The Story of Us

Did you ever meet somebody who sort of sets you free from the bounds of Time and Space? It’s hard to believe that we only met as recently as September 6, 2017. But, that is where the story of us began, and oh how sweet life has been since.

We were both previously married, long term relationships measuring 20 years for her and 16 or him. But, what we think is right when we are young doesn’t always turn out to be healthy long term. So, we found ourselves single again, with a new start, but this time with kids.

Dating can be a bit of a rollercoaster. As a rule, you have to spend time with a lot of people you are incompatible with to simply find out that you are not compatible with them and move onto the next “maybe”. A series of excitement followed by disappointment. It’s easy to get discouraged, and you start to look for “good enough” which doesn’t feel quite right.

Neither of us are traditional. Neither of us values the “status quo” of social normality. So trying to fit in with potential suitors who embraced typical American goals in life was tiresome. So, you can imagine what a breath of fresh air it was to find a person who not only checked all the boxes you hoped for, but also exceeded these expectations. We both found things we didn’t even know we were looking for; things we couldn’t have imagined finding all in one person.

The story goes like this…. We met on Bumble. She was not at all into swiping apps and had only set up a profile days before. On the app you set parameters, and her “distance limit” was set to about 5 miles. He lived 50 miles away, but just happened to be eating out at a delicious vegan restaurant that was within her 5 mile bubble. He had seen her dating profile a few days before, and “liked it” but, without a reply (because of the 5 mile radius). Fortunately, she happened to be on her phone at the time that he happened to be eating at the restaurant, and happened to “like him back”….it was A MATCH!

We started texting in the app. She found out he was a vegetarian, which she liked, because she was raised as a vegetarian as well. He was going to a photography store and a music store afterwards. She loves photography and music and creativity, so these were pluses. We talked about surfing and paddle boarding. We talked about traveling and a love for new adventures in nature, and our kids. It was enough for setting up a date, plus, he thought she was cute, and she thought he was cute too...

Our first date was at an Indian restaurant which he loved and she had never been to (but she loves Indian food). We ended up talking about all the things you are not supposed to talk about, religion, politics, diet, childhood, past relationships, etc. We even ended up discussing naturism. She mentioned she liked exploring Canaveral National Seashore and was surprised to learn that there was a nude beach there that he went to occasionally. He replied, “It’s not weird or perverted or anything, just, sort of European”. To which said “I don’t find it weird at all, my parents are both nudists, I grew up that way”. Surprise! Long story short, our Indian dinner was fantastic. We figured out that neither of us was typical, and that was a great thing. We also found out that we were both on the same wavelength, another check in an unforeseen box. Looking back, both of us felt that we had found somebody rare and special, and that they might be “the one”, but, at the time those feelings are hard to bring into focus. Might just be too good to be true…?

Our second date ended up being a Hurricane named Irma. We ended up stuck in a house together without electricity for 3 days. We were both a bit apprehensive about having such a long date. He had said at one point, “By the end of this we are either going to never want to talk to each other again, or we’ll be completely inseparable”. Fortunately the later was true. It’s interesting how deeply you can connect with somebody when there are no distractions, no TV, no fancy dinners, no air conditioning….just hours of conversation. By the next week we both admitted to each other that there was nobody else that we wanted to pursue and that we wanted to focus on developing us and see where this would go. So, we both killed our online dating profiles and became wholly committed to each other.

A few months later we introduced our kids to each other, and found that they got along great. Fewww… We started going on adventures together and it just felt natural. As we blended our lives things got better and better. We eventually bought a house together and she ended up moving 45 miles outside of her Bumble bubble. One year after we met he proposed to her on a sunny afternoon under a majestic arch in Etretat, France. We were married in our backyard surrounded by our friends and family on April 14, 2019 (5779). And the adventures continue… A real family of five!

We often get asked “Who introduced who to naturism?” It’s funny that neither of us was seeking out “a naturist” when we were dating. That’s one of those “exceeded my expectations” strokes of good luck that we had. It turned out she was raised as a nudist, but sort of out of practice with any social nudism. He was not raised as a nudist, but had been fairly involved with helping to shape a social nudism movement for young adults. So I guess the answer is that neither of us needed an introduction to naturism. We were both already naturists in our own way, and as our lives naturally blended together, so did our love of naturism. So,,, Our Natural Life was born…! We started the Instagram account really just to chronicle are naturist adventures together. A place to put all the pictures we weren’t putting on our “regular accounts”. But as with other things we are both somewhat overachievers so we decided to turn it into a way to share our passion with others and possibly educate those who were interested in naturism. Nothing pushy just natural and in our opinions totally normal. So we loved getting questions and meeting new people, literally all over the world… Look for the blog post Connecting Through Naturism!

We feel that the two of us have a nice blend of experiences. She knows what it is like to be raised as a nudist. He knows what it is like to journey into naturism as a young adult. We have had the opportunity to travel and see how naturism varies around the world. And thanks to our continued involvement with the young adult naturist movement we remain connected to the American flavor of naturism. While we both recognize that naturism is not for everybody, we feel deeply that it is for us. We have also noticed that there is a lack of examples of what naturism looks like in its most basic form. The point of naturism, as we see it, is simplicity, to be more connected to nature and to each other by removing all the unnecessary ingredients. Except sunscreen, sunscreen is most definitely a necessary ingredient…

We want to thank you for reading our posts and for following along on this journey with us. We have made so many fond memories already and we look forward to what life has to offer as we continue on our adventure together…