Goodbye, Sweet Valentine

 

Sweetpea and a new tiara should arrive tomorrow!

Last night night, my break from Sweet Valentine progressed to break-off. We'd planned to meet for coffee this morning, but he blessedly, blessedly told me over the phone that he just wanted to be friends. I'm very, very grateful that I didn't have to cry in front of neighbors and scones.

At least I had the good sense to not disingenuously push myself into friendtown, thinking I could get his attention or change his mind that way--at least I've learned that one thing. Now I have two official wisdoms that I'm sure of:

1. Don't try to be just-friends with someone you still would like to kiss forever and ever.

2. Always get the concert tickets!

Letting myself be uncertain about him (And not trying to lobby for myself! That much!)for a whole month was really, really hard. I'm really, really proud that I did it. I also think I maybe should have let him go a month ago, but I still have a hard time untangling pattern recognition from intrusive thoughts. I think I read the room that Monday waiting for him to text me at the Fancy Garden, maybe that's why I panicked. I still wish I hadn't panicked.

He blamed me for it not working out, and I apologized so much. Today I woke up wanting to retract 75% of my sorries and really feeling like I'd thrown myself under the bus. This is partly because my Coda sponsor named him "Mr. Blamey"--I was feeling like a witchy slut who ruins everything and can't be loved until she said that. 

How did two beautiful, playful, FUN dates end with me slut-shaming myself? How could the person who'd looked at me like I was a miracle the moment we met and who seemed as all-in as anybody ever end up so cold and prickly? I guess you have to be cold and prickly when you're breaking things off with someone you still like. 

I'm so frustrated today because I did the thing again! I picked someone who didn't have room for me in his life and I spent a month thinking of ways to make myself less obtrusive, to fit into the sliver of space he might have had for me. I bent and folded my life like origami trying to make myself a right one for him. 

I picked another person who made me feel like Too Much because his life is full of chaos and I maybe helped him feel things that couldn't be controlled. Who took a swirl of cute-hot silliness and turned it into a problem to be solved. And then I turned me into a problem to be solved.

I think, as my OCD therapist likes to remind me, there's no problem to be solved here. There's no "right way" to do it that will save me from rejection and pain and loss. There's no answer or kiss or date on the calendar that he could have given me to shore up my worries. It was just a bad match.

He regrets the fastness of things, and I understand that, but I'm not going to blame the magic chemistry of those two dates for how things turned out. I'm not going to let loss and shame and one beautiful but kiss-shocked husband turn turn me against the Pink Haze, the swoon of my body knowing exactly what to do. 

I love the way our bodies (and pardon me, our souls) sparked together so quick and so thoroughly. I think it was meant to be, and important, and real. I understand why it scared him I think, why I scare him. I was a threat to his status quo. To really engage with what was happening between us, he would have had to change his life, and that IS scary! 

Being both a catalyst and a codependent, two more things that could use some untangling.

I'm really trying to get a handle on the solo poly chip on my shoulder, but I think a lot of opening-up couples have the fantasy that their partners will never need anything, that they will be lovely, frictionless treats instead of whole human beings. That's not the only thing that happened here, but it's one of them.

Today, I feel lost. My mind is a cacophony of advice from every dear person who supports and cares for me, plus lots of opportunistic OCD,  and right now that's drowning out my ability to hear myself think.

But last night, I did hear myself. As I was crying it through to BFF, I felt a little gust of well-being that said, "Huh. I think everything's working out." I hope that feeling returns soon. For now though, Sweetpea makes me feel seen:

Knotty Thursday: Simple Gauntlets and Bowing Down to Love

 

Good morning dears! So for the past few weeks, I've been in a battle with love. I've been doubling down on all the self-care, which is good, but it's gotten so my head feels like a tangle of Twelve Step rules and others' opinions and especially my own impatience. Why can't I be over this heartbreak already? Why can't I just feel gratitude for the good parts of The Guy Next Door adventure, wish him well, and be healed?! 

Because love is big. And ineffable. And important to me, which means OCD wants to rip every memory of it to shreds. I've been trying to feel armored against it so I don't accidentally respond to an eye-twinkle in the driveway, so I can HURRY UP AND ACCEPT THINGS AS THEY ARE, god dammit.

But I don't want to treat love like that! I don't want to treat ME like that anymore. So when a darling potential dom asked me how I could practice submission on my own, like I practice ropes on my own, I decided to start a new ritual:

Every day, at the end of the day, I'm going to get into Child's Pose and bow down to love. Not any one person (or flower, or bird, or color) but the entire concept of love. The universal source that drives me, tends me, and occasionally puts a metaphorical hand on my head.

Rope night was the perfect night to try it. After I put lofi on, put on some rose-scented lotion, and wrapped up my arms, I put a shiny sheet and a few pink Squishmallows (Archie and Laura) on the floor next to the bed, and got down to it.

And it worked! Not the overpowering WHOOSH of submission to a person, but something more cozy and less fraught. Attachment and detachment at the same time. A blessedly quiet mind. I felt faith enter my heart like it was coming home after a long trip. And it was!

Yelling at my heart to hurry up and get better was not working, and it was pretty cruel of me. My aim now is to treat myself like a little kid who has had a big disappointment, but also has a lot of scaffolding and hope. That little time to rest in love made a difference, and I'm excited to let it take the wheel for a while while I rest and heal and probably watch a fair amount of Bluey.

