Part 7: What's the Point of the Women's Pull?

TW if you're sensitive like me :)

The summer after grade nine, I am beyond ready to not be in school anymore. I couldn't wait to get away from all of those horrible people and I couldn't wait to not have to wake up early. Our church had a mandatory, early-morning scripture study class that started at 6:25 every school morning. It is a unique form of torture but I had friends there.

There was also a boy there that I had become quite fond of and we would text sometimes. But I didn't really know what his deal was because he would text me all this deep stuff but then totally ignore me in person. I didn't know at the time that that's what immature boys do, I was just confused and hurt by it.

Anyways, another unique form of torture that the LDS church inflicted upon us, is a pioneer trek in the hot depth of August. It involves walking a lot with a group of people (your fake Ma, Pa and siblings), sleeping under a tarp that's open on both ends, wearing pioneer clothing, cooking your own food in the wilderness, pushing wooden carts with all the luggage on them, etc. My parents were going as well and they were going to be a "Ma and Pa" for a family. My whole youth group was also going to be participating in this, including the boy I liked. We had all sewn our own clothes, completed wilderness certifications, packed and prepped for this camp. It was a huge event.

The week before we left for trek, I was staying overnight with some of our good family friends. When we stayed over with them, we didn't really sleep. We sang karaoke, ran around all night, jumped on the trampoline, played with their dogs, made food at midnight and things got really crazy at times. That night, Manda and one of our friends were outside and I was inside with the other friend. One thing led to another and I fell down their stairs, really badly. It's hard to explain without a demonstration but I basically missed a step on the stairs and my whole weight landed on my toes folded over. I just remember that suddenly I was on the ground and the pain was so bad. I started to get dizzy because of the pain and I remember seeing a blurry vision of my friend coming to my rescue and quite literally dragging me up the stairs into bed. How was I supposed to go to trek next week?

A few days later, we're at a youth barbecue at my grandparents house. My grandparents have a big property with a firepit, farm animals, trampolines, rope swings and I always loved bringing everyone there. About an hour into the barbecue, my dad pulls me aside because he has to have a conversation with me about something he found on my phone. I had always had to leave my phone in my parents room at night, all of us kids did. Sometimes they read our messages so I always tried to delete anything I wouldn't want them to see before they saw it. What had happened, was that I told some girls at church that I was going to attempt suicide. Obviously I had just had a hell of a year at school and things got pretty dark. But they told their parents, who told their friends, who told their friends, who told my parents, which led to my dad investigating the situation on my phone. He really lays into me about this, since I was deleting things, lying to people and hiding things from them. I remember wishing that he laid into me about it somewhere a bit more private, because I was really embarrassed. He is really frustrated that I lied to him and my mom and that I was deleting messages. My dad didn't know about how badly I was treated at school just a few months ago. If he did, he might've understood me a bit better.

We set out on our trek. I am on crutches. A little bit so I don't have to participate and a little bit for attention and a bit because my foot hurt. I ride in the back of a truck that's being driven behind everyone who is walking. I walked some of the trek, I wasn't in the truck the whole time. But I didn't like the family I was assigned. My Ma and Pa weren't very warm and I was having a rough time all around. One day, my Ma told me to hang my clothes over a clothesline overnight. "It might rain on them." I complained. She assured me it wouldn't. Then I woke up the next morning with soaking wet clothes that had been left out on the clothesline all night. "Well that's what happens when you don't put your clothes away overnight." My Ma says.

The climax of the trek experience is often the "Women's pull" where the girls push the wooden carts alone while the boys walk alongside the cart. It's supposed to represent how a lot of husbands died on the pioneer trek and the women were left alone to fend for their families. Women can do anything men can do, right!? So I am healed by the miracle of Tylenol, I ditch the crutches and participate in the women's pull. It's up a big hill, it's really hot out and those carts are really heavy. I feel like I didn't do much to help with the women's pull. It ends at the top of the hill where everyone at the camp gathers and cries because we can't believe how hard that was and we're so proud of what we accomplished. Even some of the boys I know were crying. A lot of people were moved by this experience. I, too was moved by this experience. Later, we have an opportunity to journal about our feelings about the day. They encouraged us to write about the women's pull and what we learned from it. As I look back on my journal from trek to see what my thoughts were on the peak of the camp, I write, "I am so glad we did the women's pull because now I know that we really do need men and it's hard for women to do things by themselves." I think that's exactly the opposite of what the camp leaders were getting at, I missed the point of the women's pull.

It's common at church camps for your parents to write you a letter for you to open and read while you're away. When they handed out the letters to us at trek, I wasn't sure what mine would say. Things were weird with my dad ever since the situation at the barbecue. He was really disappointed in me for lying and being sneaky on my phone and I could feel it radiating off of him. We didn't talk much, he was really short-tempered with me and I felt like they didn't like me anymore. I also felt like they were unfair because they revoked my phone privileges and that meant I couldn't text the boy who wanted to be deep at times and distant at times. The very start of my letter said, "Bec, you and I have been through a lot in our relationship and the past few weeks have not been a highlight." Oh boy. So I knew that things were bad, but he also knew that things were bad. I was gutted. In the rest of the letter, he spoke about how all he and my mom want is for me to love myself enough to not have to make crap up (they don't know about what had happened at school at this point, by the way.) He says that I bring so much to the world and to not let others dull me down. It's overall positive and he says that they love me. I know they do, but I really feel like the least favourite child in this moment.

For the rest of trek, we kind of just had fun. We had a big hoedown, I found Jill drawing pictures in the woods and I actually forgot she had existed for a second because I spent so much time in the truck and looking for the boy I had a crush on. The boy and I actually share a hug at one point. Which was off brand for this guy actually, but I guess we were in our feels because of the women's pull and all.