you. It shows you a version of yourself that was always in there, just waiting for permission to exist.
I spent 30-something years thinking I was someone who didn't do things like that. Turns out I was just someone who hadn't been given the space to try.
If any part of you is curious about who you might be on the other side of hesitation, that curiosity is worth paying attention to.
Even if it scares you a little.
Especially if it scares you a little 😘