People often ask me if I’m bothered by Blake drinking, given that I’ve been sober for almost 2 years now. The short answer is NOT AT ALL. The longer answer is that I believe that Blake has beautiful wisdom and doesn’t need me micromanaging his drinking or any part of his life.
My answer may have surprised you, and I think it applies to more than just the sober, the sober-curious, and those who love them.
I should begin by noting that Blake is a grown, independent man. I have no more control over him and his habits than I do over the US economy. I’m his wife, his partner, his support, and his equal, but I am not his mother. I have no desire to control or manipulate him as if he were a dog or a child (and honestly, we shouldn’t be treating children that way either). I will hold back from a rant on this topic, but I firmly believe that the normalization of a derisive, controlling tension between spouses is incredibly harmful and should be stopped.
Back to me ;). My full journey is a topic for another post on another day, but suffice it to say, I stopped drinking almost 2 years ago to support my gut and hormone healing journey, and I am a better version of myself now that alcohol isn’t part of my life. I can’t say I was an alcoholic, but I also can’t say I had a healthy relationship with alcohol.
I’m no teetotaler, I don’t think drinking is inherently wrong or inherently unhealthy, and I can’t say I’ll never drink again. It merely doesn’t serve me currently, and I don’t foresee a net gain from adding it back in right now. I’ve talked at length about my disordered eating journey, and I can’t overlook the obvious connection between my restrictive relationship with food and my frenetic relationship with alcohol and regular blackouts.
In stark contrast lies Blake and his healthy relationship with both food and alcohol. He approaches booze with balance, listens to his body, and indulges responsibly. This is a wild concept for someone like me, but he is able to drink regularly and almost never to excess.
Just as I’ve been so careful never to impose my dietary restrictions (once self-imposed, now medically-imposed) on Blake, I refuse to impose my alcohol restriction on him. I’d hate to get in the way of his connection with his body’s cues, his neutral relationship with indulgences (whether that be Coor’s Light or Reese’s), or his ability to enjoy pleasure in moderation.
For all of these reasons, and so many more, I gladly keep multiple refrigerators stocked with Coors Light and our snack cabinet full of his favorite sweets. Life is about balance and moderation and diversity of thought and habit and preference. As I learn to be a better partner, I have leaned into the idea that what is best for me isn’t always what is best for Blake, and I can live with that duality.
The Feminists will come for me on this one, but right now a night at the motocross track with my husband and his friends feels superior to ladies night for me. As an avowed, card carrying, girls’ girl, I never thought I’d say this. I give a full-body YES to tagging along with my husband any chance I get.
I’ve established that my husband and I have distinctly different interests and hobbies. I am an indoor cat and will probably never be seen in the back country or at the top of a mountain or on an actual dirt bike. I never begrudge him his days at the track without me, long weekends skiing, or late nights in the garage. I think that our independent time and separate hobbies allow us to complement and truly appreciate each other. However, I will absolutely go out of my way to watch him race or watch local races with him and his friends.
Why? Because there’s something magic about nights at the track, squeezed between him and his friends on the bleachers, asking questions and covering my ears. There’s something magic about holding my breath as I watch him race and then running to hug him and sit while he dissects every turn and how he’ll do better next time. There’s something magic about sitting on the back of his pickup with a hot tea, getting to know his friends.
It’s these moments that keep us connected. They make my world a little bigger and signal to him that, while I may never fully understand his world, I love him enough to want to explore it with him.
Don’t get me wrong. I still get all tingly when I think about a spa day, a shopping trip, a long walk, or a night dressed up for deep conversation with my girls. BUT for me, right now, as I care for our fledgling marriage, an opportunity to visit Blake’s world will trump a ladies’ night. That will likely change, but in this stage, I’m going to throw on jeans and one of his giant hoodies and head to the track every chance I get.
xoxo Your Favorite Late Bloomer
I’d love to continue this conversation! Find my on Instagram @bailey_bowerman
If I’ve learned anything over the past couple of years, it’s that healing is a circuitous process. Often, the solution to one problem causes other problems, all with seemingly endless and increasingly burdensome possible solutions.
I worked so hard to gain weight, accept my new body, and celebrate food freedom that I was confused and disappointed that the energy and strength I expected with a sufficiently-fueled body didn’t come.
Months of unanswered questions and fruitless pregnancy attempts ended with discovering that I had some severe gut, immune, and hormone issues that required a seriously restrictive diet and intense treatment regimen.
