Conversations With Myself: All You Have to Do Right Now

It'll be ok. You can do this. All we have to do is make is make this last stop at Walmart. You have to get the last of the things for lunches this week and we must get litter for the cats. Then you can start crying. You don't even have to get all the way home. 

I know that you don't really know what is going on. Maybe it is a bit of depression. Maybe it's some heavy ass pms. Maybe you're just super fucking tired. But it's ok. It's ok that you're feeling whatever you're feeling. And when we get home, you can do whatever pampering you want to do, or you can go to bed, or you can cry until you can't cry anymore. But you have to get this done.  

I know you are strong enough to do, all on your own. This is how we'll get through this. Just us. I just need you to keep doing the musts. We'll work on the rest as we go along. Until there's someone else to do these things for, it's just us and we have to be as strong as we would be if we were being strong for a Master or Daddy. I know you can do this. Just get through Walmart. That's all I'm asking you to do. 

Bad Touch

What a difference a few weeks make. Just a few weeks ago, I was here approaching my latest slutty-phase while also trying not to hurt people in the process and now i have forsworn dating for the immediate future.

A good percentage of that has been because I would rather spend my time alone, getting the feel of being on my own again after so long, than to spend my time and energy talking to strangers. But I have also run into another issue that has made me take a step back from dating.

I don't want people to touch me.

It's not really an active thing. I don't walk around thinking that I hope no one brushes against me or being terrified of someone trying to shake my hand or hug me. No, it's more that when people are touching me I really wish they weren't and I'm often wondering how much longer they will be touching me and how I can get out of this gracefully, without seeming crazy or frigid, and without hurting the other person's feelings.

At first I just thought it was a dating thing. Or who I was dating to be more precise. I went on a few dates with a vanilla guy and, when we did start to fool around, I felt really uncomfortable and stopped things because it just wasn't turning me on. I just kept wishing it would stop. Or that I would start to feel something. I  thought this was because it wasn't rough or aggressive like I was used to. We talked for a week about what we could do to make it work for both of us but, when it came time to go back to his house, I panicked and went home instead. This was the guy who I really liked otherwise. The most recent guy...well, all i could think of the whole time was how to get rid of him, how to stop him from touching me without being a bitch,  how I was going to wash my face where he'd kissed. I still feel sort of bad about the fact that he was really into me and my instinct was to run away. It's not like he was a gross guy, not like he had poor hygiene or bad breath. Just this thing in my head was going crazy.

But if it was just dates, I could chalk it up to not being in a place for dating, perhaps subconsciously still feeling like I belong to the Professor, or some other thing like that.  But it's not just with near strangers on romantic dates. Last weekend, Moneypenny was in town for some other activity and he managed to make time to hang out with me, to go out to dinner and see my new place. To be honest, I was hoping to cuddle with him. Because of illness and time constraints, I haven't been able to cuddle much with the Professor when I see him. Ginger and I are still working our way back to a platonic cuddly place and haven't seen much of each other either. Moneypenny and I have been able to be well-behaved lately, to not take things to a sexual place, and I've been cuddling with him for what is now almost half my life, so I thought it would be a safe and comforting thing to do. But no. It felt weird too. Thinking about it today, even hugging my folks lately has felt more like work than comfort.

While planning this post,  I kept thinking about how I would know when it's ok again. I have a hard time dealing with situations where I might normally be fine with the touching,  where it might be something I'd like to experience or get to explore, where it's with someone new or fun or interesting. I don't know how to tell the person that my mind might be interested but there's something broken. At first,  I thought it was a lack of attraction, a chemical pheromonal thing. Still a problem I couldn't easily explain but at least it was a problem I felt would be fixed when I met the right person. Now it's pretty much everyone for reasons I don't know. All the sudden I'm that frigid chick I never wanted to be. And forcing myself to keep trying seems like a bad idea.

Of course,  the Professor is the exception to this. *facepalm* I'd like to be getting over by getting some strange but even if I had the patience to deal with strangers I can't imagine enjoying anyone touching me right now. I'm not sure if I'd enjoy playing with someone else right now or not. Usually play for me is always wrapped up in sex and I wouldn't want to play with someone if I didn't also want to have sex with them. But maybe I could do play that didn't involve skin to skin contact. Right now I'm mostly just wondering outloud. I have no idea. I just know I really want to be touched but I really don't.

"It Doesn't Mean My Monkey Doesn't Love You"

I can't believe I'm going to use a song called "My Monkey" but damn does it stir up the feelings, so here goes. Please watch/listen to the video at the end. It's not country.

I just started in the DBT aftercare group last week. The regular DBT group is mostly educational, not process, and is much stricter about "therapy interfering behaviors," so no one else can intentionally or unintentionally sabotage other people in the group. Aftercare is more process and allows people who have been through the educational course several times to discuss how to further use the skills in specific ways in their lives. Of course, I can't divulge anything about what happens in group or even who is in it, but I found myself talking a bit about how I have dealt with anger differently in my relationship with the Professor than I did in previous relationships. In fact, every time I talk about getting angry or upset in this relationship with Moneypenny, he asks me why I couldn't have done that with him. The short answer would just be that I grew up. This post is the longer answer.

My monkey gets busy sometimes

My monkey's got a lot of stuff he's gotta think about

My monkey gets tired sometimes

My monkey wishes he was something you could live without

Cause every monkey needs alone time

To eat bananas in the sunshine

It's feast or famine it's a fine line

It doesn't mean my monkey doesn't love you

This in part Moneypenny actually taught me while we were dating. I can't say that he actually said these words, but the general picture was "You need to learn how to be on your own. I have friends of my own and things I like to do that don't interest you and I'm going to continue to do them just like I did before we got together and you have to learn to deal with that." Sometimes I think I might have learned that lesson a bit too well because I think it can hinder me in dating but that is a post for another day. 

I like my alone time. At least 25% of my decision to stop dating for the time being is so that I can spend time by myself. I like being able to do whatever it is that I want, at my own pace, or nothing at all. I like being able to choose the show or movie I watch, the food I eat, the music I listen to, or to read a book, without ever having to think about what someone else will want to do or what they will think of me. 

This makes it easier to give other people alone time when they need it. When I was with Moneypenny and we would fight, I couldn't do that. At all. When he'd say that he needed time, I'd give him an hour and I had a difficult time even doing that. I distinctly remember one fight where i kept texting and calling him after he said that he needed time and he told me that "time" at least 24 hours. Oh my gods, that was a fucking eternity at the time. I know that I probably still do not give people as much time as they might need or I have to say "Ok, just so you know, the ball is in your court here" before I wait, but I'm not like I was with Moneypenny. 

But it isn't just during fights that I know people need time and try to give it to them. Yes, when I'm visiting the Professor and I want attention, especially sex, or when I'm texting him to try to find out what is going on, I do bug him when he'd probably rather me not. On the other hand, I could, and still do, leave him to do his own thing. During the first bout of him falling in the hole last fall, he would apologize for not doing more with me and I would shrug it off. Yeah, I'd have been more than happy if he was jumping my bones that whole time or even just talking to me, but I was usually able to keep myself busy. I was an only child after all. I also knew that it had nothing to do with me, which I think is the real key. I knew that there were and are plenty of times when I'm happy to be by myself, which has nothing to do with how much I love the people I don't want to be around, so the same thing is probably at least partially true for the people I love who need alone time. 

My monkey gets frazzled sometimes

My monkey has an ulcer and a stressful time at work

My monkey gets bitter sometimes

My monkey's not the only one who's acting like a jerk

And while he doesn't like to name names

And he's not trying to assign blame

It's hard to focus on his own game

It doesn't mean my monkey doesn't love you

From the first time I heard this song, it just stuck with me. This guy I went on a few dates told me to check out his nerdcore and nerd comedy spotify playlist and most of the music can help put me in a better mood at work, on days when my music is pissing my off for some reason. I kinda think that it could be from the Professor to Ginger and/or me, from Ginger to the Professor and/or to me, and from me to ...well, lots of people. 

When I look back, I think that most of the moments in my life that really changed how I saw the world and how I thought involved it being pointed out how selfish I was being and had it demonstrated how different the other person in the situation experienced things. Couple this with my writer-ly desire to know what is going on in someone's head and I am often trying to see situations from the other viewpoint. It can get much harder when I am arguing with someone because my own anger can overpower my desire to give a shit about their view point or experience but sometimes I can still keep it in mind. 

Two things that men have said stick out in my head. Now, I can't remember what exactly we were talking about, but I remember a conversation a few years ago where Moneypenny told me that he just lets go of about 90% of things in relationships that bother him because to him they aren't a big enough deal to bring up or to fight about. Of course, that means the things he does bring up are actually the most egregious 10% of the things that bother him, so it kinda sucks if the other person does nothing about them or won't budge on any of them. From being the one sitting on the other side and not budging on most of those things, I can say that when he brought up the 10%, I thought they were everything he had a problem with so I wasn't going to give in on everything. The bigger point though was that he didn't bring up every little thing that bothered him and he asserted that this is what most men do.

