Merry Tinsel Shibari to You!

 

I wanted to write a whole thing about Elfness and darkness and pleasure and melancholy, but I got a cold for Christmas so my head is all fuzzy.

I'm profoundly grateful for self-tie nights, for this lavish way of loving myself. And I'm profoundly grateful to you, for rooting for me and for giving me a safe place to show off! Wishing you every magical thing, this week, next year, and forever.

End of a Flirt Era, a Zap of Loneliness

Even when I made the car appointment, I felt a little off, like I would be wrong to expect this trip to be another round of “if onlys” from Cute Car Place Guy. I felt off, ashamed, exposed—all emotions too dramatic for an errand. Driving in Monday morning, to get the oil change done and have them check the weird noise the heater’s (I mistyped “heart’s) making, I had such a sad feeling. Shame mixed with loss and sleepiness. The heater had been making a noise, but of course it wasn’t that morning!

It was the first time in years that I didn’t see Cute Car Place Guy smiling and beckoning me to pull in. He was nowhere to be seen and they assigned Valentine and me to the new guy, who was admittedly also cute. I felt like I’d been found out, like I’d gotten in trouble.

When CCPG DID appear, he called me by my given name, which is not the name I go by. Nothing like realizing I’m not a main character (Of course I’m not!) in this person’s life, or even a guest star! We got a chance to chat as we usually do, though. He always starts with “Staying out of trouble?” and of course I have been, a little too much lately!

It turns out, he has separated from his wife, the wife he’s been complaining to me about for years. Typing that makes me realize it’s actually pretty reasonable to feel a bunch of shame about this! I’ll change that to “remorse” but still! We’ve been hitting on each other for like five years of his marriage! Gross!

Then, it felt for the rest of my wait like he was avoiding me and like I should be avoiding him. I felt too loud and very not-charming. When I got the too-high bill, I wondered what was wrong with me that I’ve been having the car serviced at the dealership for almost ten years?! There’s a perfectly good and less-expensive place so much closer to home!

I’m kind of committed to the whole Boyfriend Material thing, and this guy is not, and could never be, the right one. The whole vibe is just…gone, and that’s probably a good thing.

It makes me sad. It was a kind of love, him looking after Valentine and me, being there with the discounts (Were they, though?) and almost always game to ruffle my feathers and buoy my spirits a little bit. Sometimes even bringing up the original ask-out/thank you note I sent him in…2019? Something like that?

Is it because of Luke Daines that I associate car-care with affection? Remember when he replaced like ALL the insides of Lorelai’s Jeep so she could keep the original body?

One of the cute guys at work offered to install a new heater motor for me (On top of all this, the sound still sounds!) so I’m currently squeeing and overthinking about that! The idea of handing him my keys fills me with fizzy forbidden bubbles.

Anyway, the end of a flirt era—what do I do with this? When a relationship ends, there’s a protocol, pictures to scroll through. A playlist I’ve been curating my whole life! I guess what I do is write this blog post and feel sad and lonely for a while.

I stand by my earlier-this week sanguine magnanimity, but for a few days I’m just kinda freaking out. I think the CCPG fantasy filled a bigger need than I thought it did. I think I held out a stronger hope that it was a slow-burn meet-cute than I wanted to admit to. I’m afraid there’s just NO ONE, that this dating slump will collide with age 50 this coming year and I will never touch a man again!

At the same time, letting go of what isn’t, recognizing where I really am and what I really want, makes room for the right things to happen. The open door of new possibility does feel a little bit good.

A Bad Dating Year is Not the Worst Thing

I’ve been studying awe lately. This is one of my favorite brain books of all time, and I haven’t even finished it yet!

So maybe that’s why the titular epiphany was easy to recognize when it came along. I’m sorry to be a Spotify commercial, but I love the Wrapped time of year so much. When I saw that I started listening to Frank Ocean’s cover of Moon River on February 6 and remembered that that’s the day The Shy One broke up with me, I was overwhelmed with giddy joy. With love. The beautiful absurdity of this year. It felt like my heart was laughing. It felt like a being-set-free.

After week-before-last’s bad review situation, I settled into it: There were highlights, but this was a bad year of dating. The past ten months especially have been full of grief, false starts, acting-outs, minor deceptions, and not-quite-right connections. Too many hookups in relationship-potential clothing. Deleted email drafts. More than one art project about grief. Setting a timer for ten minutes so I could moon safely over the Hidden Folder. It’s beautiful and ridiculous and I love it.

I rang in the New Year overjoyed, in a balloon-bopping collective effervescence with Rainbow Pal, singing to a sassy and sparkly cover of Dancing on My Own. When I left the club, WhatsApping across the ocean to the beautiful Shy Ones, a single golden firework popped over the parking lot. I felt like it was just for me. I kind of still do.

This year gave me so many gifts, not just the beautiful string of coconut-shell beads that well never look right on me. The wallpaper on my desktop is the lush pink and purple flowers I got from my Birthday Good Boy/Hookup. I’ve been building my collection of frilly things. My Duolingo has five languages going. I’m obsessed with Afrobeats, even though the genre gives me all the feelings. BECAUSE it does.

December is a relief, too full of crafts and gifts and next-year’s-goal-setting to worry too much about dating. There are three cute guys at work but I love myself and my job too much to hit on them. I’ll bring the car in before Christmas trips and flirt with the car place guy. I’ll visit the museum I was supposed to see last February. I’ll spend New Years with BFF or on my own or who knows where. Maybe I’ll just be starting a new puzzle.

Dear Shy One, dear Rainbow Pal, dear EVERYONE, I’m overflowing with love for you as if it were the first time and the last. You shine out of me permanently and I hope I can glimmer out of you sometimes too. We’re doing the thing, I’m so proud of us. We’re exquisitely and exhaustingly and delightfully alive.

Dearest, DEAREST 2023, thank you for all you’ve given me. Let’s type in some Rumi for the road:

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and
rightdoing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase “each
other”
doesn’t make any sense.
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell
you.
Don’t go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across
the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.”