I think one of the weirdest things to realize is that this blog has been following my life since I was 22... wait, 21... somewhere around then, I don't care to do the math right now. And this year, 2016, I turn 30. And while at 21/22 you like to think you're a grown up and you feel grown up, looking back at the girl who first sat down in her parent's kitchen and signed up for a blogger account, well, she was a girl. She was a girl who would grow so much in the next 8 years. So much would happen to her and eventually she would find herself, years later, still logging into blogger and sitting down to type at midnight, but this time she would realize that she's a grown. ass. woman. Who, most definitely, hasn't experienced all there is to experience as a woman, but who is undoubtedly a full woman.

I suppose it's an odd transition that I never really acknowledged as having happened. Perhaps because part of that transition was definitely sexual in nature and maybe I was a late bloomer in that regard compared to some people. And sex isn't something that I've really talked about on the blog. But in a way it's funny to think that who I am as a whole woman can't be discussed without that as part of the package. Kristina and I were laying here in the Brave talking about having kids and damn. If that isn't a conversation that will punch you in the face with, "Hey, so you're like a fucking WOMAN. Who is discussing the possibility of making a human with your body." Whoa.

Being on this trip we've cultivated an extremely, and very intentionally, feminine space. We felt like we really needed to be surrounded by very feminine energy and wanted to foster that at Wildbride retreats, and for most of the trip, even when we weren't leading retreats, we were around almost exclusively women. There was a brief time when we were camping in Joshua Tree where we found ourselves reintroduced to hanging out with men and it was a stark moment of being thrust back into a male energy space, which was very interesting. While I was sad to be away from Dan for so long and don't really want to be away from him like that again, we both recognized that making this trip very woman-focused in its entirety was the right choice. But all of that is a rambling, roundabout way of saying, womanhood has been very much on the brain for the past 6 weeks. And I realized that I never really have fully stepped into the fullness of my womanhood. I'm discovering how deep and broad womanhood is. How wild and wonderful it is. It is nurturing, and raucous, and sensual, and light, and fierce, and erotic, and silly, and intense, and visceral, and hilarious. I'm finding myself wanting to stretch into every part of it, especially the parts I hadn't realized I wasn't allowing myself to stretch into. Like when you start working out and discover muscles you didn't even know you had.

A lot of our Wildbrides have talked to us after the retreats about how it's difficult to transition back into real life after the weekend and while we were able to offer some suggestions for carrying Wildbride life forward and integrating the intentions and lessons born at the retreat into daily life, we also haven't yet made that transition ourselves. It's almost like we've been on the longest and most crazy Wildbride retreat ourselves, on this 6 week road trip along the west coast. I'm just now beginning to be able to process what was created in the past couple months, and how it changed me and grew me. And getting home and back to "real" life is going to be a hell of a thing. In a way I refuse to believe that what is waiting for me at home is "real" life. I don't want to believe that real life has to be the shitty daily grind of boringness. Not that I believe that my life that's waiting for me at home is just a shitty daily grind of boringness, not at all. But there's also a seed within me, and Dan too, that wants something different. It's a seed that has been there for a while and in the past few months has started to germinate and begin growing and becoming real. I'm not sure what it will end up looking like, but I know that life going forward from here will be different. It will not be a shitty daily grind of boringness because goddamnit I have one fucking chance to live life as a human on this planet and so far it's been awesome, but I refuse to spend my days and hours and breaths scrolling through social media and wishing for a life I don't have. Life is there for the taking and I'm reaching out and grabbing it because why not.

This is it. This is life. No more waiting. I'm stretching into every corner of my life, my womanhood. Let's do this.