Thank you for being with me on this journey, dear readers. I woke up so grateful.

Poly Feelings and Christmas Cute With The Guy Next Door, Part Five: Enough.

There might be lots to worry and wonder about another day, but for now...

I tried so hard to be his friend and he wanted to get to attraction to please me, but I felt love and he felt friendship. I could comb the story for clues and reassurances, but.

We liked being around each other. There was some kind of spark. We had a great date and he didn't want to kiss me.

I could see it as tragic or damning or proof that I'm unkissable, but what happened was just...dating. It hurts worse because we genuinely liked and got to know each other, but still, it's as simple as:

Not a match.

All this week I've been in a hum of self-care, touching base with my friends and my breaths and my Twelve Steps. My OCD quieted almost immediately after we said goodbye.

The Monday after the date, in that doomed and meltdowny but ultimately helpful conversation, I did tell him I love him, and I'm glad. People should know when they're loved. Now, I'm trying my best to love myself.

I feel anger and shame at myself for being so openhearted, but I hope someday I won't. I remember how much I used to value my wholeheartedness, and I would like to value it again. I would like to treat my heart like it's worthy of healthy, happy love. Not like it deserves this:

It's not post-blue-box Mulholland Drive over here, I probably won't be disappeared in a floof of blue smoke. It's just sad. I'm afraid to really grieve because what if the grief is forever? What if I can never get free of the sadness because he is RIGHT THERE all the time? I guess I can't know how long the pain will last, but it's better to feel it than keep hurting myself. Better to cry than to live in a fantasy.

Thanks for reading me through this, friends. I know-

Okay, I'm Completely Lost

 

Mulholland Drive helps me.

Okay, Christmas was very cute, but I've been living in a fantasy for a little while and it's time for me to do as the cowboy says. Hopefully with a happier ending than Naomi Watts gets.

Skipping ahead in the story, The Guy Next Door and I had our first date! That's what he said it was! We had so much fun! He said I was beautiful and said he wanted us to try putting ropes on each other!! I can't prove that this happened, but it did. I can't prove that he was ever attracted to me, and to be fair, no court of law is asking me to.

(He told me yesterday that he's not "traditionally attracted to me," but that he felt something. It sounded really close to calling me "not traditionally attractive" which, in fairness, I am not. I have other qualities!)

Jesus fuck though, is there anything worse to hear than "I'm not traditionally attracted to you?" Just tell me I'm ugly already, this is taking forever.

ANYWAY we got back from the date (Which I don't really think is what it was.) (He called our two apartments "our place" though.) we settled in for a cuddle, which we'd tried a couple times, but this time, we were in my bed.

It felt good, so, so good. I felt hopeful and safe and beautiful. My head was resting on his heart and the moment felt almost right.

I said "I'm gonna kiss you, I'm just waiting for the right song to come on."

And he made the saddest little sound. It was the same sad sound he made when I put my head on his shoulder for the first time, back when we were watching some post-Christmas Bob's Burgers. (He'd downloaded a bunch for us to watch when my Roku was out for a day. I thought that was so sweet because it was, in fact, SO SWEET.)

Anyway, saddest little sound, so I asked, is that okay? and he said

"Not yet." Which a very good and appropriate thing to say when you don't want to kiss someone. Technically a Good No even though I hated it.

He kept acting like this was the start of dating though! I even tried to plan our regular (never was really that regular) Thursday Art Night, and he said he thought we should see each other sooner, so we picked Tuesday, which is today, and for which time slot I've booked a somewhat-emergency therapy appointment.

After he left on Saturday, I was very close to panic. I didn't understand the not-kissing! And I didn't want to ask because, that's just not the thing to do! I didn't want him to feel like I was complaining when things had gone so well. I wanted to have space to understand Saturday before I tried to understand what was going on.

With OCD, reassurance is the addiction, I have to keep it to a minimum. But in a new thing, you need reassurance! I need to stop thinking about that contradiction or my brain will loop forever.

I gave myself space from the panic, and eventually I chilled out and was able to experience the warmth and promise of what had happened so far. So I reached out and told him how beautiful I felt, and how I did want to do the ropes with him if I could put them on him first, and how I hope he was understanding what's going on in the new season of Stranger Things, because I couldn't make heads or tails of it.

OF COURSE that cute and very nice text was met with a mini-radio-silence on his part, and I got triggered. I wanted to ask "Am I being too much?" and then was LIVID that he was making me feel like I was too much. I am SO MUCH but I like myself this way. Or I usually do when it's not yesterday!

I told him about the trigger and he seemed very understanding, he even offered to change a few things so I could feel a little more oriented. It seemed like I was talking with someone I could trust, so when he said "Any other questions?" I went ahead and asked:

"You said it was a date, but you didn't want to kiss me. Can you tell me some more about that?"

He said he was just figuring things out and needed to give it some thought.

So I asked the real question: "Are you attracted to me? I'm seeing about 40% attracted, 60% terrified. Am I getting the math right?"

And he said he needed to ponder that too! 

What in the world were we gonna talk over on Tuesday if on Monday he had to ponder whether he was attracted to me or not?!

I went over after work to ask about that, if there WAS anything to talk over, and it just kept getting worse and worse. I said things like "How come they're (Girl Next Door and Yoga Camp Hottie) kissable and I'm not?

