when I had to selfie my a**

**published in HuffPost on 09/19/17**

“Don’t you get lonely?”

This is a frequently asked question when the topic of my being single comes up. I have been divorced for almost seven years, single most of the time, except for two serious relationships lasting two years total and a few shorter lived relationships in between. Do I get lonely? Sometimes, yes. But overall my life and heart are full. I have an active social life and my boys, along with great friends, keep me highly amused, entertained and distracted.

“What about sex?”

The truth is, sex is usually a text or call away when desire calls for action. Most of the time I get over it by following it through in my mind: he might want to go out first …wait, I have to shave my legs…it will take him [x] minutes to get here…what if he wants to stay over…that’s too much of a time commitment, never mind. I don’t miss sex. What I miss is meaningful sex. And that’s worth the wait.

There are moments, however, when I miss having a partner and the emotional intimacy of being with someone special. Sometimes these moments are practical, like realizing that a sundress is not proper attire to carry three 40lb bags of soil from the car to the yard…solo. I recently put screens up on every window of the house, all 13 of them…solo. It took twice as long, in 90ºF heat, because I had to run inside the house at every window to secure the screen latch.

Sometimes the moments are more emotional. The two minute walk from my office to my car can sometimes be lonely. Between the end of the work day and beginning of my evening (which starts in the car listening to music during my commute home), sometimes I wish I could call or text someone who will give me that virtual end-of-day hug that says, “you are special.”

And then there are moments that make me laugh and say out loud, “has it really come to this?!?”

One of my most humbling and downright pathetic moments occurred one evening when I was in a hotel bathroom in foreign land, with my boys in the next room, and I had to take a selfie of…my…ASS, so that I could properly administer first aid.

My boys (11yrs and 14yrs) and I traveled through the Philippines and visited Taal Volcano in an all day adventure involving a four hour total drive to/from, plus boat rides and horseback to the crater. My backside started to hurt on the horse ride up to the crater. The specular views riding back down were somewhat overshadowed by the increasing pain in my hind quarters, clearly from the friction against the saddle. About midway back to the hotel I grew concerned by the then almost unbearable pain. Cut to the hotel bathroom….

After showering, I was finally able to assess the pain coming from the top part of my butt crack. What I felt was an area of skin completely raw. Feeling the raw skin was already shocking enough, but I needed to see what was going on. Now…I consider myself pretty athletic and flexible. But there was simply no way of orchestrating placements of the hand, wall and makeup mirrors along with physical athleticism that would allow for the perfect view of my injured ass. It was time for a selfie.

At this point, I’m laughing and talking to myself, “Really? I’m doing this? What. The. F*ck.” I was also imagining worse case scenarios of forgetting to delete the ass selfies (because I had to take a few to get it right), only to discover them while scrolling through vacation pictures with friends.

I discovered that my injury was round and slightly larger than the size of a quarter. It definitely needed some first aid…and I wanted help. I approached the boys and explained my injury, while they looked at me with a concerned “where are you going with this?” expression.

“I’m going to need help with…” and before I could finish my sentence…

“Not it!” yells one, as if I had just invited them to a game of tag.

What quickly followed was arguing between them on who has helped me more at home and how the other one should help me. The argument got heated.

Exasperated and admittedly relieved that this was not going to be a topic in any of their potential future therapy sessions, I stormed off to the bathroom, “Forget it! I’ll figure it out.” With creative use of round makeup cotton and Neosporin, I was able to self administer first aid.

This selfie moment stands out not because I would necessarily expect a boyfriend to help me. I’m not even sure I would want that kind of help from my man. But it was a moment so awkward and so ridiculous, with plenty of potential humorous tangents, that it was almost a shame to experience it alone. It was the kind of moment that could be most appreciated by a special someone who could laugh with me and then say, “Ok, babe. Bend over so I can take care of your chaffed ass.”

h5 to selfies!

Thoughts or comments? Would love to hear from you here!