The diet used to heal infections that were wreaking havoc on my body left me thinner than I’ve ever been. This lead to more severe hormonal issues. I’m now on a journey to gain weight while continuing to heal my gut.
I don’t always look or feel it, but I am different, maintaining recovery, and making progress everyday. My carefully curated meal plan doesn’t look like the food freedom I aim for, but I make choices based on facts rather than fear, and one day I’ll be healed enough to experience the freedom I seek.
Here are the actions and mindset shifts that are keeping me on track:
✌️I am now motivated by a desire to heal my body, rather than a desire to control my body.
✌️I know exactly what I want and align my actions with those goals.
✌️I check in regularly with healthcare professionals and therapists
✌️I check in with myself and my body before taking any advice or adding any new treatment.
✌️I listen to my body and its cues
✌️I am honest with family and friends about my journey.
✌️I rest without shame.
✌️I remind myself daily (ok…hourly) that my body is resilient and I will rise again.
A couple years ago, I learned to love a bigger body. Then, I learned to love a smaller body, because it was still mine, and it fought to get me where I need to go. Now, I am loving my body as it grows again
Especially in the alternative, natural healing space, there are plenty of experts ready to tell you about all of the “bad” foods you need to eliminate to heal. They operate in and propagate fear, making food out to be more enemy than ally.
After overcoming disordered eating, I refuse to accept that I will have to eat a restrictive diet for the rest of my life. It’s been a slow, painful process, but I’m adding diversity back into my diet after being restricted for health reasons for almost a full year! I couldn’t do it without the help of @nutrition_dynamic and @kristensmithdpt
I’m re-learning how to relate to different foods and how to help my body do its job.
In a world that full of voices giving us rules and assigning food a moral value, I claim freedom. ⚡️I refuse to cut entire food groups out ever again. ⚡️I refuse to make food decisions based on fear. ⚡️I refuse to be left out of celebrations.
I’m so close to freedom, I can TASTE it! ⚡️I will cook one meal for my husband and me. ⚡️I will savor birthday cake with friends. ⚡️I will make and eat waffles with my kids. ⚡️I will go to the fair and sample fair food. ⚡️I will enjoy dinners out for both the company and the food.
Recovery from disordered eating alongside recovery from chronic gut and hormone issues is a bit of a mind-fuck. I’m still on this journey and far from an expert, but I hope that my thoughts are helpful and encouraging to my fellow fighters.
I’d love to hear how you deal with similar fights!
Everything changed for me when I began living as an ancestor. When I stopped viewing my life as merely mine and as merely affecting me and my contemporaries, change became inevitable, struggle started making sense, and excellence shifted from a maybe to a non-negotiable. When I started living as the ancestor of generations yet to manifest, my entire perspective shifted.
This transformation is akin to the one I experienced when I got married. When I realized that my bullshit was affecting Blake as much as it was affecting me, I decided I could put up with it no longer. The habits that I had once kept so comfortably hidden demanded exposure and attention. It was as if the issues I had once struggled to even acknowledge, were now so clear; the challenges I had tried and failed at overcoming countless times, were now met with new strength and resilience.
Now, I feel called-no. that’s not right. I feel gently lifted, supported, drawn-to level up because my life and my actions have even more weight than I thought.
It’s more than the thought of possible future children. That’s part of it, but we have faced, mourned, and accepted the fact that we may not have the honor of our own children in this life. I may not have the chance to exert the immediate influence of the nuclear family and resulting direct bloodline. Nevertheless, I am an ancestor. My struggles and successes will affect those that come after me, regardless of whether I pass on my genes. The generational traumas I heal feel like less of an unfair burden when I think of the fact that future generations won’t have to bear this burden.
I no longer struggle with feeling that my lot in life is less than fair, especially when I see friends easily conceive while doing all of the things I was told kept me from motherhood. There were times I resented those who used fear to teach me and the years I once viewed as wasted dealing with and healing old traumas instead of forging ahead. No longer.
I know that I am merely one part of a long heritage, and my life will either lighten the burden of future generations or add to it. This knowledge puts my life and my healing journey into perspective. It is necessary. It is not a waste. Fairness is irrelevant. My comfort is irrelevant.
I am not merely Bailey Bowerman. I am a descendant. I am a future ancestor. I am a healer of generational trauma.
Unconditional love is touted as the gold standard. It’s the stuff of fairy tales, wedding speeches, and sermons. We spend way too much time on quests to find this holy grail of love; I’ve stopped seeking it, and I implore you to do the same.
