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:

Southern Charmer Postscript

 

My oldest cat is sixteen and she's been sick. The first time I turned on the heater this fall, she abruptly left her perpetual spot next to me on the couch and fled for more hide-y places upstairs. She sleeps on the vent under the vanity or on a big suitcase I took out when I changed the clothes over for winter.

This plus the coming (impending) election was giving all of life a way-too-urgent feeling. It's a feeling I had all the time when I was younger and unmedicated and would contemplate the shortness of the lilac season. I knew they'd be gone soon and I worried I wasn't enjoying them enough while they were here.

The one thing that WASN'T making me feel that way was The Southern Charmer. After our lovely night together, he told me that, considering his recent breakup, he felt like he'd gone too fast into sex with me. I took that to mean that he wanted to slow down, not stop. We chatted every few days and I hoped we'd eventually make it back to smoochtown.

I was lying on the floor next to Oldest Cat's ersatz suitcase bed, holding her paw, when I decided to check in with SC. His update was that he had made a new friend, a platonic one, and they'd hung out a couple times lately.

I thought he'd been laying low because of his breakup grief, but here he was making a lovely new confidante. I started to cry, realizing he'd left me behind a few weeks ago without me realizing. People will say literally anything when they mean "We're not a match" and no matter how many times it happens or how many paragraphs I've paragraphed, I still miss getting it sometimes. It's a thing that makes me feel every one of the seventeen points of my Autism Spectrum Quotient. https://embrace-autism.com/autism-spectrum-quotient/

I asked him why he hadn't spent some of that time with me. He said again the thing about having gone too fast, how he couldn't handle the emotional intimacy right now. I didn't even know we were DOING emotional intimacy! A true first. I heard it now, a break-off, not a slowdown. 

Bitterness and Giddiness, Part One

 

Throughout the whole one million years year that I’ve been broken up with The Shy One (Two months longer than we’d been together! I feel so impatient with this process!) I feel like I maintained some sort of dignity about the situation. At least, as much dignity as one can have while writing a million paragraphs and creating however-many art projects about a beloved ex a guy who dumped me right before Valentine’s Day.

I’ve been so strong, even with the Christmas mushroom gummies and the letters and the unblockings and reblockings and the endless wondering what to do with the just-not-my-style jewelry set he brought me back from his trip home. (Resolved: Even though if I wore it I would look like a deranged, appropriating haunt from the Island of the Well-Meaning-White Ladies, it’s beautiful and special and I’m keeping it. I’ll probably hang the earrings on the Christmas tree next year.) I’ve had, for the most part, willpower. Sometimes I was a bitch, sometimes just unbearably nakedly needy, but still, with some underlying dignity.

Until this year’s Valentine’s Day. I blame the movie Valentine’s Day—it’s a fave, but this Valentine’s lunch time, it really twisted the knife. Maybe it was a knife that needed twisting.

There’s this part where Bradley Cooper is telling Julia Roberts about his breakup and she says something like:

“Nothing to be done?”

And that just struck the saddest chord on the lobby piano in the overpopulated hotel that is my heart. I STILL think there’s something I could have done, some part of me I could have folded up and put away (Maybe in with the Christmas ornaments?) so that he wouldn’t have left me. In the background of all the love and joy and growth and vexation of time moving forward, my brain is still whirring away on that puzzle. I sincerely hope it will stop doing that someday.

I decided to be sad for a few minutes on the way to my evening job. I’d (Fit of well-being! Optimism! The life changing magic of tidying up my Spotify lists!) deleted my Grief Walk mix but, uh, luckily? There was this new single from Usher featuring Burna Boy, Coming Home. It devastated me all the way to my bones. It made me want to find The Shy One and just let him consume me until there was nothing left. I looked up the lyrics and it says “not just leave you for dead.” But metaphorically that’s what I wanted, to be so deep in shock and love and sex as to evaporate all the way to heaven and stay there this time, not drift back to reality and a Shy One QUICKLY getting his pants on to go, that last time.

It's fine, I can drive to work and self-immolate at the same time!