Recently, I was listening to the afternoon radio djs where I live, both married men, and they were discussing the recent study from Rutgers and University of Michigan that said that a husband's general happiness was directly related to how happy their wife was in the marriage. While researchers said this might be in part because a wife happy in the marriage might do more for a husband, the quoted researcher said "Men tend to be less vocal about their relationships and their level of marital unhappiness might not be translated to their wives." The older of the two djs definitely agreed with this, talking about how rarely he brought up things about the relationship that upset him, while his wife generally will and it feels like to him it is almost always what she thinks he is doing wrong. And here's what he said that stuck with me the most: "Who wants to hear nothing but what they are doing wrong all the time?" That was another one of those slap in the face moments for me. I'm pretty aware of a good deal of my shortcomings and I sure as hell don't want to hear it. That really got me thinking about how the things I say when bringing up problems either are what's wrong with the other person or could be perceived as such and how often that is the conversation instead of something positive about them.

When I was with Moneypenny, we had several arguments that lasted until dawn. I couldn't sleep on my anger. I couldn't keep my mouth shut. Hell, with him, I often still can't. Early on, probably from observation and trying to do things differently this time, and in large part just because Ginger allowed me to benefit from her years of experience, I learned that attacking the Professor head on just made him retreat. He wouldn't fight you back but he also wouldn't come back for quite awhile. Now, I won't even claim to fully understand why this is, though I can guess that some of it has to do with how he was raised, but I knew that what I had done before wouldn't work. At first, it was the roles that kept me in check. And sometimes the desire to be able to discuss things without being so angry I would cry, since somehow me crying means that people tend not to listen to my words. Through trial and error, I've learned that sometimes I need to do a "reasonable mind" activity, dishes worked well when I lived with the Professor, to bring me out of emotional mind, or to just sleep on it. What these things really give me is enough space to calm down, let my mind process everything and figure out what was justified, and then find a better time to bring things up. After all that, usually I can say it in a better way, hopefully one that is about the situation or about how I feel and not about him. 

A few weeks ago, over text, the Professor and I got bitchy at each other about the weekend plans and how we were going to plan out things going forward. Finally, I said that I thought that at least one of us was cranky and needed a nap (he said probably both of us) so I was going to go and I would talk to him later. When we talked about it two or three days later, the discussion looked more like "I'm worried about how this is going to go. Knowing the things we know now, what can we do to make this work better for everyone going forward?" 

My monkey gets angry sometimes

My monkey says a lot of things he doesn't really mean

My monkey gets lucky sometimes

My monkey thinks that you're the bestest girl he's ever seen

He says he'll stay with you for always

It doesn't matter what the job pays

Cause everybody has their bad days

It doesn't mean my monkey doesn't love you

One day I came home from a short morning shift and Ginger said, "You should be really glad you had to work this morning and you weren't home because I thought the Professor and I were going to have it out." Apparently, the Professor got up, all grumpy and cranky, like he is when he first wakes up. When he went into the kitchen to get himself a cup of coffee, she heard him yell, "Goddamn it, who the fuck left the bag of coffee open?" [There are a few things that drive the Professor crazy and Ginger doing forgetful things is one of them. Ginger thinks, and not wrongly IMO, that she ignores alot from him so he can just deal. I'm sure you can guess who left the coffee bag open when she kindly made me coffee before i left for work.] Ginger was cranky and tired after working all night and her, quite uncharacteristic, response was to yell back "It's just the coffee. If you're going to be a dick today, I'm just going in my room to read." When the Professor's unreasonable anger is met with anger, he tends to be taken aback and reevaluate the situation. This was no different. After her response, it was no longer such a big deal. Sometimes we say stupid shit in the heat of the moment, not always even big stupid shit, but just little stupid shit.  

When sleeping on it doesn't work and I end up playing out all day in my head all the pieces of my mind I'm going to give the Professor when I see him next, I tend to have one final thing to help me not act like a complete bitch- seeing him. This probably sounds like sappy honeymoon phase shit, and maybe it is, but it still works. When I see him, it is much harder to be mad at him. Mostly because I'm trying to figure out how to maneuver things so that he'll be taking my clothes off and being a bitch can backfire spectacularly for getting me that goal. hehe. But seriously, it feels like the anger is a fog that is burned off by the appearance of the sun. 

When they got together, the Professor needed a place to stay and Ginger made him promise to stick around for a year, though she was somehow surprised several months later when he called him her boyfriend. She told me that at first they'd have blow-outs every couple of months, but that those had gotten farther and farther apart, until it's more like once a year. It was a release valve on the relationship and in the end, they would both say that they cared more about the relationship than about not being vulnerable. 

For both of them, being vulnerable is a much bigger deal that it is to me. Most days I still feel like I'm a walking open wound. Less than I used to, but more than most people, I think. While neither of them have said directly to me that our relationships, even the different ones we have now, are more important than being vulnerable, I think that they've shown it. Right about the time we started talking again, Ginger wrote a post on Fet about her shortcomings in relationships, that she wants a lot and thinks in the moment that it's possible but often has to retreat when it gets overwhelming, because she doesn't realize that things might not be working until it is already overwhelming. While she didn't write that post just for me, I know she laid bare things about herself that aren't pretty in a place where I would be sure to see, so that I might understand. She made herself vulnerable. Things with the Professor ended as a primary relationship when he flat out said "Yes, all the things you say you expect this to be are valid and justified and what I promised and what you deserve, but I can't give them to you." Just the fact that he said that outright was a big deal for him, given his history. That honestly could have been the end of it. But when I came to get my stuff, he cried with me, admitted that he didn't know what it would be possible for us to have but he didn't not want me in his life. Recently, as we tried to talk about what we wanted in this iteration of our relationship, we admitted that this 'breakup' was different because usually we kinda hate our partners by the time we decide to end it. Usually his relationships end with him being either mean or distant, "but I still have alot of love for you and I'm trying to do things differently this time." Once again, I can't judge things based on how vulnerable that would feel for me. Things work much better for me when I focus on what that feels like for them, where that comes from, how difficult that might be for them. 

Now, of course, all this about how well I deal with conflict with my partners is in comparison to a me that was 15-12 yrs younger, differently medicated, and much more still an impulsive teenager. This is also mostly a Moneypenny vs the Professor comparison as I am still rather clueless about handling conflict with Ginger and, oh man, don't even get me started on how poorly I handle conflict with TyRoy. I largely attempt to avoid conflict with both of them, though I think that method would still be preferable to Moneypenny. Sometimes, I think that I'm just too tired to fight anymore, at least like I did with Moneypenny. I have a long list of things I'm supposed to do, half of which I don't get to, and nowhere on it does it say "fight with the Professor." When I walk out of rooms instead of fight, it's not so someone will run after me, though I have to say checking on me after awhile is appreciated. No, it's because I don't want to have the fight right then and I need to get my shit together. It's about me acting right. Generally, I think the biggest difference in the fights are about me acting right, instead of just acting on how I feel at the moment. 

So here's the full song for Jonathan Coulton's "My Monkey"

Ok, and now for the funny geeky shit- For PAX, Jonathan Coulton changed "My Monkey" to "Wil Wheaton." This video has shots of Wil Wheaton cracking up too.

 

This Is What Happens When You Give People A Chance

So I'm trying not be so overly picky that I end up never dating ever. If you read regularly, you know that I don't necessarily feel like I'm ready to date and I have a set of guideline, but I'm also trying not to use either as an excuse to be closed off. This is especially true because I'm still seeing/fucking/playing with the Professor, but I'm trying to keep in mind that it is an on the side thing.

I have a profile up on a free dating site that says pretty much what my profile & writing on fet does. Last weekend I got a very thoughtful and honest response from a (cute but in my looks - range) man who wants an open relationship and is trying new things after just getting out of a sexually unadventurous marriage. He's from the same hometown I am, likes music I like too, blah blah blah. His message was so much different from what i usually get that I read it immediately to the Professor. Before we even looked at the profile, he said,"You have to message this guy."

We've had one date, gonna have another on Saturday. I had asked him at some poibt about his "sexual bucket list" and last night he shared stuff, though in a tit for tat way. Mostly it ended up being him saying that he'd like to do x and me saying that I had done it a bunch. I had mentioned the fetish list on fetlife. He's not on fet so last night i just copy & pasted my fetish and curious about lists to him. His response? "With the exclusion of polyamory, all the stuff that you're curious about I would say I'm not curious about at this point. And half the stuff you're into I'm only curious about. Things like whipping and impact play may be beyond me, but they don't color my opinion of you."

