Chapter 47: Libation and Liberation

Three maniacal females whoop and holler like a bunch of wild banshees (I don’t know what banshees are, but I know we were louder), and run for the ocean, flung bikini tops sailing in the air, sprinting for the water. I feel an intoxicating sense of liberation as we tear for the shoreline, bodies free. SPLASH we hit the turquoise water and we are in, and I feel the warm Caribbean salt water waving hard against my skin…

Oh, did I skip something?

Let’s back up a minute… Sorry to kill the excitement, but I really must return for a hot (cold shower?) minute to Sarah’s house at Christmastime, and I have just met Prepdude, and I’m … interested.

I should. I shouldn’t. I can’t. I won’t.

I do.

Aaaand just like that, I’m in another relationship… again.

Too soon? Not too soon? Do I care anymore? Here’s how it happened…

That fateful night at Sarah’s, we all head to the lower level and arrange ourselves around a beautiful antique wooden bar. The last spot left is…well, next to Prepdude. We play Cards Against Humanity, and he is sitting next to me, and at some point, he decides to touch my arm.

zap

I say I’m cold, he takes my hands and holds them, warming…

zapzapzap

I swipe right.

We stay up long after everyone has gone to bed, the one casualty remaining his drunk relative, who is still in the next room speaking hack Russian, a Yakov Smirnoff facsimile rattling off his comedy show long after everyone is in their rooms. Hysterical. We wind up cuddling together, no sex, no sir. I know better, and hold my ground. I want Prepdude to respect me, unlikely to happen if I’m screwing around right away. We talk in whispers for hours after the rest of the house is sleeping.

He wants to take me places. Florida. Mexico. A tropical cruise… this is all completely alien to a girl who has had three dollars to her name working in ministry, and I am wide eyed and fascinated. There is so much more to this world than I had thought, and Prepdude pulls these fantasies out of the clouds and makes them real possibilities. While I was cloistered in church leadership, people out in the real world have been doing some really cool shit. It isn’t untill I notice it’s getting light outside that I realize the entire evening is gone, having talked about endless adventures to be experienced.

Phoenix Monica jumps up and down and flaps her wings in excitement.

Should I have gotten involved with someone months after my own split? Would anything have been different otherwise?

It’s really hard to say, although in retrospect, I learned a ton about relationships and dating by, well, experiencing a lot of relationships and dating. I’m not sure how much you learn about relationships sitting alone on the couch and not getting into the pool. How can you know how to manage water if you never get wet? I recall a woman who avoided dating for FIVE YEARS after her marriage ended, only to wind up remarried to a complete asshole anyway. Not jumping into the fray is no insurance policy. I became immune to assholes through exposure, not avoidance. Most worthwhile immunization ever, by the way. I think advice to avoid dating after a split is written by people who are miserable and hate to see anyone enjoying themselves so soon after divorce. This may be an unpopular opinion, but it’s my book. Don’t like my advice? Go write your own damn book.

I am following my gut instinct for once, and I am really starting to enjoy my life.

It is blowing my mind open, as I live outside the church, it’s dawning on me that the church is quite the bubble. For years, they drilled into my head how evil and rotten the world is, but ironically, I am meeting a ton of wonderful people out in the world… in all of the forbidden places, those naughty taverns, those evil dance floors where they gyrate into the evening, just begging for trouble… Sorry, folks, I’m just not seeing it. I am discovering lots of non judgmental people who are accepting me for who I am, and don’t care how I choose to dress or that I’m wearing obscenely high heels (For those of you who don’t know me, I am Oompa Loompa height, and wear the tallest shoes possible. I’d use stilts if they looked cool.). I feel I’ve lived my life in a cellar with a guard who keeps telling me it’s horribly dangerous outside, and there are monsters, and demons, and I’m going to die if I open that door, and I have opened the door not only to discover Eden, but also that the proverbial snake is nowhere to be found. Speaking of Eden…

Prepdude has a company party in the Caribbean. I’m so inexperienced at travel, it took me three tries to get the spelling of Caribbean correct. We fly there with his wild partying, extremely fun group of work friends. This is throwing me out of the church world HARD. I didn’t just climb out of the cellar, I found myself a trebuchet and shot myself miles away from the door. Everything is an amazing new experience. We pull into the all-inclusive resort, and are handed glasses of champagne as we tumble out of the bus. We are sorted into our rooms, and float down the hall, bouncing on balmy tropical air. Within a few hours, we are all drinking like fish and baking in the sun like a pile of alcoholic shrimp on the grill. After a couple days, I get to know his work friends pretty well, and a few of us women are talking… and decide we would like to experience, … Well, a bit more freedom, shall we say?

Ohhhh, this is exciting… and extremely taboo in my previous world.

We begin by discreetly asking if there are topless beaches around. We get a few ideas, but they are all too far away.

One of the ever-attentive cocktail waiters overhears our conversation and says the words that will launch this story in marvelous broken English: “You are free to go topless here.”

And that, my friends, is how we wound up pitching our tops with yells of liberation and laughter, the entire rest of the company sitting maybe thirty feet back as we plowed into the surf at top speed.

We are giggling like only three topless girls in the ocean will, and one of the girls point back to the shore “HEEEYYY!!” and we look back in time to see one of the guys, of course, run a wide curve down to the shoreline, scooping up every square inch of precious swimsuit material.

Oh no.

Are we just staying in the water till midnight??

Several minutes later, Prepdude mercifully reprocures our tops, and we are able to dress our female parts once again. It still stands as an incredibly liberating experience for me, and a whole new level of comfort and pride in my own body. I am Monica, you do not touch me unless I damn well want you to. I am having the time of my life.

We have an incredible time the rest of our stay, and even on the flight back, my inner Monica phoenix is soaring inside, having found another feather, another piece of myself.

Immediately as I return, there is a wedding I have to get to, which Prepdude cannot attend, and I pitch my bags in my apartment, pin up my hair, don high heels and jump in my car. I break speed records screaming to this event, and tear into the overcrowded parking lot on two tires. I hop out and walk/run, scut-scut-scutting across the parking lot in stilettos that really should come with a complementary walker.

I open the heavy oak door to the banquet hall, and stride in with my head held high, as if I fully intended to be here now, and not an hour earlier like I was supposed to be.

My eyes widen.

Hovercraft approaches and hands me a glass of Chardonnay.