I knew there couldn’t be any seeking-out-and-being-consumed, so I did something maybe even less advisable—I looked at his Instagram in the few minutes before work started. There wasn’t much to see there, but there was this:

March 15, 2023, a little more than a month after we broke up. A stupid, generic meme saying “That feeling when everything’s just coming together.”

I know he wasn’t posting it AT me, but fuck you, dude. While I was raking the back terrace listening to fucking A Grief Observed, while I was going back to Unitarian Church to feel less isolated and alone, while I was planning to commemorate our first date/the first day of Ramadan with a street art project, his life had found exactly where it needed to be, at least in that moment of posting.

And I’m so mad at myself because the feeling he was having in that basic-as-fuck meme, it’s a feeling I wish for him! For everyone I love. It’s a great fucking feeling that everyone deserves. Resenting him for that moment of epiphany makes me seem so curdled and rotten, and in that moment, I was.

I reunlocked his WhatsApp thread and sent at desperate and devastated few questions, followed, not too long later, by an “Oops, please disregard.”

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.”

A Little Reset Adventure!

 

Although I’m proud of how well I’ve taken care of myself in the two weeks since The Shy One breakup (Two weeks ago yesterday. I can still hear him (Pretty understandably!) hissing It’s Monday morning to my latest round of tears and worries.) it’s been really, REALLY hard, maybe especially on my friendship with BFF-Formerly-Sweetie.

I couldn’t figure out how to get the tears out on my own, so I would call her and cry—pretty standard best friends stuff, except that we’re also ex-wives. Having tried so hard and, according to my Depression Brain, “failed” with The Shy One, the grief got tangled up with having “failed” to be Sweetie’s wife. The guilt and shame of letting go of these two big relationships that were/are so dear was overwhelming.

The way Depression Brain puts it: “Here are these two wonderful people who tried so hard to love me and I just couldn’t let them. Am I incapable of being loved?”

I felt like I was letting down BFF all over again. I felt like I was letting down all the friends and family I’d talked to about the relationship. It even felt like I’d let down my friendly next door neighbor, because she’s friends with Mrs. Shy One. Of course she is. That lady is everywhere.

Anyway, after HOURS of listening to me over the past two weeks and also twenty years, BFF let slip that she doesn’t believe polyamory exists at all. I was…done confiding. All of her years of polyphobia and biphobia came back and I thought (Pretty unfairly) “Oh of course I hate myself. This bitch has hated part of me for the last twenty years.”

It would be fun and easy to blame her and be mad, but I can’t. A pattern came back like an unwelcome friend and I was about to step into it for a self-hating kind of comfort.

Yes, it’s shitty of her to deny a whole way of being that brings so many people so much joy and fulfillment, but she was mostly just mad at The Shy Ones for hurting me so badly. And because it’s probably a lot of stress to keep fielding tearful calls. And probably also because of all the pain I caused her during our mono/poly marriage years. And because she’d hurt me so much then too.

I’ve spent ten months trying to be what The Shy One wanted me to be so I didn’t have to say goodbye. I can see the echo of my marriage in that (mostly unasked for) grim determination.

So instead of going another round with BFF, I just put it all down. I asked for a friendship break. No calling a million times a day. No relying on her to explain things I could easily Google for myself.

And huh. As soon as I made that decision, my loneliness felt halved! It feels liberating to act like I’m genuinely single instead of reenacting the role of Full Time Disappointer.

So yesterday I asked if we could make this pause into a more permanent friendship change! We’ll still hang once a week but the dependency needs to end. I’m curious and optimistic to see what the next phase of our friendship might look like! And I haven’t sobbed in like two days!

Holy Fuck, This Guy Tried SO HARD.

My heart hurts so much this Valentines Day, even as I make lots of art and celebrate all kinds of love past, present, and future. It would be much easier if I could be angry, bitter, if I could blame The Shy One and myself for teaming up to break our own hearts. Instead, I keep coming back to:

Curiosity.

Wonder.

Acceptance.

Maybe even the building blocks of peace and hope.

Yesterday, I did the maybe-ill-advised thing of pulling The Shy One’s texts out of the “recently deleted” folder (Who knew that was even a thing?) and gave it a little backwards read. Not all four thousand something texts, I only made it as far back as December. But I read enough to have my heart broken open by the truth: The Shy One tried his heart out until the very, very end.