On a certain level, I get it. We all crave safety and security, and we find comfort in the idea that we can live without fear of being left or betrayed by loved ones. It’s this safety that allows us to move out of survival mode and finally get to the beautiful work of self-knowledge. It’s this safety that allows us to be vulnerable and create bigger, better lives than we could on our own.
However, I firmly believe that we can expect unconditional love only from ourselves.
Can we expect safety and security in certain well-established relationships? ABSOLUTELY.
Can we lay out standards and expectations for those close to us? ABSOLUTELY.
Can we commit to sticking with another person through tough times? ABSOLUTELY.
Allow me to present an example. When I married Blake, we committed to one another for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, etc. (actually we wrote our own sappy vows, but you get the point :)). The moment we made that commitment, I felt safer and more secure. I know that Blake is committed to me, and I am committed to him. However, if I were to become abusive or completely shift values and priorities to the point of being or incompatible with him, he should leave me. His love is steady and gracious; he has chosen to stand with me through drama, embarrassment, health crises, and emotional valleys. Nevertheless, his love is not without conditions.
True love, completely void of conditions, cannot and should not be expected from anyone outside of your own body. It is only after I accepted this fact and received the unconditional love I craved from myself that I was able to feel safe, set boundaries, and grow. It is this knowledge that invites me to expect loyalty and affection commensurate with the particular relationship but never to rest on my laurels, “because you’re stuck with me now.” Similarly, I am no longer shocked or hurt when a friend is less than unconditionally loyal, because I know that I am only one of many priorities for most of my friends and family and that I land at varying levels of importance in each of their lives.
I’m ok with this now, because I know that there is one person who knows the worst parts of me, who sees my true weakness, who understands my inherent value, and loves me unconditionally.
I write this from bed at 5:04 AM. Blake just left for a snow camping trip (yes, he is voluntarily CAMPING ON SNOW), and I decided that I must collect my thoughts now, while they are fresh.
Loving someone who feels most alive when he is risking his life is not something I was prepared for. It is a unique experience, but I have a feeling I am not alone. I share my experience in hopes that some one feels a little less alone and perhaps benefits from what I’ve learned.
I remember when Blake and I first got engaged, I came to the unsettling realization that I had found something outside of myself that I loved as much as, if not more than myself. While love and partnership came with a newfound safety, I could not escape the vulnerability of knowing that there was someone outside of my body who, if I were to lose him, part of me would die. It was the first time I had something to lose. I am a naturally selfish person. That is not a self-deprecating statement; it’s just the truth. I survived a big family, a competitive academic environment, and a few cut-throat careers as a single woman by putting a lot of focus on myself and my survival. Despite my natural tendencies toward self-preservation, I came to this unsettling realization a bit sooner than I might have, because Blake’s commitment to chasing adrenaline put him at constant risk. I was all too aware of how close death was for the person I had grown to love so much.
A second, closely-following realization was that asking Blake to refrain from the countless dangerous activities he loves so much was out of the question. I absolutely could not keep him safe by stifling him and keeping him close to me. I knew that he wouldn’t be the man I fell in love with if he stopped doing the things he loves. I had to come to terms with the fact that he may die doing the things he loves, but I’d rather that happen than ask him to live a life of quiet desperation.
I vividly remember sitting at the big kitchen table in Blake’s farmhouse in Latah, Washington as he’d passionately recount his latest ski adventure (like a little kid, pacing the entire length of the room, not breathing, talking a mile a minute about the “sick line” he hit). I remember physically listening calmly but internally combusting. Outwardly and consciously I was interested, but everything inside me wished he’d “SHUT UP.” I regularly would completely miss chunks of his stories as I dissociated and left my body. At first, I thought this was yet another example of my selfishness, but after more reflection, I realized that it wasn’t a need for attention or a lack of desire to give him the attention he deserved. Rather, it was a reaction to the fact that the topics he was so excited about caused me to confront my fear of losing him. The stories of adventures that were exciting to him, as he pictured success and felt a rush of adrenaline, were terrifying and painful for me, as I pondered how close I came to losing him on each trip.
A little over three years later, things are quite different. I’ve learned a lot about skiing, touring, the back country, avalanche safety, snow camping, surfing, motocross, super cross, vintage motorcycles, skate boards, and boats. Our relationship has matured a bit, I’ve matured a bit, and I find joy in empowering Blake to succeed in his many hobbies and in hearing all about the many details of each adventure.