Questions there are no answers to and shouldn't be answers to.

 Questions I know I'm not supposed to ask and still can't let go of yet:

Why them and not me?

Is it the fat?

What am I missing?

I'm trying so hard to do this right, what am I not doing?

I teared up with a little self-compassion typing those questions. The longing, the hurt, the loneliness. The everlasting torment that there exist more kissable girls with more  (TRADITIONALLY) yoga-y butts.

On my part, there's love here, even a little acceptance but I can't get to it through a wall of obsession.

I have a mental illness that makes me and my experiences feel unreal, and sometimes I choose people who help make us feel even more unreal. People who are shifting, mysterious, in flux, at sea. That's who I've chosen for my last two crushes and my most recent play partner.

It's hard to have any hope for love right now. I have to give up on him, but I don't want to give up on love. I'm glad I booked a therapy appointment instead of waiting for him to come talk to me tonight. 

I don't know how a person with a brain like mine can be loved, and I need my higher power to help me find faith in myself again. Probably not today, but soon.

Poly Feelings and Christmas Cute With the Guy Next Door: Part Two

 

Christmas Eve at my (Unitarian) church was SO good. I went with one of my closest friends, the music was gorgeous (Even when they messed with the chorus of "Go Tell It On the Mountain." Not the time!) and we did the thing where they turn off all the lights and we sang Silent Night and everything was absolutely perfect--I'm so glad I stayed in town for Christmas this year.

The pastor read a poem about how it was really kinda funny for the angels to say "Be not afraid"--like OMG an angel is talking to you and the whole sky is opening up and you're supposed to be...super chill about it?! I liked thinking about awe and it helped me understand why my connection to The Guy Next Door felt so overwhelming--miracles are big and overwhelming, but you have to deal with them anyway.

And that gave me courage! Or foolhardiness, time will tell I guess. I was going to put up some street art after church and I invited TGNS to go with me. And he did! Is the romcom a compulsion or just how things are sometimes?

Either way, it was Christmas Magic for sure. I felt so aglow, so in love with the world and my neighborhood, and, okay, him, and he seemed happy too! After we got the art done and made a few "Wait are you Banksy?" type jokes, he agreed to come home and watch Bob's Burgers on the couch with me. He'd never been on my couch before! 

But! The Roku was out! And we were both too sleepy-stoned to fix it, (plus troubleshooting makes me feel like I'm dying) and I didn't want to push my luck with the couch stuff, so we said a dreamy goodnight. He was coming over for Scrabble with me and Sweetie the next day! It kinda felt like things were coming together, like romance might be possible with him, like we would keep getting to know each other and maybe something sparkly would develop between us.

I'm glad I gave myself a moment to feel that! Christmas just kept getting better.

Autistic Euphoria and the Guy Next Door: Part Two

 On Thursday evenings during the busy part of the year, I try to stop everything and make some art. Whenever I want to get to know somebody, friend or date, I invite them to join.

The Guy Next Door came across the yard to my door with a gardening book he'd picked out from one of the VERY numerous Little Free Libraries on our surrounding blocks. He showed me an illustration of a wall garden he wanted to create "for us both to enjoy."

(Ladies and gentlehumans of the kitten jury, I submit this as evidence that I wasn't crazy for thinking he might like me back! Not that you asked to see evidence!)

He sat down at my table. I played my summer camp playlist, skipping the songs that felt too emo or too harsh for the occasion. We were doing watercolors and it was just...it was so easy. He talked so freely and I felt so comforted by how open he was about his life. Divorce, love, disappointment, sobriety (of the California sort). It felt so easy to share my own stuff back without feeling like it was too much, like I was too much.

All that sharing made me powerfully smitten, so fast! I knew I couldn't fling myself at him because I wasn't ready and he's LITERALLY my next door neighbor. (In retrospect, flinging might have been the safer choice.) Instead I made plans like this:

"If I knew you better, I'd scoop you up and take you to the beach with me on Sunday. Let's stay friends for at least a year so we can have a beach day next summer. You drive so I can be high on the way home. We'll listen to Atavista by Childish Gambino."

"Okay, I can do that!" He seemed happy to be included in my weirdly specific daydream. Art night dream.

I had tickets to a little-bit-out-of-town showing of Fire Walk With Me, my favorite David Lynch movie and maybe the second-scariest movie ever. (First place goes to The Blair Witch Project.) "If I knew you better, " I said, "I'd give you my extra ticket because (BFF Formerly Sweetie) does NOT care. I see us at a David Lynch event someday, you as the Log Lady and me as... I don't know, I'll have to pick a less obscure character than I usually do."

Typing these visions of the future, they feel more than a little nutso, but I promise, he looked so happy about these plans. He was, as they say on My Brother, My Brother, and Me, playing in the space with me.

I forgot to feel embarrassment or shame for being so enthusiastic and nakedly fascinated by him. (If there had been real nakedness, I think things might have gone better. OR worse! Who knows.)

He seemed nakedly fascinated by me too. (I wonder if that was just the fact that he was higher than me. As OCD therapy would say, maybe, maybe not.) Under his gaze, I bounced. I rocked. I fell into special interest holes and he said he was happy to fall down in there with me. I was giddy with unmasking, and he seemed to be in a giggly joyful state as well. Maybe he was. Maybe it was real, at least this part.

