I spent my weekend at my friend's house in Enfield, Nova Scotia. Her dad owns a fitness company and she is literally a millionaire. Enfield is the countryside about 40 minutes out of Halifax, the type of country-living where your house is in the middle of the woods yet smack on a lake.
She's right on the cusp of the Shubenacadie Grand Lake, and she's got all the cool toys. Seadoos, kayaks, canoes, jet boats, a zodiac, everything. She even has this giant two-person tube that you lie down on your tummy on, and hang on for dear life while the boat you're attached to guns'er down the lake. And let me tell you, if you hit a swell, you're flying six feet in the air. Trust me.
I was up at the crack of dawn every morning, sitting on her dock drinking coffee. I love water. I need to be around it. It helps me think.
I beat myself up a lot over not being one of those girls. Always glamorous and perfectly put together. Smokin' hot in a pair of heels and almost always in a short skirt. I know girls with perfect hair, perfect lines. Smooth talkers. Always perfectly dressed and know all the right things to say. And, they love to party and drink. They go out every single night and just live it up, the way 23 year olds probably should. Crawl in at 4AM everyday, go to work at 8, and do it all over again. Party girls.
I've never been that girl and I beat myself up a lot, because that girl is way cooler and dates more and all that jazz. I've forced myself to be that girl a few times, and it never worked for me.
But on the lake this weekend, I realized that I'm another kind of girl. I didn't change out of my bathing suit for two straight days. Being on the water relaxes me. I wake up early just to sit by it. Water does strange things to me. I'm totally comfortable leaving the house without make up on, completely natural. I'm a very strong swimmer because my dad raised my sister and I to be respectful but never afraid of the water. I was never allowed to block my nose as a kid.
I'm a real girl. I wear a bikini and not a push up bra, I know how to sail a boat, and I can yell my head off while careening down a lake at top speed on a tube. I didn't care what my hair looked like or how maniacal I sounded. I can jump off the boat in the middle of a lake and splash around because I'm not afraid of lake water and I love to swim. And when I dry off, I can do it again because I don't care how crazy my hair looks. I know how to fish and I know how to steer a canoe. I can surf and I wear twine bracelets and I'm tanned because I'm always outside. I'm the outdoors girl that doesn't always say the right thing but that knows how to have a good time and knows how to make you laugh--whether on purpose or due to one of her crazy, habitual antics. I would take being outside in a canoe on a lake all day rather than fake interest in a lame, alcohol-fueled club. That's not fun for me. Fun is not trying to dance to music that is being played way too loudly. Fun is not sticky and sweaty in a club. Fun is not trying to fend off a drunk guys' hands all over you. Fun is not trying to attract the attention of the boy across the floor. Fun is shrieking while hanging on for dear life on a Zodiac boat that's flying over the swells. Fun is killing the motor on the Zodiac in the middle of the lake, no shore in sight, and diving right off to splash in the water. Fun is kayaking and feeling just how powerful the water is. Fun is laying down on the dock in a bikini, soaking wet, hair spread out all around you, and falling asleep. Fun is sitting on the dock at 6AM with a cup of coffee, feet dangling in the water. Fun is being totally in your element.
I am a different kind of girl compared to the perfect, put-together ones. I am the outdoors girl. The one with the beach hair and olive skin and easy going smile. The girl with a towel, a bikini, and an extra pair of flip flops in her car trunk at all times, just in case. I'm the girl that you can't drag inside when it's a nice day out, especially when there's a body of water somewhere nearby. I'm the one that you can hear laughing at the top of her lungs from across the lake, when the canoe was purposely tipped over. I'm the type of girl that you can't throw into the water fully clothed, because I'll have already jumped in.
I've found the type of girl that I am. And you know what? I love her. She's a whole helluva lot more fun than the girl I pretended to be.
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