Day 301: Goodbye tattoo and skinny dipping

The big 300! In 65 days, I will celebrating one full year sober.

I. can’t. believe. it.

In the midst of my still ongoing struggle to finish the last chapter of my dissertation, I was swept off of my feet (and out of my misery) by my friend-boyfriend-partner yesterday, who took me on the most wonderful “take a break” day I’ve had in a long time. This will have beeen the second year in a row where I don’t really get a summer vacation (thanks PhD-Covid combo!), so it did me a tremendous amount of good.

We drove out into the middle of nowhere to avoid Covid-land, aka. humans, and went on a hike along a river, in which we went swimming.

Let me rephrase… In which we very cautiously walked in, tiptoeing around like two giant, hyper-alert scaredy-cat babies, looking out for snakes and trying not to slip on the slimy rocks. Half an hour later though, we were happily splashing about like fish in the sea, diving under water, rolling around on the rocks, having the time of our lives. Then an old fisherman appeared out of nowhere and waded past us in his rubber boots, smoking a cigar (in the water!), then disappeared into the distance. Once he was gone, we had a f***k it moment, and took off our swimming costumes/bathing suits (depending on where you’re from) and swam around naked for a good half hour, like little kids. When a couple of hikers passed us by and waved, we “hid” in the water and waved back sheepishly, then put our clothes back on and hiked back to the car. It was so much fun, and felt so freeing to be alone, naked (in a non-sexual way), in broad daylight in the middle of nature, with somebody you trust. Not having to worry about body image, work, responsibilities, the future, none of that. Just splishy-splashy and the joy of letting the rapids carry you down the river before stumbling back up it, laughing, to make sure fisherman guy hasn’t decided to wade away with all your clothes and belongings.

Anyway.

That swim was planned because it was our last chance to get wet before we did THIS.

Yep, we got matching tattoos of a drawing made by Picasso (from a series called the “Constellations”). There’s no special meaning attached to the drawing in itself (except that it’s pretty), but we wanted to get the same one to celebrate 6 years of friendship, almost 2 years in a Romantic relationship, and 2 months left to go before I return to my home country and we say goodbye, “forever”.

Although our paths might cross again in the future (who knows), we are not planning on trying to navigate a long distance relationship (I’ve tried in the past, it’s not fun. Also, I’m 33 and want kids sooner rather than later). Anyway. Without thinking about it too much, we noticed that we had placed our tattoos on body parts that we can’t see ourselves, except by “looking back” behind us (in a mirror), which, we decided, was a good way to symbolize the gesture of looking back toward the past, where our beautiful and chaotic story belongs.

Cheesy? Sure. Cute? Absolutely. Do I care about other people’s opinion? Nope! Looks like America has taught me a lot.

I love y new tattoo and never thought I would be the kind of person who now has FOUR tattoos! wowowow.

This day really cheered me up and is making the rest of the week less bleak and feel more bearable. Hang in there everyone.

xxx

Anne