Mostly he sat across the table from me, but sometimes he came over next to me and we sat stonedly shoulder to shoulder. When he was leaving, he gave me a hug that just crossed the boundary over to sensual--his fingers moved over my shoulders in a desire way? Or just it was that over-familiar weedy hippie-boy hug that used to send me into an anti-Platonic tizzy in my college hometown in the mid-Nineties.

Maybe my evidence isn't incontrovertible, but I really want to convince you this wasn't just me fooling myself for the millionth time.

Yet.

Closure Is a Thing, Part Three

I think this story is taking me forever to tell because, to use a Jungian word, it’s lost its numinousness. I’m no longer trying to unlock some mystery of universal meaning and self-definition, I’m just celebrating an important and beloved thing that happened. So let’s celebrate.

I had the idea that we could be mail-friends, The Shy One and me, get to know each other literally as slowly as possible, an antidote for the (DELICIOUS) sugar-rush of our first and second go-rounds. But then, the waiting. I’ve never really bought into his assertion that we were toxic, but if we were, that’s where the poison lived—the desperate and disbelieving feeling of Waiting to Hear Back from Him. I wanted no part of that, I felt trapped and stuck in reverse.

There was a Band-Aid to be ripped off, and letters, though SO lovely, were never going to help me do anything but create daydream romance, false hope, and resentment.

Luckily, WhatsApp CURATES your blocked numbers for you. Or maybe there are just way fewer numbers to sift through there. I reached out and asked if we could try a closure conversation, and he very kindly agreed.

As luck would have it, I got out early that Tuesday night, 5pm instead of 8, and I had already decided to watch Good Grief on Netflix. Oh Dan Levy, righter of wrongs, healer of hearts.

Almost as soon as the Shy One and I started texting things through, I felt a profound sensation—heat moving up my body, through my achy shoulder, and out—the hurt and pain and worry that had lived in my body all year just left, just healed and left. The bargaining. The racking my brain to figure out how to make The Thing come back—it was gone.

A major part of the relief was no longer being (or feeling) alone in the love and the loss. All year, friends and even some professionals had stayed skeptical that the Shy One had loved me back. I knew it he had, but having it confirmed made such a big difference. Heartbreaking, yes, I wish neither of us had ever had to hurt, but
I found a new confidence knowing it really was star-crossed, that there really was nothing either of us could have done to hang on.

It was sad, accepting things as they are, accepting that we wouldn’t be a match again, that he’ll never be the right one for me. But at the same time, he debunked some insecurities I’d been carrying. It made me feel at peace and better able to face the realities of dating life—a Wizard of Oz feeling, I’d had what I needed all along.

It was such a loving exchange. I cried good, productive tears all evening and into the night. It felt good to tell him how important he was, what the loss meant, even how begrudgingly grateful I am to have been set free.

The other night, I was texting with a cutie on Feeld who was like “Oh, I travel a lot so I would definitely need something casual.”

AND! Instead of pressing myself to be casual and just see what happens, I said, very kindly, that I’m romantic through and through so that wouldn’t work. Saying goodbye to that nice traveling guy gave me such an epiphany:

It’s an incredible gift and accomplishment to be ready for love! In a sea of “casual but consistent” low expectations, I’ve found so much of what I really want and, though I can’t be sure that Boyfriend Guy will ever come along, I’m proud of my open, adventurous heart. I’m so proud to love what I love, and to have so much room for more.

Sex, Love, and The Shy One, Part One

It’s been three and a half months since his breakup email, not that long in the grand scheme of things, but I feel a lot of shame for not having moved on properly yet. I can feel him in my psyche, perhaps unfairly cast, the heartless, contemptuous version of him, hurrying me along like “What’s wrong with you? Why are you still thinking about this? What is the big deal?!”

I should probably think about where that judgey voice is coming from, because I don’t think that’s what he would say to me, if he said anything, which he doesn’t.

Three and a half months of perfect silence between us. Eventually my heart and mind will understand there IS no “between us.” Cold turkey is the only way when it’s this deep. I’ve quit smoking before, I know it eventually gets better, and this kind of quitting makes me way less bitchy.

I know this is right, that this is things working themselves out, but I just run low on faith sometimes. Patience wears thin like the toe of a sock, useful until it isn’t.

Last Sunday, I took a field trip with Rainbow Pal to the nature preserve over by the airport. We talked about everything, big talk only. I egged them on to message cuties in their Feeld queue and they did the same for me. We (Okay I) prevailed upon some strangers to take our picture in front of the beautiful waterscape. We saw a heron, turtles, yellow water flowers.

Rainbow Pal and I found the perfect shady bench to have a picnic of popcorn and fizzy water. The bench was pleasingly broad in the bright green dappled shade. I saw a frog hop close to the shore. The trees made a perfectly patterned net of coolness and light.

It was the perfect place for a sad confession. I told Rainbow Pal I was really struggling with the worry that sex might never again be as good as it was with The Shy One. We attributed his prowess to the fact that he’s been married so long. I mentioned that I’d wanted to send Mrs. Shy One a thank-you note after the first time.