This is the danger in giving people chances. So far the guys who would be willing to have a LTRR either don't have much experience or think they're "not vanilla" because they like nipple clamps and want to try anal sex and the guys who seem like they just might know what they're doing and have a good deal of experience don't want LTRR or a kid. This is why i don't want to give people chances. By the time i realize how much they don't fit, i kinda like them. At least enough to not want to stomp on their hearts.

I Feel a Slutty Wind A'blowing

And it's strange
They're all basically the same
So I don't ask names anymore. 
-Death Cab for Cutie

When I took BT to my grandparents' house, my mother was dismissive of his presence. When my grandma was pointing out his flaws, my mom just waved her hand. "They never last long. I hardly ever meet any of them anyway. It doesn't matter. He'll be gone soon enough." My grandma disagreed, said that this one was going to stick around awhile. She was right. I married him within the week and, though he was deployed for much of that time and we never truly lived together, we were married for a year and a half.

Of course, my mom couldn't have known that known that this one would be different from the others. Once I finally came out of my shell after the end of my LTRR with Moneypenny, I really hit the ground running. I was dealing with the beginning of the illnesses in my family, which was stressing me out and provoking the crazy, which I hadn't really developed effective coping skills for. And Mon Parrain had opened my eyes to the fact that I could easily and openly fuck without having to have a LTRR with the person. So I was doing quite a bit of that. There were many people my mom never even knew I had seen. Of those she did, they weren't usually anything serious and they faded away within a few weeks.

I have found that it isn't uncommon for the rebound process to involve a brief but intensely slutty period. Even if you wanted to start a new LTRR, you still have too many feelings for your ex to turn it on to a new person, especially for monogamous people or people looking to find a new primary partner. On the other hand, you want to feel wanted by someone new. You want to feel like you are desirable to someone other than your ex, who obviously doesn't find you as attractive anymore. You want to meet new and different kinds of people. You probably feel like you've spent the last bit of your previous relationship pushing down or ignoring parts of yourself, so you want to let that out to run wild, whether that be eating at places your ex didn't like, working on hobbies you might have ignored, or fucking in ways that your ex didn't like. And hell, you're just lonely. You had this partner for quite awhile and you were used to having someone to do things with. Now you're alone. "There's an art to life's distractions. Somehow escapes the burning weight, the art of scraping through. Some like to imagine the dark caress of someone else I guess any thrill will do."

But there's something more. Maybe it's the crazy. Maybe it's the way I'm wired. Maybe I've just been lucky enough to have this many people be interested in me when maybe others don't. No matter what it is though, I can have a bit of a fickle heart. It's a small part of why I prefer open relationships. (Note I'm not saying polyamorous.) I know that most infatuations are just that and won't last very long, so most bits of strange are just that, a little bit of strange. "Don't take this the wrong way. You knew who I was every step that I ran to you. Only blue or black days, electing strange perfections in any stranger I choose." Sadly, when I'm looking for a relationship I only date other people who are looking for relationships and I have hurt people with that fickleness, despite my attempts to tell them who I am and keep a bit of a distance. I get all wrapped up in this new person and their new-ness and that they like me. It can come off as me liking them more than I end up liking them, because I truly do think I like them more in the beginning.

For the past month or two, I've dealt first with not having much of a sex drive at all (except for with The Professor because, well, what can I say? He does strange things to me) and then with my sex drive coming back but really only wanting to have sex or play with him. A big part of it has been the comfort and trust factors. With play, I obviously haven't developed that kind of relationship with anyone. With all of that in general, I just haven't had an interest in anyone long enough to get there. But I'm trying to stay open to new people. I do want a new primary, ideally one who will also be my new Dom/Master as well as primary boyfriend, or even husband, and baby daddy. I can't do that if I never give anyone a chance. I don't have the time or stamina to give everyone who crosses my path a go, but the right people, the people who interest me, the people who seem to be a good 80% of what I'm looking for, should be given a chance.

But as I start to talk to more people, have more dates, explore new relationships, I do worry about my fickle heart, especially since it is also rebounding. This song has been playing in my head for days now, makes me want to dance around, even if that does seem like too much of a celebration of what is really dickish behavior. Anyway, I thought I'd share.

Someone New- Hozier
Don't take this the wrong way
You knew who I was every step that I ran to you
Only blue or black day
Electing strange perfections in any stranger I choose

Would things be easier if there was a right way
Honey there is no right way

And so I fall in love just a little ol' little bit
Every day with someone new
I fall in love just a little ol' little bit every day with someone new
I fall in love just a little ol' little bit every day with someone new
I fall in love just a little ol' little bit every day with someone new

There's an art to life's distractions
Somehow escapes the burning weight,
the art of scraping through
Some like to imagine
The dark caress of someone else
I guess any thrill will do

Would things be easier if there was a right way
Honey there is no right way

And so I fall in love just a little ol' little bit
Every day with someone new
I fall in love just a little ol' little bit every day with someone new
I fall in love just a little ol' little bit every day with someone new
I fall in love just a little ol' little bit every day with someone new

I wake at the first cringe of morning
And my heart's already sinned.
How pure, how sweet the love and you would pray for him

Cos God knows I fall in love just a little ol' little bit
Every day with someone new
I fall in love just a little ol' little bit every day with someone new
I fall in love just a little ol' little bit every day with someone new
I fall in love just a little ol' little bit every day with someone new
I fall in love just a little ol' little bit every day with someone new
I fall in love just a little ol' little bit every day with someone new

Love with every stranger the stranger the better
Love with every stranger the stranger the better
Love with every stranger the stranger the better
Love with every stranger the stranger the better
Love with every stranger the stranger the better
Love with every stranger the stranger the better

I fall in love just a little ol' little bit every day with someone new

Alone

First part was written Friday 9/5/14

It's amazing how easily people will ignore when you are crying.  It doesn't matter how large or small the group, people will still chose to ignore when there are tears in your eyes. Or rolling down your face. 

You're all alone.

I cry alot for a person. Alot. Alot alot. It often gets ignored.

The second greatest gift I got from being with Ginger and the Professor was that I had to decide to take on my share, and maybe even a little bit more, if I wanted to be with them. I had always been in relationships where, at least at some point, my partner was gonna be able to shoulder the financial burdens, so I could let the crazy debilitate me if I wanted to and the bills would be paid. (I'm not particularly proud of that and it isn't fair, but it is honest.) But in this particular relationship, I was gonna have to keep my shit together to a certain extent and pull my weight. Once I decided to do that, even when I wasn't with them in that way anymore, and I was once again back to just having me to answer to, me who would be out on the street, I still kept that mindset.

But even more than that, I realized I was on my own. When I was with them, I was on my own to make enough to contribute. But also, they were already a couple. Maybe it was me that never fully let go enough to be three together. Maybe they are just too solitarily paired to be three. Either way, I was always still a bit on the outside. It had been my biggest fear going into the relationship and, self-fulfilling prophecy or not, I stayed a bit on the outside and I'm alone now. Looking around my apartment last night, my cute, safe, comfy, little hobbit hole, it hit me again how alone I was. That if I was gonna do this, I was gonna have to do this alone. The Professor and I might be lovers and/or play partners and I'll still be close friends with both of them. My folks will help out with money when needed or practical things when possible.  TyRoy helped me move. Moneypenny listens to me. But in the day to day, I am on my own. No Daddy or Master or boyfriend or girlfriend. Just me. 

Addendum written just before posting:

The day after I wrote this, I told the Professor about my very bad night and all these feelings I had about being alone. I hope that I was able to convey that I wasn't trying to make him feel bad or make him do anything, just that I was explaining to him how I felt. I've since had two realizations about this. 

First, doing this myself also has an upside, namely that it is ME that is doing this, that I can be proud of what I'm doing and what I've done, and that it is my fuck-ups that only effect me. 

Second, I'm not actually doing this alone, because I have the help and support of those people I listed, and then some, but I still feel alone. Maybe I'm always going to feel alone. While the point I was making was about it feels much more alone to be doing this without a partner, while many things might be easier if I had a partner to do this with, someone all in with me 24/7, maybe I would still feel alone on some level. 

Someone to sing to me

If a person wanted to be real crafty, they could easily seduce me with what i write here if they wanted to. I'm always amazed how little my writing get used against me.

I love the relationship between the Underwoods on House of Cards. The end of the second season episode where he brings out "the real thing" at her behest, a cigarette he's squirreled away, hidden under a lamp, and she asks him to sing to her. Gods, to have someone sing to me. Not a big production number. Not very loudly. Just softly, inder their breath as we lay there. Mockingbird sings in the middle of the night, all his songs are stolen so he hides....He sings them for you special. He knows you're afraid of the dark. Come on, sorrow, take your own advice, hide under the bed, turn out the light. Stars this night in the sky are ringing out. You can almost hear them saying, Close your eyes now kid... (-neko case)

I've always been happy just to have someone who'd sing with me. But it would be nice to have someone who'd sing to me.

