Make Up Sex

The Costa Rica Yoga Retreat that saved my relationship with joy.

The fact that I had to look up if the grammatically correct way of writing this type of sex was one word, hyphenated, or two completely unrelated but potentially deeply intimate words was sort of a kill joy, but I took a second to breathe and return to the right body space, so back to sex we go!

If you want to have life-changing make up sex, go to Costa Rica.

No, I’m serious. I know it’s the new “in” vacation destination for all Americans of a certain socioeconomic status, but you can most assuredly find monkeys in the jungle steps from the bluest ocean you’ve ever laid eyes on, so the sex appeal is still there. Trust me.

I was there last February.

But the fight, the fight started many Februarys before that. February 2020 to be exact. That February was when my mom was diagnosed with terminal cancer. That February was when I got in an altercation with joy. My joy.

To be fair, my relationship with joy was already a bit strained. I was husbandless, with a toddler, and the flu. It’s fair to say that I was giving joy the silent treatment, a supremely adult thing to do with a highly effective outcome. Said no one.

But when Mom got sick, well, I told joy to go fuck herself.

It wasn’t pretty. She took it hard. We don’t usually cuss at each other. You know, “no take backsies” and all that. I didn’t mean it.

No, no, that’s a lie. I meant it. But I was hurt. And overwhelmed. And I wanted her to figure that out of her own accord and ignore my words and reach for my pain.

It didn’t happen.

Mom died. I spent another 11 months husbandless. And then the accident.

When my husband was laying in the street after having been catapulted off his motorcycle, I wonder if joy thought “Oh. Shit.” Because the fight we were in, the one where I mouthed off and she retreated and the silent treatment became mutual. That was always supposed to be temporary.

But now. But this.

I think she thought I thought she did this. Or at least didn’t stop this.

So, she stayed away. And I stayed numb. No part of me capable of looking for her or even caring if she ever showed up again.

Time and trauma caused the rift between us to deepen.

Until one day, I laughed. Spontaneously. At something my husband said that was, for once 😏, actually funny. And I thought of her. Where she was. How to find her.

If you were with us last week, you know I eventually found joy again where she’d always been. On my mat. I only realized that permanence after the fact. I had felt abandoned, but the force field of my suffering was too strong to allow her attempts at reconciliation or recompense to get through. I had to get quiet. And still. And safe to hear her whisper.

We were on the mend, but my heart was fragmented, and my faith in joy completely shaken. Life was also continuing to pound me in to a pulp, my job sucking the satisfaction out of every moment, a third party intent on sabotaging this reunion. In July, I knew joy and I were going to need something more drastic to reestablish a solid relationship. So, feeling extremely guilty about the money and the time away from my husband and kiddo, I booked us tickets to Costa Rica.

A yoga retreat, of all things.

Six months went by. Six months of building a tenuous tie that both joy and I were holding on to for dear life. We knew the relationship was fragile at best, that there was little to no trust, and that a strong wind much less another tsunami might be the end. Like the one with a big “E”.

The week before we left, I went through all the feels. I hadn’t quit my job…yet, so I was stressing over leaving behind my computer and delegating all of my responsibility to a dwindling, albeit highly capable team. My daughter was less than thrilled with the prospect of me being gone for a week, and the money, argh. Why am I so fiscally responsible?

But I got on the plane anyway. Sun hat in hand. Freezing my ass off in a spaghetti strapped dress and jean jacket. In February. Holding joy’s hand limply and praying there was drink service on the plane.

When we arrived…not like to the country, but after the 2.5 hour dusty, bumpy, nausea-inducing ride from the airport to Nosara…just W-O-W.

You ever been on one of those vacations where you stay naked? Like, there’s kinda no point in getting dressed because you’re apt to start something at any second? The air is intoxicating, you feel intoxicating, and whatever the hell they’re putting in your glass is 100% intoxicating?

Costa Rica was like that…for joy…and for my heart.

I let my heart be naked, freeing her up from the layers and layers of protective outerwear she’d been sporting for the past four years. I let her be triggered, by a prompt, a phrase, a pose, a sunset, or yes, a monkey. Whatever came up, came out, or didn’t, I went with it. I invited joy to roll all over me, sandy, sweaty, salty.

Whatever anger I was holding on to evaporated with the morning sun salutations. And the noise, the loud cacophony of crap that had been banging around in my brain, a self-indulgent toddler with a wooden spoon and a set of pots and pans, that kiddo finally went down for a nap.

I ate all the things, indulging in food that felt fancy and fattening, but was really just fresh and made for me by someone else.

And I moved. Sometimes with great intention, sweat building as we flowed up and down. But often times slowly, softly, signals from my body pinging my mind as to what to do next. I didn’t have to think, need to think. The thinking was taken care of. I just had to move.

After a few days, I could hear joy clearly. I felt her, viscerally. And I knew her again…intimately.

It was a week of make up sex. No hyphen.

And while that hormone high never stays, joy did. When I returned, I started this Substack (Happy Anniversary to The Joy Luck Club! Read the very first entry here). Shortly after, I quit my job. I signed a contract to write a chapter in a book. And I started writing, like it was my job, because it became so.

Costa Rica saved joy and I. It solidified that we have a relationship worth fighting for. It solidified that I am worth fighting for. Whether it was the natural high of the breathwork, the morning meditation with the monkeys, or the kind countenance of the coffee maker showing us the bounty of his joy, I felt alive in Costa Rica. Such a contrast to the suffering, such proof that there is more to life than just not dying.

I’ve spent a year musing over what my one great takeaway would be from my time in Costa Rica. What’s the big thing that summarizes the multitude of little things that you just can’t know or believe until you’ve done or seen them. It’s taken me a year, but I think I’ve nailed it.

You have to want to do more than simply survive to be in relationship with joy. She’s a silent sidecar to suffering, unable to do more than sit shiva beside you. If you want to hear her voice, your voice, you must lean in to living.

So, if you go to Costa Rica, be prepared to get naked. After all, make up sex is pretty impossible if you keep all your clothes on.

😉

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I cannot thank Tara Casagrande and Becky Sutton enough for their wisdom and leadership on this yoga retreat. If you are looking for “life-changing” (with a hyphen), please consider one of their yoga retreats. It will change your relationship with yourself and with joy. Find them @tcyogamindfulness and @wildradiantyoga on the ‘Gram.