I’ve been thinking all this time that he’s so good at sex because he’s so tended-to, so cared-for and thoroughly loved. He was so loved that he had extra love just lying around to give to me! I think I just explained polyamory. I’m so burned out and empty from all the sharing, but could I ever truly leave poly behind?

But putting aside Mrs. Shy One (PLEASE) and wherever else his beautiful skills came from, I need to untangle what his lovemaking meant to me. I need to claim whatever part of the experience as MINE.

I would attribute my swooniness and devotion to the love I felt for him, except, it was there RIGHT AWAY. From the moment I took his hand on our river-walk first date, I felt like: Oh. Yes. This.

His first touches were so kind, so meant for me, so loving before we ever knew each other at all. Maybe he IS just really, REALLY good at it, maybe everyone he kisses and touches feels that warmth, that thorough grace, but I want to believe that some of that sparkle, some of his hunger and softness and playfulness was just for me. I want to believe it sparked from the chemistry of just us, the alchemy.

“I love your body,” he said the first night, sitting behind me in bed and wrapping his arms around my waist. Simple and unbothered generosity. Animal bonding. Grace.

Knotty Thursday: Gentle Heart Harness

 

I love the ritual of Wednesday nights. Putting on a little lipstick and blush. Picking out a pretty bra and underpants that don't have to look good under clothes. Putting on the lo-fi and making something new.

I decided to keep it a little simpler this time. I couldn't make it as squeezy as I usually like to because I didn't want to bend or break the heart. But it was perfect for laying around playing phone games and feeling dreamy. 

What I Want, Part One (The Easy Part)

There’s always a certain amount of futility in these lists, because the next characters who come along could knock me on my ass just as much as any ever have. If you’d told me in June that “summer fling with The Song Sender” would be in the cards, (Literally. The Lover and The Devil! Yikes and yay. Yay and yikes.)  I would have laughed in your face and told you about a dream I had a few years ago, wherein I was explaining to him: “We just call it strangling now.” More about that guy in part two, but for now, the easy things:

1.     I’m solo poly, and not necessarily destined for the kitchen table, at least not right away. I like my space, and I’ve discovered in the past few weeks that I like each combination to have time to grow before stirring my darlings’ darlings into the mix.

 

That doesn’t rule out future deep relationships with metamours or even some magical unicorn miracle, but I want to take my time. Every person is a LOT. I am A LOT. I would like any given combination to have its feet under it before I start to learn the next humans. Because I will LOVE THEM TOO and that will be, you know, a lot.

 

2.     I definitely do want polyamory. I would love to stop trying to wedge myself into monogamy every few years out of—self-protection? Weird poly/bi phobia left over from my divorcing years? There have been such LOVELY combinations of humans, such bursts or yes-this-is-exactly-it happiness that I would love to see some more.

 

The Shy One, The Song Sender, and a hookup whose name I barely remember but who made for a fucking GLORIOUS week. This Charming Man, The Lovely Guy, and that other hookup who gave me the wrong name. The Good Boy, The Southern Charmer, and The Adorables. Ideally, most of those would have lasted a lot longer, and I know that humans are NOT art supplies, but I felt like an artist working in the medium of slut, and I would lovelovelove for that to happen again.

 

3.     I don’t necessarily want The Relationship Escalator, but I want feelings. Lovey-dovey feelings, friendly feelings, and d/s feelings. Nobody has to love as easily or as quickly or as thoroughly as I do, but I want them to not feel/seem like a trapped animal when the warmth and affection come into play. Talking about relationships the other night, The Shy One said “I just go in kamikaze, and if it doesn’t work, I just try again.” BFF-Formerly-Sweetie has always called my same strategy “jumping in with both feet.” I don’t always, but when I do, I would love to hang around long enough to let them see if they can catch up.

 

To accomplish that, I would like to not get so mad at myself for the feelings. I would like to give myself space to feel them and be a little less quick to flee.

 

And yes, I would like some of them, eventually, to adore me. To love me wildly, emphatically, and forever. Please.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Postscript to the Shy One

My heart has no sense of perspective about kind touch or attention to detail. It’s why I asked-out-then-befriended my massage therapist. It’s why I have had a crush on Cute Guy at the Car Place for SEVEN YEARS, ever since the first time he put my keys back on the key ring for me.

Kind touch and attention to detail are where all the swirly/woozy/glittery emotions about the Shy One came from, what makes him so hard to move past. Warm affection, carefulness, specificity. The first night with him, after the pretty ropes and lovely sex, in the cozy glow of peace and satisfaction, I leaned back onto him and he said “I love your body,” running his hands over my shoulders, my arms, my waist, my hips. Firm, warm touch, easily given—I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s gotten a hundred girlfriends since we broke up in mid-May.

That first night, it was so easy to learn the Heart Link harness because A. He didn’t mind me rewinding a YouTube video a bunch of times trying to figure out the hearts! And B. He was so still! Excited and engaged, not impatient or judgey. Encouraging. Sweet. I don’t think too much about dad energy, but maybe that’s what it was.

The night of all the presents, our third date, after our month of sunsets, was one of the most powerful instances I’ve felt of arousal being intertwined with joy. He had the condom on and was ready to go in, but I told him to stop. Just stay there. Wellbeing fizzed up through me as he paused, hard dick resting on my vulva. I put my arms around him tight, kissed him, and felt the full force of whatever bond that month of mostly-chaste flirting had built.