What Living With Someone Is

Talking about barely scraping by and he says "Hell, I have a roommate and a good job and I'm barely making it."

Knowing a bit about his money situation,  I'm still a bit incredulous.  "I could totally get us both by on only what you make."

"Well, I'm sure you could but I'd have to change how I live."

Ah,  and that's the crux of it,  isn't it?  You've had long - long-term relationships but you've never lived with someone.  Living with someone is different.

It's more money until one of you hits a rough patch and loses their job or gets ill.   It's someone being scared shitless about the bills and another person pretending they aren't. It's telling someone to quit that job that's dangerous, that you'll be able to get by until they find something else.

It's sacrificing your guilty pleasures to the budget. It's "fuck the budget,  you're pms-ing and deserve fried food and chocolate."

It's "I never get chinese because he doesn't like it." It's "I can't keep chips or ice cream or beer or crackers (fucking crackers!? ) in the house for more than a few days and stuff is never there when I want to eat it because someone else always eats it first." It's someone else doing the grocery shopping on pay day. It's "Daddy, can you make me carbonera?" And he says yes but he has to look it up online because he doesn't actually know how to make it. It's bacon and fried eggs that put every restaurant to shame on mornings when he's up before you go to work.

It's not being able to get yourself something without getting something for them. It's either eating your Taco Bell really fast & throwing the wrappers away in the dumpster before you get home because buying for two or three means spending $20 for a single trip. It's knowing which their favorite candy bar, beer or wine, and fast food order. It's the look of surprise on their face when you bring it to them, even if you really only got them something because you wanted something.

It's cleaning up the kitchen only for it to be dirty an hour later. It's "I just cleaned this sink. Do you not see all these little beard trimmings you left here?" It's "that doesn't go in that basket!" It's someone else scrubbing the tub, with baking soda not bleach like you would have used.  It's someone else walking the trash out in the dark. It's someone else helping you carry stuff to your car so you don't have to make two trips. It's someone appreciating that clean kitchen. It's knowing they look forward to hearing whatever new album you are currently obsessed with and how you sing softly to yourself while you do the dishes.

It's never enough sex for one of you.  It's fucking when you dont feel like it beacause you know they are feeling deprived or unloved. It's cuddling or petting their aching head or rubbing their cramping belly, even though you really want sex. It's sex that lasts all weekend the first time you get a full two days alone and finally feeling reconnected. It's them diving between your legs until you cum when you poutingly refuse to get out of bed to go to work without sex.

It's not having that extra money so you can go to every concert you want to,  or fly across the country to visit a friend,  or take off work half a week to see your team play in the college club hockey championship. For awhile, it's just visiting family for holidays, having to put up with theirs. It's going to their friend's wedding and staying in an allergen - filled house because there are no motels nearby,  as if you could afford one. It's planning trips on the cheap around the hobby of one of you that the other doesn't really like. It's finding a place you've both always wanted to go and dreaming and saving for it. It's showing them the California coast because they've never been. It's an Alaskan cruise for your 25th. It's your kids taking you to Ireland for your 40th. It's taking your granddaughter to Disney.

It's having to put up with someone else's crazy family, watch them hurt that person and you dont get to just say "tell them to go fuck themselves." It's weird foods and traditions. It's people getting in your business.  It's someone forcing you to spend Christmas with your mama before you deploy. It's someone standing with you at your father's deathbed. It's simeone holding down the fort while you stay with your brother in hospice three hours away on family leave. It's someone who buys a two duplex building so you can move your parents in next door and help care for your ailing mother.

It's more money but still never enough. It's an extra set of hands but a pain in the ass. It's someone else to shoulder the load but it's constant work. It costs more than you have, in ways that you can't see on a spreadsheet,  and it's worth every penny. But you'll never know that if you don't stop worrying so much about what yoy lose and ignoring what you gain. It might not have worked out for me this time but I'll still do it again. And I'd even do this one again.

Epiphany : I Don't Want To Hear His Story

I'm not used to being done with someone before they are done with me. Because of the crazy they usually leave before I would want that. And if or when they do want to come back later I'm usually fine with that too because I never wanted them to leave.

I also try really hard to see where other people are coming from and, when needed, forgive them. Some of it just comes from an overabundance of empathy. The combination of the writer in me, the fuck-up in me, and the crazy working as a mirror all make me work really hard to see what might have been behind someone doing something. Also one of the few things I learned from Oprah and still keep with me is the idea that a person needs to forgive not because the other person deserves it but because the forgiver doesn't deserve to hold on to things, to carry those things around with them all the time.

There was quite awhile where I thought that I needed to forgive my biological father for not being in my life before I could work on myself. And I tried but I just never could get past it all. I was too angry and hurt. And I still had too many questions. At one point early in my therapy, I told my therapist "Well, if I need to do that, then I think that I'm just going to have to stay broken, because I don't think I'll ever be able to do that." Thankfully, she assured me that I didn't necessarily need to do that for this kind of therapy.

It's not as if I I hadn't wanted to understand and forgive. During my teen and college years, I started countless stories where he would show up at some important event in my life, my graduation, my wedding, and have a good explanation for why he had not been around in my childhood. One that did not involve demonizing my mother. And one that included a book with the times I'd shown up in the newspaper and pictures of me getting awards. (Not that those happened often, but this is my fantasy.) A few years ago, I had a some realizations about his absence, including that there would never be a good enough explanation for why he was voluntarily absent from my life for over 20 years.

Of course, just a few months after that, he started to initialize contact. The first thing I got was a Facebook friend request from his wife. There was no message with it. My response was less than cordial. In between, there were messages from a woman that he works with on Facebook, though I didn't find those until later, as they ended up in my "Other Messages" box. A little over a month ago, I received a letter from him. I had to go to the post office and sign for it, so he'd know for sure that I got it, though it was sent with a return address that wasn't his home or his name. Yes, with all my insistence on honesty from people in my life, my biological father chooses to try to contact me through all manner of subterfuge.

At the time I received the letter, I was not in a good place. I did not have a job. I did not have a place to live lined up for when my parents started renting out the house we were living in. And I had just found out that my relationship was not going to work out how we had wanted it to. After a night of freaking out and crying and freaking out some more and vomiting up my dinner because I was freaking out, with the advice of my therapist and the Professor, who reconnected with his father when he was 18, I decided that what was best for me was not dealing with it right then. I sent him a message telling him that I needed time and not to contact me, especially not through third parties.

Now things are somewhat better. I have been working steadily. I like the mindless data entry job, through a temp service, that I'm working and can imagine working there for quite a while. As long as I keep doing well there, even if the data entry job no longer needs me, the temp service will probably find me something else pretty quickly. I have an apartment lined up and I move in two weekends. Hell, I even have most of my stuff already packed up. I still don't know what is going to happen to my relationship with the Professor and Ginger, but I know that I can work against my worst and craziest impulses during a breakup or transition, so maybe we can come out of this in a healthy way. So every few days I think "Well, now I have to decide what to do about that fucking letter." But I have as yet been pretty baffled as to what I want to do. Usually, when I start fantasy-writing it, I end up going on an endless diatribe about all the ways that he wronged me and fucked me up. That seems less than helpful.

Then Friday while I was working and letting my mind wander, it hit me that I didn't want to hear his story. All I wanted was for him to hear just a little bit of mine, to know how hard it had been growing up feeling like one of the two people who should have loved me unconditionally felt there was something so wrong with me that he had to be completely absent from my life. I also realized that I did not want to give him my forgiveness. It might sound extremely petty, but I wanted him to know until his dying day that he would never have my love or forgiveness.

In DBT, we learn how to validate ourselves, to just say "yes, this emotion is here and I am feeling it." That includes emotions that we might have been told growing up are destructive or not ever appropriate, like anger. We're also taught that anger can be both justified by the situation and a very powerful motivator. I don't want to not be angry at him. I don't want to hear his side of the story. I don't want to forgive him. I don't want this to ever be okay. I don't want a relationship with him. And I want HIM to have to carry that around for the rest of his life, just like I have to.

I still don't know exactly what I want to say or in what medium I want to say it. I do know that I want it to be short and sweet. I don't want it to be about comparing him and my mother or my step-father as parents or people in my life. I don't want to allow him room to argue or debate. And I don't want it to be about anything other than him not being there, because that is the only thing that I actually experientially know he did TO me. In DBT, we have a skill called FAST, which creates a guideline for keeping our self-respect when dealing with another person: Be Fair, No Apologies. Stick to your values. Be Truthful. I want to be all of those things. But I don't want to hear his side. I don't want to forgive him. And I want that to haunt him as much as him not being in my life haunted me.

