Type Two Fun? Outdoor Adventure lingo…
The first time I heard the phrase “Type 2 fun” I had just repelled into a pool of stagnant smelly water at the bottom of a slot canyon. This was years ago, before kids, my first technical canyoneering adventure, my first time repelling at all. Eager to impress the group, I had gone first. I didn’t realize I was going to be swimming until after I’d dropped over the lip of the cliff and saw the stinking black pool 50 feet below. The water was literally black, and as I hit the surface my body broke the layer of slime that had grown there and released the smell of death and decay that I would wear for the rest of the day. It was also frigid, water at the bottom of a narrow canyon can often be close to freezing even when the desert days get above 100 degrees. The sun rarely touches the bottom of those canyons. So I was treading water, struggling to unclip myself from the rope so that I could swim away. When at last I was free and the rest of the group followed me down we gathered on the shore, shivering and smelly and giddy with adrenaline. One of the guys said, “well, that’s what we call type 2 fun.” Which means it wasn’t fun. It was miserable, no one enjoyed it. But we are all gonna love telling the story later. It’s fun in retrospect.
Motherhood is an Adventure
Days with young children are not so different from epic adventures. We are often wet and uncomfortable, there is adrenaline, there are unpleasant smells. But even the miserable moments can be made into an adventure when you take a step back and consider the fun stories you’ll have to tell later.