It was a feeling of wholeness that, somewhat vexingly, still occupies my entire body. Any time I’m quiet and calm, I can feel it in my toes.

To paraphrase Lady Mary (spoiler alert!) when her suitors were closing in and she was still deep in grief over Matthew Crawley, I’m still full of The Shy One. It’s true that The Hipster jangled loose a lot of stuck desire and made me want to start a summer sex rampage like the hot kaiju that I am, but even as I move into this new stage of why-doesn’t-so-and-so-text-me flirtation/vexation, The Shy One is still with me. He’s not just in the limbo of my Feeld inbox, being all “This human has deactivated their account,” he’s in my soul’s inbox, in my whole heart. Both of those places are very crowded, but still.

That third date was the only time he slept over, and in the long process of saying goodbye, he sat on the floor next to the bed to hold me and kiss me while I was still under the covers. That morning was THE WHOLE DREAM, a distillation of why I started this blog in the first place, the CLOSENESS, the ROMANCE, the being adored. There was another time, on our second date, we were all wrapped up in each other, when he looked me in the face (I’m sorry but NO ONE was better at looking at me than he was.) and got still.

“What are you thinking?” I asked.

“Nothing. Well, I am thinking something. I like you.”

It’s hard to imagine any new feelings ever coming close to that, though there’s never any need to compare feelings. I know every connection is its own universe, every new match a fresh start, a new mystery.

Two days ago, I wished long-absent Mr. Sweetheart a happy birthday on facebook, the most low-stakes interaction possible, and to my delight, he reached out to say hello! We’re planning a catch-up Zoom! He was excited that I remembered his blog nickname, and I said “Of course I do! Once in the story, always in the story.”

So, dear Shy One, who is probably not reading this, same thing. Once in the story, always in the story. You’ll snuggle and read about history and watch your true crime shows and love and work and hopefully see flowers and think of me every once in a while. I’ll learn to let you go, to forgive myself for not finding a way to fit, but you’ll still always be with me. Your generous touch, your giggle, your expert tongue, your supercute butt; always a little bit mine. And my heart, slutty though it will surely be, will always belong a little to you. I’ll love you. Forever. That’s all.

Oh Quarantine Crush, Ugh Anniversary Effect

Maybe no more “On This Day” in the fb for me. I’ve been curious to see if the poems I wrote in last spring’s quar-madness/denial/crush mode were any good so I’ve been dipping into the OTD maybe more than I should.

 

The post that gets to me doesn’t seem like much. Just me having a whole face, dressed up in red for Zoom poetry, one pic of my face and one of my for-no-reason pretty shoes. But my face is full of love and hope (or at least full of having-showered-that-day!) and he is tagged. Of course, the link is broken because I blocked him in my heartbreak panic later on that fraught year.

 

It isn’t new to me that everyone who was ever dear to me is still dear—even my awful Q-a-mom is still in my dreams every night, trying to drive me crazy and/or give me virus hugs.

 

But the PANGS about Quarantine Crush. They’re probably not surprising at all. We were friends for 20 years before I had the following thought at the beginning of lockdown (COVID lockdown, not the police-are-terrorizing-our-cities curfew in the summer):

 

“Now seems like a good time to just go ahead and fall in love with (Quarantine Crush).”

 

He was my friend in my mid-twenties, a powerfully prolific few years, sunshine-filled and dramatic as the Pacific Coast Highway. I walked up hill by the beach with him belting out Ani DiFranco songs. He held me and I wondered why I couldn’t just fall for him, the best one.

 

And then he was there for me in those first COVID months, when everything was dark and impossible and I was crying into Zoom and wondering what life could even BE anymore.

 

My “Liked Songs” list on Spotify is still kind of a monument to those quick/forever 2020 months, though of course I’ve added songs since. The only solution to the pangs is to put the songs on and walk around looking at spring trees, or sit around doodling/perfecting my Animal Crossing island, letting the feelings just exist with me.

 

So many people live in my heart forever, there’s plenty of room for him to stay.

A Little Polyphobia, Two “I Love Yous” and a Blocked Number

            In the past, I’ve always found a way to diffuse my shame and sadness at the end of a love story by making the guy into a villain, which only one character in this blog every really was. The hurt is normal, the shame is my problem and my responsibility, and the rejection is not personal, so I want to treat the end of the Mr. Makeout Music story as kindly as possible.

I’m not sure what made me think I should be as out with him as I was. Maybe it was our mutual love of Steven Universe, the fact that he used to write erotica, or just the attraction making me all shiny and self-love-tastic. The librarians who supervise me at work range from queer-friendly-and-ready-to-learn to genderqueer and poly-leaning, so I don’t really feel the need to hide my queerness or poly tendencies. It’s not like I’ve talked directly to the kids about it, but I never worry about them overhearing. They all know by now that my ex-wife is my best friend, that I enjoy handsomeness, and that I’m active in LGBTQ and feminist causes.

There have been a couple of painful misunderstandings, but for the most part I feel safe to be myself—it’s part of why I love the job so much. Through honesty and careful conversations, I’ve helped make it a home that accepts me.

And before I tell this story I should say, it’s not like I haven’t acted polyphobic before. In my frustration and failure to fit and find love in the poly world, (Or, it sometimes seems, any world…) I’ve lashed out and been judgmental, impatient, and pushy in ways that I really regret. I’m grateful that my poly friends have been so generous and patient with me while I figure out what the heck my deal is.