What I'll be looking for when I start looking again

This was originally posted to my fet account last night but I wanted to share it here too. I don't think it's any more sexual than anything else I might typically post here.

I have been accused of being overly picky,  too dismissive, or just an outright bitch in the early stages of dating. On the one hand, that might all be true. On the other hand  however, I don't want to waste anyone's time, nine or yours, and I have a pretty good idea of what I want and what I don't want. Though I'm willing to excuse some things based in chemistry, I also know that chemistry only seems to happen when many of these things are in play. 

As of writing this, I'm newly single and I'm trying to get out in the community more, meet more people,  see more of what's out there, hopefully find other s-type (and maybe D-types) that I can form closer friendships with, particularly so that when I am in another relationship and experience new or weird feelings after play,  I have someone to help me work through it. (Yes, I know that sounds selfish. I'll try to bring something else to the table for my new friends.) But even though I'm barely out of my last relationship,  still trying to figure out how you get your heart back out of a M/s relationship actually, i have still had men interested in me. I thought I'd write this so that those men can see if we might actually be compatible before ever wasting anymore time.

The first thing that has to be there is the ever elusive "chemistry." That is something we wouldn't know before being around each other, but I want to make sure I warn people that if I'm not feeling it, I won't date you. It's not just getting along kinda chemistry that I'm talking about. It's that "even your sweat smells good" and I don't have to try to want to have sex with you. It's a pheromone or biology or whatever, something I can't explain and we can't do anything to create. And if I don't feel it, or you don't feel it, there's no point in going further.

Next, I am not looking for any casual play partners, or casual partners at all. The kind of things I want to do and the kind of relationship I want to have requires more trust than I could give to just a casual play partner. Also, while it is still a possibility,  I would like to attempt to have a biological child as part of the family I am trying to create for myself. Yeah, I know, I'm probably scaring off a good 70% of the men out there off, but that's kinda the point, right? If that's not something you want, then you shouldn't try to date me at all. I'm actually more worried about men who'll try to use that as a way to get out of using protection. Haha. Nope. That's a surefire way for me to not date you as well.

I haven't even touched on kink or roles, have I? First, i wanna make sure you get past the above things because if you try to use the things I'm about to write before im serious about you, I'll be the one doing the slapping. So what kind of kinkster am I looking for? Well, I'm greedy. I want a Dominant Sadistic Daddy Master. More than ever I realize that the dynamic between two people is developed between the two of them and no two dynamics will be the same. But I like a Sadistic Dominant in the bedroom/for play. My eyes are always bigger than my stomach when it comes to masochism but I would like to keep pushing my limits, deepening and widening my experiences. My idea of foreplay is making out while you pull my hair, candles are for pouring wax, I can make my own bubble bath, and I do not 'make love,' no matter how much I love you. I like scenes but I like even my sex on the regular to have some bit of that dominance to it. In our everyday out of the bedroom I have found that I do desire the stability, consistency,  challenge, and accountability that a 24/7 power exchange relationship affords, though I don't have particular protocol or hard and fast rules that I believe must be there. I don't need micromanaged. I don't need to keep traditional gender roles. In fact, I can't cook worth a shit, so I'm hoping you can. I don't need, or even want, for you to make all the decisions, especially without consulting me, but when I follow your orders or rules, I have to be able to trust that you are making decisions that are ultimately best for us and for me, not just whatever is best for you. I kinda also like a little bit of Daddy sprinkled in there. Baby me when I'm feeling sick, pet my hair when I'm down, have me call or text you when I get somewhere so you know I'm safe, be proud of me when I reach my goals and support me getting there.

I think that's a pretty good primer on what I am looking for which, with my profile, should eliminate us wasting each other's times. As rude and dismissive as this might sound, I would like to add that i dont think that men that don't fit what I am looking for are bad men or people or partners. I just don't think they are going to be good partners for me, nor me for them. And that is ok. The choices I make do not reflect on if someone else is deserving of love ir a relationship in general or of if they are doing their kink right or wrong. It is just what I think is best for me right now. I'm a big girl who has friends and loved ones to protect her already. I don't need a savior or a knight in shining armor or for you to tell me that I don't know what I want. But if you're still interested after all this and all the above doesn't disqualify us from each other, then, when my heart is a bit more healed, maybe we could date.

Miss Her More

I think I miss her more. I mostly don't have to miss him. A part of me feels like I might never have to miss him. If I'm still a good and respectful girl who doesn't bring crazy into his house and is stubborn enough to be around through his crazy, and will still give porn star head, a part of me suspects that he and I could wander in and out of each other's lives forever, even if he can't be a primary or secondary partner for me or be my Master.

But she is different. I feel like just my presence might stress her out. She and I make plans to do something outside of the house, at this point once a week, but early mornings are best for her and I am notorious for oversleeping. Because he is largely stuck at home,  she has seceded that realm to him. So I can come and go as he pleases to spend time with him, which is usually while she is asleep or at work, and I largely avoid encroaching on her time when I am there.

Last weekend I was out on a date with someone who knew a bit of the breakup and that I was still un-tangling myself from things. He asked me where I wanted to be in a year. One of the multiple things I brought up was wanting to be in a larger family. It was a date and I didn't want to scare him off by having him think anymore than he might already that "I'd like to be more on my way to having a child," which he already knew was something I wanted, meant "In a year,  I want have trapped you and be popping out little You Jrs." But I while answering the question,  I realized that it wasn't just that I wanted to be having a baby sometime in the near future, but that I wanted more of a family than just my parents (and my step-father's parents who don't really see me as their grandchildren.) I know we can't have the family we imagined, but does that mean we can't have the one she talked about wanting with close but not sexually-involved friends? Living near enough to help each other parent? Just because the three of us, and by extension the two of them and me and whoever my future baby-daddy is, can't be a romantic grouping, why does that habe to eliminate the other dreams we had of a poly-family?

I miss that dream and feeling like someone had my back and I had theirs. I miss cuddling and watching our tv shows. I miss waking her up at night before she went to work. I miss getting to do things for her, feeling like I eased her load. I miss getting to hear her beliefs and ideas, many of which are vastly different from my own. I miss seeing her be amazing and wishing other people could see it too. I miss getting to feel natural around her, though now I'm always so worried that I'm gonna fuck her up that I'm not sure that's in the cards for awhile. 

Yeah, I definitely miss her more than I miss him.

Untitled, 7/18/14

I should have known it was a lie. Not an intentional lie, but a lie nonetheless.  I thought I'd always have them, that they would be there to help me. I made myself believe that. And that we were gonna have this messy little life but that it would be together. That my crazy was gonna be just fine with them and that the dynamic was the best one for us. Now I feel so alone and my crazy is too much and the dynamic is too much. Im trying to find a place all on my own when the only place that I might be able to afford with the job that I'm just praying I get is one in their building! Jesus FML! And I didn't do anything super psycho. I had myself convinced that as long as I didn't do something psycho, I would be fine. They wouldn't leave or not want me. I can't believe I forgot the first rule. Even before House's Rule ("Everyone lies") is my rule- Everyone leaves. I don't know why I thought it would be any different here. Stupid girl.

Two country songs and a Barenaked Ladies Ballad? Must be a breakup

How we feel when we want to end a relationship but we don't want to hurt the other person:
Bad Goodbye- Clint Black (feat. Wynona)
http://youtu.be/XLA8sUvCLeU

I've been bound to leave you,
We've known that for awhile
I'm sure it's something I can't do
If I can't leave you with a smile
I don't know how far I'll have to go
'Til I'm sure those eyes won't cry
And in my mind I've left enough to know
that I can't leave you with
A bad good bye

Goodbye, easier said than done
Goodbye, there's no good when you're the one
Whose goodbye you swore would never come
And in my goodbye you're finding none.

I'm still bound to leave you,
I surely don't know how
My heart won't let me put you through
What my mind says should happen now.

I don't know where we'll go from here,
there may be no way to fly
And the cloud I'm in just makes it
all too clear that I can't leave you
With a bad goodbye.

Goodbye, easier said than done
Goodbye, there's no good when you're the one
Whose goodbye you swore would never come
And in my goodbye you're finding none.

How can we be so far between
Where we are and one more try
And any way I look,
I've only seen that I can't leave you
With a bad goodbye...

