Episode #13: Overcoming Trauma #13 - Another round of golf

Jan,18 2026

<-#12: Overcoming Trauma #12: Avoiding Church

So here I am, roped into a game of golf.

I am with my new best friend, Nadia, and with my husband, but previous games with John didn't make the game any more fun.

Fine, maybe I prefer to look at what he is wearing now compared to his ugly golf clothes, but this isn't enough to just make me accept this stupid game.

"Texas scramble, inclusion style?", says Nadia.

Both men approve, and honestly, I have no idea what that means.

She turns to me. "How bad are you? I suck. And I mean, suck, except on the green. I have no strength, and if I manage to get it far, I get no accuracy at all. If left on my own, I'll probably need 6 or 7 hits on a par 3. I propose to start, unless you feel you are worse than I am?"

I look at her. This act of modesty is far from other people I've tried golf with. Most golfers, my husband excluded, will brag about past feats and will claim their current misfortune is due to some imaginary ill or perhaps to a crooked club.

It's a game of social domination disguised as fun. I can understand why businessmen play it to show how strong they are over their clients or suppliers.

But a simple nurse like me?

I just show her the tee. I don't like the game; I am not good at the game. But I don't suck at it.

Nadia grabs one of her husband's clubs. The driver. I know that. Now, I also know the putter, and I know that wedges are to get out of sandpits, but I usually let my husband pick the right club for me.

She swings and appears to have good form, but something went wrong, and the ball doesn't go that far. I think her angle of attack is wrong, but it's not like I can judge that. My husband went on a few times about that, but I still don't fully get it.

And yet, Patrick goes, "Not bad. You landed straight in the middle"

"Yeah, one of my best first balls!"

I am next. I take my husband's driver, and I get it much further, but after rolling, it ends in a sand trap. It's close to the grass, so I shouldn't have much trouble getting it out.

Patrick is next and gets it only a few yards further than mine but is in the middle of the grass. Seriously, it makes me impressed by my own hit.

John, however, blows both of us out of the water.

"You got better today", Patrick says.

"Lucky shot, but I have my lucky charm with me. Plus, I know the layout now..."

Patrick laughs. I am the lucky charm, I guess.

What happens next baffles my mind!

Nadia is next, but not because she is the furthest. She is next, not because her ball was chosen, but because the order never changes.

Instead of playing from her location all the way back, she plays from John's location.

She still picks the driver and gets halfway to the green.

"I don't understand", I said after she played.

It's John who explained. "In a scramble, we play from the best-laid ball and always in the same order. That way, if someone is really having trouble in general or with a specific hole, they catch up"

I look at him. This is... unexpected and so wonderful!

One of the things I hate about golf is that I am always in the bottom 2 players of the foursome. That means that I need to play a few balls in a row, being watched by the best players who can't wait to play.

I feel like my role is to slow down the pace and hog the attention.

Now, in golf, when a player is on the tee, you have nothing else to do but look at them. At a naturist resort, you aren't supposed to check out people. But those two rules completely contradict each other!

The idea of playing a few balls in a row with everyone looking at me was filling me with dread, but this?

This was a lot more acceptable.

In fact, while Nadia played, I went with Patrick so we could grab our balls. I avoided the sand trap!

We came back with an ecstatic Nadia who landed on the green.

My husband suggested a Wood 5, seeing how we were closer.

I made an almost perfect shot... and landed a few feet from the green.

"Almost on the fairway", said John while high-fiving me. "Nice shot"

Patrick landed on the green; John did too. Great, I made a perfect shot, and I am still the only one who didn't make it on the green.

Nadia and I played from Patrick's ball, and while she missed, I got in the hole. I did a par 3 in 3 shots.

Patrick played from his ball and landed in the hole. John was close enough and decided to play his ball and landed in the hole.

Nadia closed the hole with a +1. A bogey, which she was still excited about.

Honestly? For the first time, golf wasn't about keeping up. It was about improving yourself without slowing the game.

Something changed with the second hole. On the walk to it, the men were carrying their bags, while Nadia and I were empty-handed and she took that as an opportunity to blabber.

On that hole transition, she mentioned how Kara is the most inconsistent golf player ever. She did a hole in one once, but usually lands in the water.

"I think that half of the balls in the small pond on hole 4 are from her", she says, laughing.

On the transition to the 3rd hole, it was how Wendy was secretly from her husband, a devoted Christian Naturist but she was telling him it was just casual.

I actually landed a best laid ball on that 3rd hole! I was proud of me, and everyone was.

On the way to the 4th hole, I learned that Ginny might be gay.

"Is that a problem in your denomination? My mother was very anti-LGBTQ"

"No, it's not, but she doesn't want to be gay"

"Ah, that is a problem"

"She is in college to be a nurse", adds Nadia.

"Like her mother"

"Yeah. But she doesn't buy the whole Christian Naturism. I am not 100% convinced she will still be a naturist when she moves out"

"You think her mother is, like, forcing her?"

"No, I think she overly needs to please everyone. Like, she babysits the children to be liked by the parents and the kids. She volunteers to watch the pool when the lifeguard is sick. She overly tries to fit in, you know?"

"Like she has a hole in her heart and needs to be loved?"

"Yeah."

I do land in the pond on hole #4, so Wendy isn't the only contributor. I end up picking one of her balls that is close to the edge to keep going, and everyone is fine with it.

"I pick my balls, but most of the girls don't go", says Patrick.

"Hey, if you want to dig my ball out of the water, be my guest", I say.

He smiles but returns to his play.

On the way to hole #5, I learn about Nadia's first boyfriend. A naturist boy from here.

"Wait, did you grow up at this resort?"

"Yeah. Wait, I didn't explicitly say so? Yeah. We had a house here."