Anyway, so Mr. Makeout Music. I REALLY missed him over Thanksgiving break. I wasn’t due back at the library until Tuesday, but I started wanting to sing out his name around Monday night. When I walked in and saw him at the front desk, everything seemed to go really well. He knocked me out telling me that he’d tried to watch some Gilmore Girls for me! We had a little awkward moment when I told him I didn’t like the book he’d leant me (Y: The Last Man, because apparently he thinks feminism means murdering all the men through childbirth…) but I felt like we were settling back into an easy flirty rapport and I was so delighted to see him.

He came to visit my department almost right away and we were talking about how awesome Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them was. The conversation randomly wandered to my arbitrary dislike of Helena Bonham Carter (It’s probably because she killed Sirius Black!) This topic opened a surprising and irritating can of worms.

“I think she had some kind of love triangle thing a while back? Although, that doesn’t seem right. Why would I not like a love triangle, they’re kind of my thing.”

“Children’s department…” He said warningly, and I felt like I’d been slapped in the face.

“I’m not ashamed of being poly, and I don’t expect you to be, either.”

“I’m not ashamed, but they’re kids. There’s a time and a place.”

“You don’t need to protect the kids from me.”

“I need to protect them from everything.”

I was completely shocked by this exchange for several reasons, mostly because we had been talking about all the topics for months and months! Never anything it was inappropriate for the kids to hear, but definitely things more scandalous than a love triangle, which is the basis of like A THOUSAND Disney movies. I didn’t like his assumptions about what I was saying and the fact that flirting and being me was suddenly something he thought he had to control, something that was suddenly wrong. It was one of those loss-of-trust moments that’s hard, maybe impossible, to come back from.

When I got a crush on somebody at work, what happened next was what I was afraid of. I asked him to come into the meeting room and talk just a few minutes before the kids were due to come in and make paper snowflakes.

I told him what it’s like to have grown up queer, to have so often been perceived as a threat to children. The bad thanksgiving was weighing on me so much and I’m sure that made this more fraught than it otherwise might’ve been.

Though we’d spent months sneaking in flirting into a million different library conversations, he kept insisting that I’d been talking about sex in front of the kids this time. He kept repeating the “time and a place” thing. I think when I said “love triangle” he heard “threesome.”

It was Annoying Heteronormativity 101. I explained that some of the three-or-more relationships I know are families, that I was talking about love rather than sex. If he wouldn’t feel bad for talking about his family, I shouldn’t have to talk about (VERY VAGUELY ALLUDING TO,) other kinds of families. He was really mad and defensive, but he did try to listen.

From there I told him how hurt I was that he acted so afraid of me back when I took his hand, that he was sometimes treating me like a threat. Not as much the rejection part, but the fear. He insisted that he wasn’t afraid, but it did look like fear to me, then and now.

I started to sob and he said “Ms. ________, please don’t cry.” And came over and sat right up against my side, so sweet, so loving.

After some more back and forth about polyphobia/rejection/election, he said “Ms. _______, what do you really think of me?”

“I love you,” I sobbed, and cried the ugliest, snottiest tears you ever saw.

“I wasn’t expecting THAT answer! To tell you the truth, I really do love you too.”

So that happened. In the midst of all the mess and misunderstanding, we love each other, in whatever way. It counts for something, although right now I can’t imagine what.

I genuinely tried to keep being friends, but I was madder than I wanted to be about the threat-to-kids thing, and he must’ve been mad too, because the next time he came to visit, he was grumpy and he kind of glowered at the paper snowflake I’d made him. (Pink and blue for gender harmony. Maybe that was a stupid thing to say.)

After a few minutes of him grouchily making one sixth of a snowflake and me trying to be professional/lighthearted/friendly, he said he had to go to dinner and left the snowflake there. I felt disproportionally sad about that. We’d given each other so many pieces of art, from homework margin doodles to a leaf rubbing that he named “Ms. ________ in Autumn” because the colors reminded him of me, to watercolor galaxies to me singing out his name, to these paragraphs, and his forgetting the snowflake made me feel like I couldn’t give him one more unrequited thing.

It wasn’t about the snowflake, of course. I texted him about it after work and we got in a really dumb fight that ended with me telling him he was using the wrong “your.” He was mean and I was mean, and I blocked his number and deleted the thread.

I’m stupid right now because of unrequited love. He’s stupid from love, too, and whatever else is keeping the friendship from being what it was. Nobody’s the bad guy, nobody’s wrong, nobody’s the patriarchy (Well, he’s a little bit the patriarchy.) Just a thing that didn’t go where we wanted it to. I can’t try to be gracious and cute about it anymore right now. I can’t quite get to magnanimous and sparkly and generous about it. We can’t fix it right at the moment and I can’t wish myself fine about it.

If I’m going to trust my heart, I have to trust the heartbreak too, and give it time, and take myself gently and firmly forward. Onward, and, more than anything else, outward.

Love, A Bad Thanksgiving, and Whatever Comes Next

I’m on vacation this week from the library and it’s given me enough space from Mr. Makout Music to really think through what our flirtship means/meant. Of course, there’s the simplest meaning, that it was a sweet attraction that didn’t work out and is now awkwardly in the process of becoming whatever’s next. The meaning we share is straightforward, kind, and a little sad, but my own side of things feels more complicated.