How it feels to know that someone has been putting off breaking up with you:

Break Your Heart- Barenaked Ladies
http://youtu.be/11AnXGIwXa4
The bravest thing I've ever done
Was to run away and hide
But not this time, not this time
And the weakest thing I've ever done
Was to stay right by your side
Just like this time, and every time
I couldn't tell you I was happy when you were gone
So I lied and said that I missed you when we were apart
I couldn't tell you, so I had to lead you on
But I didn't mean to break your

And if I always seem distracted
Like my minds somewhere else
That's because it's true, yes it's true
it's this stupid pride that makes me feel
Like I have to follow through
Even half-assedly, loving you
Why must I always speak in terms of cowardice?
When I guess I should have just come out and told you right from the start
Why must I always tell you all I want is this?
I guess 'cause I didn't want to break your heart

And you said
Whatcha think that I was gonna do,
Curl up and die just because of you?
I'm not that weak, you know
What'd you think that I was gonna do,
Try to make you love me as much as I love you?
How could you be so low?
You arrogant man,
What do you think that I am?
My heart will be fine
Just stop wasting my time

And now I'm over you, I'll be OK,
and that I've got what I want,
and that's rid of you
Bye
And it's not 'cause I'll be missing you
That makes me fall apart
It's just that I didn't mean to break
No I didn't mean to break
No I didn't mean to break
Your heart

And how it feels when you're still standing there afterwards:
What Makes You Stay- Deana Carter
http://youtu.be/PgB0Iuui3w4
Look at me
I'm in a place
I never thought I'd be

Don't have the strength
To fight anymore
Or a reason not to leave

So tell me why I still keep holding on
To something I just cannot see

What makes you stay
When your world falls apart
What makes you try one more time
When it's not in your heart
At the end of your rope
When you can't find any hope
You still look at him and say
I just can't walk away
Tell me what makes you stay

I'm not afraid
Of living alone
I was alone before he came

I've been in love
Many times before
But this time's not the same

I've always been the first to say goodbye
Now it's the last thing I can do

What makes you stay
When your world falls apart
What makes you try one more time
When it's not in your heart
At the end of your rope
When you can't find any hope
You still look at him and say
I just can't walk away
Tell me what makes you stay

When it goes this deep
And feels this strong
I can't convince myself
That this love is wrong

What makes you stay
When your world falls apart
What makes you try one more time
When it's not in your heart
At the end of your rope
When you can't find any hope
You still look a him and say
I just can't walk away
Tell me what makes you stay

Gonna Get An Apartment And Never Come Out

I think I'm going to get an apartment and never come out.

Ok, so that's an exaggeration.  Of course I'll come out to go to work. I mean, I'll have to in order to pay for the apartment. But I think I'll be doing a great deal of staying in. Read all my baglog of magazines.  Read all my books so I can get rid of the ones I don't think I'll reread. (Hahahahaha. Like I'm ever going to get rid of them. See, I haven't lost my sense of humor.) I'll keep my hulu queue down to one page. (Again, hahahaha.) I'll try to work on my Netflix queue too. I'll watch all the movies on the top 100 lists and all the movies that have won a best picture Oscar.

Notice what isn't in there? Dating or fucking or romance. That's because it isn't going to be. I've hit that point today where I feel like I'm never going to be able to change enough to have anything close to a functioning long-term romantic relationship. I can be the kindest, sweetest, compassionate,  most generous person I can possibly be and I can even be with people who I love and who truly do love me but I will never not be too much.  Find a sane person and they'll either never understand or I'll make them crazy. Find other crazy people and I'll make them crazier. I can try to hand the times that my feelings are unjustified on my own but I won't always be successful. I'm not sure I'll ever not be more upset by more things more often than most other people. I work hard for these times to be further apart and less intense and to take them out on the people in my life less often. But I will never be a normal person. I will probably always need more handholding, more reassuring, more sex and play, and more tolerance. And in the end, no amount of those good things about me is going to make up for that.

So I'm going to stop trying. I'm going to try to sublimate and forget.

Maybe I'll use all that energy to keep track of my calories,  down to the last one, eating healthier and smaller. Work out daily. Go for long walks in my new neighborhood, no matter how good or not good it is, refusing to be afraid to walk around my home again, but also not allowing myself to be vulnerable again. No skirts or heels for me. And no pink.  Even if I get thinner, I will try to make it so I am also stronger.

Or maybe I'll eat as much as I want of anything I want. No one looks twice at the disgusting fat chick, right? I'm still not seen as the first & easiest target. Well, except for a mugging, since it's not like I could run after you. But I won't have to worry about sex or romance then.

Maybe I'll go back to devoting much of my time to caregiving for my family. My step-father's parents will be moving here in August and his mother has dementia and lung cancer. I'm sure they'll need help. If I devote myself to that, I won't have time for romance. And no one really wants the baggage that comes with that situation anyway. I don't remember if I missed having sex while I cared for my uncle. I was usually able to get it with TyRoy when I was in his area, but it's hard for me to remember what I did or didn't feel, especially during the time I was on the Lithium.

Recently, I've told other people that what I appreciate about DBT is that it doesn't really ask you to focus on the bigger picture things because right now you are probably having a hard enough time just getting through this minute, this hour, this day. It seems to be if more use to me than other things I had learned. I remember when I was 15 the therapist my parents' sent me to asked me what I would want on a deserted island with me. Since no one told me it was a trick question,  I answered honestly. I wanted some books and some cds and my cd walkman and some batteries and a journal and some pens. (I didn't say it then but I had read Lord of the Flies and the book they made into the movie where a teenage Brooke Shields has sex with her brother because they are the only ones on the island. I know that you can find food and water on deserted islands.) He acted like I was the dumbest kid ever. He pulled out Maslovs Heirarchy of Needs and told me how I needed to focus on the bottom layers, Physological Needs (food & water) and Safety & Security Needs (shelter) before I focused on the top needs. This was entirely unhelpful at the time. I was 15 and my parents took care of my food and shelter needs.

But right now, I think I need to combine the two, DBT and Maslo. I need to work on getting a job and my own roof above my head, as the time I will be able to depend on others is quickly running out.  And when I get overwhelmed, I need to do whatever I can to get through the next minute, next hour, next day, until it is bearable again, at least bearable enough to work on getting those base needs met. Right now, that is venting here until I can go to a movie with my friend Marcy so I can stop crying for awhile. Then, it will be time to take my night pills, including a sleeping pill, then I'll try to get up early and work on those needs. Maybe I'm overeacting about the state of my current relationship or about my future relationship prospects, so don't hold me to it. But then again, maybe I'll get an apartment and never come out. Don't say you weren't warned.

Loose Associative Links

"I've been thinking about a problem." Moneypenny and I are sitting in his living room, while I'm on my visit to larger Midwest City from Smaller Midwest City. "If you are working from a many worlds theory, where everyone's life is their own world, then you basically create your own world. What do you think people would do differently if they realized that they created their own world?"  I wasn't sure if this was a poke at how I had been feeling all weekend, so mired in the lack of a clearly, overwhelmingly good decision that I feel unable to make any, or was coming from his own place of wanting to make a better life for himself. Either way, it still put me on the defensive and I went on a five minute rant about how no matter what changes in life or attitude people may make there would still be things in their life that they couldn't change and that would still suck anyway. Then I felt guilty for not being able to add anything to his conversation. I ended up leaving an hour earlier than I might have originally because I couldn't stand to sit there anymore as I fought both being angry and wanting to cry.

These kinds of thought experiments used to be fun for me. Even when I couldn't completely understand or envision them, the seemingly kooky ideas that pop up in quantum mechanics always blew me away and I loved thinking about the possibilities they presented. When I was studying Buddhism and how we create our own realities, I could easily get carried away in those possibilities as well, the ability to unravel so much of the suffering that we have created in our own lives. Stone-cold sober, he and I could have the kind of conversations that people are only supposed to be able to have when they are on some sort of mind-altering substance.

But in recent years, I've drifted further and further away from those kinds of discussions and, on the drive home, I was plagued by the question of why. I used to love those kinds of thought experiments, would come up with at least half of the places we would start on my own. Now it rubs me the wrong way to even things of them. I'm trying to work out why. I'm going to try to arrange my thoughts as best as I can, but I'm not sure how good of a job I'll do, so bare with me.

I think part of it is that with the stuff that has happened in my life, it has felt less important. Who cares about the possibilities of the multi-verse or unravelling the cycles of suffering in our lives when we're caring for ill and/or dying family members? Or even when we are just trying to get by, paycheck to paycheck? When you're spending all your time trying to figure out how to pay the next bills or how to afford to move out or you'd be able to someday go to school to be able to get a better job so you don't have to worry as much about paying the bills, you don't have as much, if any, room in your head for thinking about more esoteric things. Or at least I don't. We had all these conversations when I was 21 and in college. Yes, I only had a part-time job and I had to think about my schoolwork and being able to pay bills, but there were much fewer of them and I was convinced that soon I would have a decent enough job that I wouldn't have to worry as much about paying bills. I was convinced that my near future looked brighter so it wasn't as much of a chore to worry about the bills then. Now I'm 32 and I'm hitting this wall where my future doesn't look any brighter, where my best case scenario is having a future that is this same shade and not a shade darker. As much as I might want to, I just don't have it in me to give a shit about that stuff any more.