There are a lot of things I learned and changed in order to get here, and there are a lot of things I still have to learn and change. In today’s blog, I’m covering the first and toughest one:
A shift in Perspective: Adjusting my Expectations for Blake and how I Relate to him.
I no longer view Blake as merely MY HUSBAND-a possession, someone who owes me all of his time and attention and resources. Instead, I have come to relate to him as a wild, honored guest, and I have the unique pleasure of hosting him when he touches down to earth. I no longer wish he was like my girlfriends’ husbands who play golf, go on cute dates on the weekends, accompany them on trips to the grocery store, and make it to every family function, because I fell in love with a wild, feral Blake. What makes him so wonderful and wild are these things that he loves.
A big part of making my peace with this has been letting go of my ego, my western mindset, and my belief that his life should revolve around me. I had to shed the idea that I should be part of the banner moments in his life, because I never will be. The moments that light me up and that I look forward to are the mundane ones-the dinners at home, the evening walks, the long drives holding hands over the center console. In contrast, the moments that light Blake up are not with me. They are the moments right before sends it (whether it be the start of a race or catching a wave or skiing a first descent).
This doesn’t mean that he doesn’t love and value me. As much as he knows how to exist in the mundane, he chooses to rest there with me. He needs the steady, the boring, the safe to balance out the rest of his life, and I am proud to be an asset to him in that way.
All of this is what is most beautiful about him. This is what makes him such a wonderful partner. His ability to function in the face of adversity is unparalleled. The way his brain works, the elevated level at which he functions daily with little downtime, and the fact that he is able to make very detailed, reasoned decisions very quickly make me feel so lucky to know him and support him. Nothing throws him off; nothing I’ve ever said or thought has scared him. His ability to love is so big. He has the unique ability to see my imperfection, love it, and make me feel safe, all while demanding greatness. I think it is because of the training he’s gone through, because of his regular exposure to high intensity situations. I love those things, and I’m so honored to get to host Blake’s earth-bound life.
Marriage is so much better and bigger and wilder and harder than I expected. It’s not what movies showed me. It’s not what my parents showed me. Loving someone like Blake is such a wild experience. The best way I can put it is to say that Blake is this wild soul that I cannot control, but I look forward to hosting him from time to time.
Does this resonate with any of you fellow lovers of wild souls? I’d love to hear your thoughts! And stay tuned for Part 2 of how I love my adrenaline junkie!
I’ve dubbed myself a late bloomer because I did just about everything a little later than I expected. I found strength and independence in my late twenties when I started questioning things, stopped substituting the judgment of authority figures for my own, and left the job I’d fought so hard to get. That started a domino effect of discoveries. I found my voice when I moved across the country, I found my greatest ally when I allowed myself to take up space, I found rest when I got married, and I found true power in the vulnerability of rest.
I risk alienating myself from the boss babes and feminists, but I must say it—marriage is the best, hardest, most restful thing I’ve experienced. I was told not to let a man change me, but marriage has done just that.
After decades of hustling and forcing myself into ill-fitting spaces, all to avoid insignificance and escape the person I might be, I’ve found rest. It’s not what I thought rest would be; it brings to mind the New Testament idea of “labour[ing] to enter into that rest” and Lewis’s description of the hero figure as not “safe” but “good.”
By rest, I mean something I’m only beginning to understand. Those who have tasted it know it’s not easily defined. It’s neither laziness nor toil. It’s finding flow. It’s simultaneously strong and vulnerable and always authentic.
Being in an honest relationship with a strong individual who is anything but “safe” but oh so “good” forced me to address the things I was happy to ignore before. My self-sabotaging ego did not go quietly into the night. My fears of falling apart and losing part of myself all came true, but in such a beautiful way.
The safety of marriage allowed me and my body the space to finally confront the physical and emotional healing I had put off for so long. It is just so delicious that the most important work of my life started from a place of rest.
I said during our wedding ceremony that I’ve lived so many lives but they were all small because I was wrapped up in myself. Now, after a lot of work and the love of a resilient man who isn’t threatened by me or any of my struggles, I can say I’m bigger and better and stronger and braver and more creative.
I’m not changing the world like I once strove to, but I work hard everyday to enter into rest and to act from that place of rest. My life is arguably insignificant, save in the eyes of my little family and small circle of friends, but it feels authentic and it fits.