It’s hard in times like this to not get annoyed at my heart, at my romantic imagination, even at the sex drive I worked so hard (and only somewhat successfully) to embrace. It’s hard not to feel like we lost parts of what was nice between us because I just had to try and make things progress, but maybe things just progressed on their own, the way things tend to do.

A few months ago when he first suggested a too-emo-for-the-library-playlist song, I really did try not to let the song’s feelings run away with me. When he suggested I look up The Internet while I was doing my data entry in the basement at work, I ended up so swoony/squishy that I could barely walk up the stairs to my department. I thought I should probably try to stem the tide of feelings sweeping in with the lyrics, and I did try not to think he was telling me something with the songs. I know what music does to me, how it accelerates the heart’s processes and wakes up not-wholly-earned devotion. But sometimes, I just have to let it.

He told me once that he likes romantic music because he has a hard time expressing his feelings, that songs help him do so. He looked in my eyes when he said it, and after that I let the music take me where it wanted me to go, where I wanted to go, where it turns out I’d really missed going.

Still, I tried to be so careful this time. I asked and re-asked what he meant by things. I asked for as much definition as I reasonably could. I asked if the attraction was mutual before we were ever alone together, and he said it was. I hope it really was, that he didn’t just say it to be kind or to please me. I’ve found the best way is to take him at face value, to just try and straightforwardly believe what he’s told me. It’s hard.

My peer counselor at the local LGBT center has urged me through all of this to focus on facts, to concentrate on What Is. By that measure, he’s showed me hours of care and affection, given me so much without expecting anything in return. I appreciate the vulnerability it might take for a shy guy to come find me almost every day, to share some of his deepest stuff at work, in front of the kids and everybody. He said to me once “I want to hear all of your stuff and I want to tell you all of mine.” What a sweet, open thing to say, and I so much hope it might be true again after the awkward simmers down.

Yet in spite of What Is, I struggle not to see myself as somehow coercive, as an ugly, fat someone who was romantically deluded to think that someone like him could be attracted to me. My mind is so ashamed of the Stupid Delusional Crush Girl story that I superimpose it over every situation, though there are of course different reasons behind every connection and not-connection.

If I hadn’t been fighting the story so hard, would I have been in such a hurry? Would I have given him more space to make the first move and therefore be more comfortable, less pressured, more free? Maybe, but the problem with that line of reasoning is that it’s always going to be sexist to feel bad about being too forward, not just sexist but also counterproductive and counter to the only person I can manage to be—my barreling-forward, enthusiastic, soaking-wet-underpants self.

I know that the man for me is probably bolder, more available, probably more experienced by a lot, but right now I don’t want some stranger. This is the begrudgingly-go-back-on-OK Cupid phase of getting over someone, resenting them all for not being him, even though I know the next guy will feel equally best and equally-only when I’m with him, just by the virtue and magic of attraction. I know that when the next ones come along, the tide will come in and things will shift into place just as easily and emphatically, because bodies and hearts know what they’re doing. They’ll take us where we need to go.

Like most of America, I had a very hard Thanksgiving. Things aren’t good between my mom and me, and I was unable to keep great gusts of election rage from screeching out as pie was being served. As I drove home in the middle of the night blasting Arcade Fire and Frank Ocean, I couldn’t wait to be back safely in my city, in my apartment. I’m thankful that I’m amazing at rage driving.

My life is entering a new phase now and it feels both lonely and spiderweb-strongly connected. Friday night phonebanks at the feminist bookstore three doors down, marches as often as I want to go, a community art show to make a sanctuary for anyone made afraid by the election results—these things are home, who I really am, and I want to leave my tragically Trumpified family members behind long enough to settle back into who I really am.

I know that I’ve partly been focused on Mr. Makeout Music because crush-sadness is easier to deal with than election sadness, but the best thing I can do for both sadnesses is to take care, to find a way to appreciate myself as I really am. In that self, there’s anger and loss and a divorce I haven’t yet managed to finish. There are unsettled hurts on both a national and a personal scale. There’s an ocean of rage and an ocean of joy.

            But there’s also this simple and sheepish-making fact. I love Mr. Makeout Music. And I also love his “no.” I want to be as close to him as I can but also respect What Is, his real life and my own. I want to step back and let him be where he is, respect and support his goals, be someone accepting and unconditional. I want to let myself move on and find the enthusiastic, mutual, available love that I really do know I deserve, but I haven’t yet let go of the thread between us, of those suddenly-deep conversations, of the safe space his presence made for me right here in the middle of pussy-grabbing America.

            It is a hard time to be (STILL) trying to learn to connect with men. Part of the reason that I get so attached is that deep down I really, REALLY miss them. As independent and strong and spinsteriffic as I am/want to be, it feels like part of me is missing. I am happier with a man to love, and I really hope I get to feel what it’s like for a man to love me back someday. The joy I felt when he and I were so near to being a thing, it was beautiful, a breeze of relief in my heart, that magical unlatching that happens sometimes, that seduces me so. It was wholeness, it was being myself. Even as I try my best to let him go, I want to believe in that joy, to feel like I deserve it, to take the light with me even as I walk away. It might take more bravery than I have, but I’ll try it.