But I think that a big part of it is the crazy. I read this article last week from the Atlantic's website that was about the link between creativity and mental illness. Near the end of the article, she writes about talking to another colleague about creativity and schizophrenia (emphasis is mine): "Heston and I discussed whether some particularly creative people owe their gifts to a subclinical variant of schizophrenia that loosens their associative links sufficiently to enhance their creativity but not enough to make them mentally ill." Her end conclusion in the article is : "Some people see things others cannot, and they are right, and we call them creative geniuses. Some people see things others cannot, and they are wrong, and we call them mentally ill. And some people, like John Nash, are both." This really hit home with me. Now, I do not have schizophrenia, or a family history of it, nor have I ever been a creative genius, but I do think that the ways in which I think of things that many others might not come from a different way of associating things. But I think that that much of this is tied to letting the crazy drive the train more. Now that I am not letting her drive the train as much, the less I have that. It is not as bad as I had hoped that it would be when I first started down this road of improving my mental health, but it is there and it is enough of a difference that i notice it. I also have to deal with the long-term side effects of psychiatric medications. My memory has never been the same after I took lithium. Being on a mood-stabilizing medication that wards against the brain chemically induced suicidality as well as bringing up the low parts of the low side and down the up side of the ups means that I don't have those periods of creative hyper-energy anymore. (You know, mania.) As we speak, I'm also having weird things happen which I'm not sure are mental illness or medication related (or neither), like spacing out and losing time, and increased light sensitivity and black floating spots in my vision occasionally. But if you take this and add it up what you get is less memory to cull from, less energy to make associations, and a quieter and more orderly brain with less loose associations. And a woman who is very sad and more than a little angry that she has to make the decision between living life at all and having an interesting brain, though she is pretty sure what decision she will keep making day after day, even though it means she doesn't get to have those conversations anymore.

The Slippery Slope of Day Drinking

I think that some days are just meant for a person to drink from the time they wake up to the time they go to bed. Most days, I like a cup of coffee or an energy drink with my small breakfast, usually taken as I walk run out the door to work. Though even then, with the coffee, I like the Bailey's Irish Cream Creamer over the French Vanilla or Creme Brulee, though those are good too. On the first anniversary of my uncle's passing, we all gathered at his neighbor's house for a get-together, a potluck and firepit. His boyfriend made "Antifreeze" and I drank from the time we arrived, at about noon, until the time we left, maybe 8. I might have also drank when we got back home. I probably would have drank on the ride home as well, as I think my mom was driving, but she has a whole thing about not driving with open containers in the passenger compartment and following the law and all that bullshit.

It feels like today is one of those days, where you drink all day. It's the Fourth of July, after all. Most people start their bbqs in the early afternoon. If they are smoking meat, like the Professor's friend who's party we are going to a bit later, they start much earlier in the day. And nothing goes with bbqing like drinking, right?

Of course, I'm writing this at a quarter after 1pm, so I've already wasted a good portion of that drinking time. Sigh. Trying to be a good girl. I actually just started a cup of coffee-hot cocoa mix-creamer and I'm working on a 24 oz bottle of water as well, so I won't get dehydrated later. But the red, white, and blue jello shots that I've been working on since yesterday are calling me. (Note to self: next time, fill in more blue on each, so less shots overall, which will end up with a wider white section and fuller shots overall.)

The key to drinking all day is not getting too drunk though. I imagine it is the same for smoking pot continuously throughout the day, as opposed to just getting really stoned at the end of the day. Sadly I wouldn't know because I'm still trying to 'get high.' But you want to be able to function, maybe even drive a bit if you needed to, so you want to stay a bit buzzed but below the legal limit for much of the day. You also don't want to get dehydrated, so you need to have some water in there too.

I grew up with my grandfather drinking during the day on weekends and my uncle followed in this proud tradition. I definitely remember weekend days where my grandpa was having a beer at the kitchen table before he was properly dressed. Now I will say that I never saw my grandfather drink and then drive. My uncle really only did that after he moved out into the country where you could drive the gravel roads for hours, never get above 30 mph, and never run into anyone. He and his neighbor even had a name for it, "country cruising." (Don't get me wrong. I am very opposed to drunk driving. I try to be very careful about my alcohol consumption if I know or even think I might be driving later on. But sometimes we all do stupid shit and sometimes we can't stop the people we love from doing stupid shit.) Honestly, while it isn't as if he didn't have issues before he moved out into the country, I think that having a friend and neighbor who was (and still is) basically a functioning alcoholic did my uncle no favors. I am pretty sure that if he hadn't passed away, my uncle would have had to deal with some serious alcohol dependency issues. It seems to run in our veins, though. Many people on both sides of my mother's family have had chemical dependency issues.

It isn't like I blame them though. Everyone on both sides of the family were either poor or, at best, working class. Some of their kids reached middle class, but, as the middle class is shrinking year by year, I'm not sure most of them will stay there. A month or so ago, a friend texted me, forlorn about the state of his personal economy, that even though he makes what to me is a really good wage, he isn't making as much as he thought he would at this point in his life, he's had to go into debt over medical bills, and he doesn't know how he would be able to be married and raise a child on his current wage, especially since he would rather his child not be put in daycare but to have one parent stay home during those pre-going-to-school years. I sent him to a country song, Tip It On Back, by Dierks Bentley:

I see main street closing
Miles of “For Sale” signs
And them fields ain’t growing
Fast enough to get us by
I feel the sweet release,
Of a Friday night
For a couple of hours we can run this town
Till it runs dry

Tip it on back, make it feel good
Sip a little more than you know you should
Let the smoke roll, off your lips
Let it all go whatever it is
And tip it on back

I don't think he found it very comforting and, honestly, I guess it wasn't supposed to be. Shit sucks. For most of us, no matter what high ideals we had in college about not working for the man and not being like our parents, guess what? That's what we're gonna do. And most of our parents actually started out better than most of us because going to college was much cheaper back then, whether you went right after high school or went to night school. I'm not saying it was easy but there were somethings that were easier or cheaper for them. And our parents still smoked, drank, did drugs, were sometimes shitty parents, got divorced, etc. (Not all of our parents did all of those things, but you get what I'm saying.) A few weeks after I let him in on the harsh reality of what the rest of his adult life was probably going to look like, I had it myself. I was doing my budget and I knew I couldn't even get by working as much as I possibly could in the job I was at, where working close to full-time hours broke me, so how could I possibly imagine that I could do that and also go back to school for anything that might get me a better job while also working? But I had to do this everyday to pay bills. And this, folks, is why you drink once you are out of your twenties, once you stop partying.

Now there are some people who don't have this urge to escape when things are shitty. I know maybe one or two of them. I was in a fark comment thread (or was it a fetlife comment thread?) the other day that had something to do with alcohol and there were several people who asserted "Why would I want to not be present in my life and in control of myself?" It must be nice to be those people because, even though I know and, in reasonable mind, agree with all the DBT and Buddhist stuff about being present and participating and being mindful, I also know that life fucking sucks and I can't always deal with that, so there are a great many times when I would rather veg out in front of the tv or drink til I am buzzed (or beyond) or try to get high, or some combination of the above, than deal with what is in front of me. Now someday that might not be the case, but it is right now and I try to tell myself that it doesn't matter as long as I do the things I need to do before I start drinking, or if I can comfortably do it the next day and if I get up and go to work when I'm supposed to. But I also know that, for me, day drinking could become a slippery slope into alcoholism. You know, because things suck everyday so if you accept that there are days that just call for drinking all day then why don't all days call for that?

Anyway, here's a picture of my shots:

Why I Can't But Why I Still Want To

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"Well O.K. Then, Don't Cry"

I am probably still too emotional and close to things to really make sense but I feel like if I don't get something out and on paper (so to speak) I'm going to burst and I need a way to sort through my feelings.

'cause someone you don't know
is someone you don't know
get a firm grip, girl
before you let go
for every hand extended
another lies in wait
keep your eye on that one
anticipate

...

if there's anything I've learned

all these years on my own

it's how to find my own way there

and how to find my own way back home

The set-up: So Ginger is out of town on a much deserved vacation, after she drops her son back off at his father's house. My parents have just come back from a two week trip during which I took care of their dog, which meant never being away from their home for more than eight hours and never gone overnight. The Professor and I had made plans last week that we would do some more hardcore play Monday night and into Tuesday, since Tuesday is the only day that I didn't have to work. I was really excited because I have all these things I want to explore but he hasn't been in a headspace to play, and honestly I probably haven't at times either though I will usually play anyway and deal with consequences later. This was supposed to be the first getting-our-toes-wet-again playtime. But evidently the Universe had other plans because I got my period over a week early on Monday and he was having allergy and breathing issues. So not only was there no play last night (Monday night) but there ended up being no sex of any kind, period. Now I knew that later today (Tuesday) the Professor was supposed to be going out to dinner with his mom and sister, who are visiting sort of unexpectedly from out of town, but dinner with his mom is almost never until 6 or 7 o'clock, so since his breathing was better, I had had hopes that we would at least get some frisky time, or even just cuddling time, especially since his breathing had been better today. Then his sister calls and says that she's outside. Right now. "Well, I guess I better put on some real clothes." "You might want to take your collar off too." "Oh shit I almost forgot about that. I just get so used to it being on while I'm here."