"No, I didn't know. So you did the whole living at a naturist resort thing"

"I did. But no homeschooling. I went to school like our kids. Still, I did the whole summers-without-clothes thing, and as an adult, I realized I wanted to give more variety to my daughter. I want her to live in freedom, not replace the obligation of wearing clothes with the requirement of being nude. I wanted to give her an out if she wanted."

"Right, you didn't have a choice as a kid"

"Exactly. And I didn't know better, so I was fine back then. Same as you, but the other way around."

I failed to put a best-laid ball in hole #5 by about three inches. I was just behind Patrick, while John landed further... but deep in a sand trap.

A few holes in, Nadia was the first on the green. Pardon, on the fairway, but mostly because she stuck with the driver while the other players picked more appropriate clubs.

It didn't always pan out, but it gave her an edge, which occasionally paid out.

I had interrupted her, so I got the information about her first boyfriend, and it gave me a revelation.

Nadia has a problem with the hardcore naturists because it's all they talk about. It's their only focus. It's like she doesn't fully connect with them. She goes to church with them and is friendly enough, but she can't be best friends with them.

Well, hearing her speak of her first boyfriend makes me realize when that rejection of those people began!

He was one of them. He never wanted to go on dates outside the resort, never wanted to dress up, or for her to dress up. And well, naturism was all that mattered to him.

When she dumped him for "being boring", I suspect that she dumped all those hardcore naturists at the same time, as they might remind her of him.

John has his life path altered by his abuse. I had my life path altered by my abuse.

Nadia doesn't appear to have suffered a lot of abuse, but her life was still altered by that ex.

That discomfort with his choices might have made her reject moving into the resort she grew up at. Made her reject the friendship requests from Kara, from Candace's mother. From perhaps even Wendy.

It permanently affected her perceptions and, well, made it so that she picked me as best friend and not them.

It's fascinating how different events shaped us in different ways. Patrick too, I suppose. He just doesn't talk much about himself, so I can't know.

He must have wanted to move in here, since he and his wife "almost" bought a house, and she is apparently opposed to that. I'll probably know one day.

On the way to hole #6, I almost want to make that observation, but Nadia is proactive and wants to know the gossip about Dr. Philips.

But honestly, he is a good and decent doctor. Not one who flirts with the nurses or belittles them. Well, now that I have had a good look at his wife, I can understand why, but still. Dr. Carrier, yes, that's his name, is married to a bombshell who could be a model, and he still flirts with many of the nurses.

I still make her laugh with his habit of naming people he works with on his own.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, he is a consult, not someone who usually works in the trauma room. Most of those doctors will refer to us with stuff like the color of our scrubs. "

"Like, hey, Pink, give me a scalpel?"

"Well, no, we have defined roles. One of us will supply the consult with equipment. The same with medication. In fact, it's rare a doctor calls on a specific nurse"

"Right, it's like a ballet of roles"

I laugh. "Yeah. But sometimes you do, and Dr. Phillips picks names based on our hair"

"Like what?"

"Well, one of the nurses is Velma, because her hair looks like Velma from scooby do"

She laughs. "For real? So that's why he sometimes calls me Carol"

"Huh?"

"They showed Captain Marvel on the screen. He thought my hair was like Brie Larson in that movie"

I look at her. "Yeah, I can see that"

"So he began calling me Carol from time to time"

"Yeah. I think he finds that so funny"

"What did he call you?"

"He used to call me Korra, but now he calls me Asami. I don't get those references", I say.

"Well, it's from Avatar: The Legend of Korra. You used to have shorter hair, like Avatar Korra, but it's longer now, like Asami in the same show"

"Wait, is that, like, a sequel to Avatar, the last air bender?"

"It is! Not as good, but decent."

Hole 7 was the worst. I can understand why Frank and Kara only play until hole 7. It's a par 5, the only one on the course.

And it was exhausting. I can see why it's there.

Each hole, is somewhat next to the next starting location, and hole 6 ends at the back border of the resort. There is no way to go, so hole 7 brings you back to the side of the golf course, with only 2 holes on the other side.

I did nothing good; Nadia didn't even make it on the fairway, and only Patrick managed to secure 3 of the best balls, with my husband doing the other 2.

Honestly? Being so close to the "street" that takes you to the golf course almost made me stop playing then, but Nadia had more to talk about, and, well, I was promised the next one was easier.

And it was. A par 3, where I landed the best first ball. My last one of the event.

The talk toward hole 8 was a lot more frisky, and I learned things about Nadia's sexuality that I would have preferred not knowing. I didn't share anything, and she didn't pry. Thank God for that!

Fortunately, the last transition was about our kids. Hole 9 was the most complicated, as it curved around hole 8, bringing you back to the street.

I had mostly disconnected emotionally at that point, so when we made it to pick up our kids and discovered that they had been fed, I was almost on the verge of crying.

Still, we went to the restaurant, after picking up my purse, with our kids, where the four adults ate while the kids blabbered about how much they loved their morning.

I ate with appetite, mostly silent, letting Nadia interact with the kids and provide feedback to their excitement.

Near the end of the meal, Nadia poked at my ribs with her elbow.

"Look at the clock, Elena"

I look at it. It's about 2:15. It's far too late for me to eat.

"Yeah, it's late"

"No, that's not it"

"What?"

"If I am right, you have now been nude for 24 hours in a row"

I smiled because that seemed like the appropriate reaction.

Inside, though, something counted exits.

Not from the resort.

From the day.

From the schedule.

From the feeling that everything had been decided for me, lovingly, efficiently, and without asking.

I didn't need clothes.

I needed quiet.

<-#12: Overcoming Trauma #12: Avoiding Church