Now last weekend when she came over the first time, it didn't feel as weird because Ginger and her son came in shortly after so everyone was there and it wasn't just him and I. Wait. Let me back up. So the Professor was brought up in a very strict, conservative, evangelical Christian church, which he calls a wacko fundie cult. While all the kids have strayed from it, his sister went back to help her get clean and sober from drugs and alcohol. His brother, while not in the church, is fairly successful, lives far enough away that he really only comes back for holidays, and was always the golden boy. The Professor is seen as the black sheep and it seems to be magnified by the religious context that his mother and step-father view everything. They have told him that the reason he has so much trouble in his life, why he isn't doing better job-wise, money-wise, and even physical health-wise is because he has strayed from God and that everything would be better if he would just come back to the church. He has come a long way from who he used to be in so many respects but they refuse to give him any credit for that because he still isn't in the church. But he loves them and they are still his family so he tries to have as good of a relationship as possible with them, which means not talking about a great many things. While I am totally out to my family, which is made easier by the fact that it's just my parents and I really, the Professor and Ginger come from more conservative backgrounds than I do and both worry about members of their family shunning them if they were as out as I am. (Ginger is kinda in the middle of the Professor and I's extremes as I know her family, have done family events with them, and one sibling even knows exactly what I am to her, but she maintains a don't ask don't tell policy at this time with most everyone, and they just assume I'm a really close friend.) I'm sure that it's bad enough in his parents' eyes that he lives with Ginger outside of wedlock, but for them to know about me would be even more detrimental to the relationship. Over the holidays, when his brother came to town and stayed at the apartment while I was there, the Professor told him, but I don't envision him telling his sister, at least not while she's so caught up in the religious sect of his parents and living so close to them. Back when I first moved in, which was right around the holidays, I was very insecure about all of this. Rationally, I understood both the Professor and Ginger's positions with their families but it made me feel like I was less than in the relationship. Now that things are set up differently and will be for awhile, it underscores that the relationship is different, but I know that I am not less than anyone else, that I am not loved less, and that they would stand up for me if they needed to, which is really what is important to me.

All that said, today still felt sucky. Like I cried for quite a bit kind of sucky. Like I'm crying as I write this kind of sucky. While I would like to get to know the Professor's sister better, to get to see him in that dynamic, I also thought that she probably wanted to get to hang out with her big brother on her own and that she probably wasn't expecting some random chick to be there. And that is probably exactly what she thinks I am, some random chick. Or, to be even more honest, some random trick. Before his sister got sober, she spent more than enough time around her brother and his friends to know, generally, what he was into and how his relationships went. I told the Professor that I was going to leave so they could hang out together and, despite the evil bitch in my head wanting to turn it into a "but I really wanted him to say 'no, stay and hang out with us' so I'm going to be mad that he didn't" kinda thing, that is completely unfair. I know that I would have been even more uncomfortable staying and they probably did want time to hang out together. At least she did or she wouldn't have come over by herself before dinner. But I had a bunch of stuff that I had wanted to do before I left, including have some sexual or cuddle time, all of which I had to just drop. I walked right by his sister with my overnight bag, after having come from the kitchen where I was starting the dishwasher. I was also going to run up to the convenience store with the Professor so he could get some cigarettes. As he said that his mom and sister probably wouldn't stop by there for him to pick them up, I ran to the store and back, rather than leave him with one cigarette. I felt so stupid when I came back. All I could think was what his sister must be thinking, "Who is this slut that he has staying overnight while his girlfriend is gone? Doing his dishes, running and getting him cigarettes? She's obviously ashamed to have been here, since she's leaving as soon as I got here. And she should be. I saw her just a few days ago being all good friends with his girlfriend. She should be ashamed of herself." Last week, the Professor and I celebrated being together for one year, a year with plenty of struggle on everyone's parts but where I love them more than ever, even if things don't look how we planned for them to. It's really difficult for me to remind myself that all that hard work wasn't meaningless when I feel like I'm probably just seen as some trick.

Last Friday on Facebook, I re-posted this list that a friend of mine had posted a list called 15 Things You Don't Owe Anyone At All (Thought You Think You Do). It includes "You don't owe anyone an explanation for your living situation", "You don't owe anyone an explanation for your sex life" and "You don't owe anyone an explanation for your relationship choices." I re-posted it with the following (long) comment "My friend who shared this said she doesn't usually read or share these things but this spoke to her. Obviously it spoke to me too & though it is about not owing an explanation, I wanted to throw my 2 cents in. 
Several things in my life right now are not how I had been planning them to be, plans I'd been sharing for months. It's been difficult and embarrassing to have to explain why this is to people, especially in my work situation where I am not completely honest about my relationship. Maybe this is partially my fault bc I wear my life on my sleeve. If I hadn't told anyone about the plans, they wouldn't have known when it fell through. What's been just as hard is that people in my life want to blame my significant others or the kind of relationship (or just my bf if that's the only one they know about) and it ends up feeling like I'm protesting too much when I assert the truth, that I am still really happy & in love & that they helped me a great deal through all the problems & that they are also disappointed with how things went. I don't really know how to straddle that line between "let me share my happy/share my life events so we can build mutual trust" and "I dont really want or need your negative opinion on the people I love or how I live/love/fuck."" It's still really difficult for me. Obviously. No, I don't owe it to his sister to tell her who I really am to him. Nor does he. If she went off on a tirade about me, actually calling me some random trick out loud to his face, I would expect him to stand up for me and at the very least say, "You don't know her. You don't know the situation. She's someone Ginger and I care about very much and she isn't doing anything to hurt either of us. Anything more than that is none of your business." I don't think he would let that shit slide. (And I know Ginger wouldn't.) But it sucks. Just like it sucks when people in my life blame things not working out as planned on it being a poly relationship or just on him (mostly those are people who only know about him, but sometimes not.) For the most part, you get to say that once, after which I will explain as much as I can depending on what you know why that isn't the case, and then I'm going to tell you, very nicely, that I don't want to here that bullshit again. It's always more complicated than you know, even if you know everything, or think you do. (Which, yes, is something I should remind myself more often when I butt my nose into other's people's business too.) But I have a client that I just can't seem to get to STFU about how he thinks that it's all the Professor's fault. Look, it's nice that you're on my side and acting like my grandpa and all, but you don't actually know what the relationship is at all and I don't feel like I can tell you, much less also tell you about all the fucked-up shit on my side, not to mention that some of it was just that things out of our control happened long before we met and continue to this day, like his health issues, like my mental health issues, like the management at the apartment being shady assholes, like me hurting my back right as all the moving stuff was about to happen which put even more stress on an already stressed out me. He might have been the one who chose to talk to me, to pursue something with me over a year ago, but everyday that I'm with him, I chose him, and Ginger and this situation, over and over again.

So now that I'm at the end of my story, I'm not really sure what the point is or where it leaves me. For so long, I spent so much time cultivating this attitude that I didn't really care about what others thought and the idea that that was why I was so honest about who I was so early into all kinds of relationships. But I think it was really that I would rather they dislike me for who I really am than dislike, or even like, me for who I'm not. If the Professor's sister wanted to dislike me or think I'm a horrible heathen for being his whore in the true context, I think I would be much less upset than I am now. It's the idea that she might think I'm just some random fuck of his and that I would do it behind Ginger's back that I think digs in deep. I can't get to the point that the Professor and Ginger are at where they don't care what people might wonder or gossip about as long as it doesn't negatively effect how the people treat them or us, because what our relationship(s) are or aren't isn't really any of their business. I'm not upset with them for this attitude or think they should change it, it just isn't how I feel. Just like I am not saying that the Professor should have or even could have done anything different, especially while attempting to keep the current relationship he has with his family and I completely understand that, but that it is also true that, while not his or anyone's fault, I'm hurting. I guess I just needed to get it off my chest. One of those DBT lessons that sticks in my head is that two seemingly contradictory things can be true at the same time- nothing could have been done any different but I also felt like I was probably being judged in a way that erased all that we've all been to each other over this year.

everything i do is judged
and they mostly get it wrong
but oh well
'cuz the bathroom mirror has not budged
and the woman who lives there can tell
the truth from the stuff that they say
and she looks me in the eye
and says would you prefer the easy way?
no, well o.k. then
don't cry