He loved me. I got very, very loved, dear readers. There’s no amount of pain and loss and grief that can stop me from admitting it.

I’m glad I undeleted those texts long enough to rescue his last picture of the moon. To read his last “I love you too, Ma’am” (Kissy face emoji) There was hope and cuteness for our Tuesday date. I don’t fully understand why I couldn’t make it to that Tuesday night, or to our first trip together that was supposed to be this weekend.

Without the fight for his attention, without the pain of waiting to hear from him and missing him all the time (Well, I do still miss him, but it’s different. Because I’ve accepted my longing. Because we’re both free to build the lives we want.) I could scroll through those texts and feel the love from him that I couldn’t always feel when we were together. When we both were trying so, so hard.

It makes me wonder all over again (Without the fix-myself-so-this-can-work pressure) if I’m just someone who is incapable of being loved by a man. Because of the years without them. Because of the fear and trauma and anger and all these years fighting the patriarchy.

But I must be capable of being loved, because I was, I am. I almost believe what he said about loving me forever, even as he was ending things.

I think looking back on those texts (Which I have since re-deleted, and then deleted from the recently deleted) was a good experiment. Even in a moment of such loss and hurt and Valentine’s Day, I cold feel how dedicated he was, how much I was adored. One of my heart’s major quests!

I still feel guilty that I just couldn’t let it be enough, that I couldn’t have made it another day, another week.

Whenever we were at odds, grace is what he always asked for, and what, for the most part, I gave. Grace is what I feel today, with all the sadness. Now that I’m not fighting for whatever I was fighting for, grace is easier to feel for both of us. It’s possible to feel kind, empathetic, even a little at peace.

Grace.

May 23, 2022: A Letter to Myself From Unconditional Love

 

Elizabeth Gilbert has a quarantine-era meditation on Insight Timer that I still use sometimes on badbad days: https://insighttimer.com/elizabeth_gilbert_writer/guided-meditations/facing-fear-with-a-compassionate-heart

One of the things she suggests is writing a letter to oneself “From Unconditional Love”—I mean, I’d much rather be getting love letters from cute boys than from abstract entities/myself, but these letters do work. I found this letter in one of my journals from the first time I broke things off with The Shy Ones, and I’m like, whoa, this lady really knew what she was doing.

I’m going to edit it for floweriness because no one should have to read an actual journal entry! Also, neither of them actually used the word “discretion” but it’s what they wanted, and it’s the reddest of my red flags in the past and henceforth.

Dear (Me),

You don’t have to feel better yet. I love him too. I love him so big and wide and all-encompassing. I wish this could all be okay.

That warmth. That connection.

They expected “discretion” and I know you’re wondering why you didn’t provide it. Why you couldn’t just *do* it.

You’re wondering if you just ran away because you were scared. You were very brave. You didn’t want to let him go and you did your very, very best.

I’m so proud of you—you stretched and found whole new chambers in your heart. Whole new muscles.

This is important. Just because it was short-lived doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t mean you’ve failed. It just reached the end and I know you miss him so much but it did reach the end.

I know it hurts. Thank you for writing this with me, for doing the things that help the most.

This is going to take a while. It’s going to take a while because it’s important. Because it was meant to be. Because it’s meant to live in you and change you. You can’t control the way it changes you, or the time it takes.

Just keep moving. And know he was smitten, he really was. I want you to take that to heart, even/especially what he said at the end: you do deserve to find what you want.

There’s no guaranteeing it, but if you trust your heart, I promise to take care of the very very nice adventures to come.

Let yourself be sad, but don’t give up hope.

Love,

Unconditional Love

A Fortune Cookie Slip is Really Small

Before I untangle this connection any further, I have to say, I chose this. I went all in on The Shy One because, well, I’m not sure I have other settings. But I knew he didn’t want the same kind of relationship I wanted, and I chose him anyway. Partly because love, but partly because I don’t feel worthy of what I want. It seemed easier and more fun to try to fit into his limited vision for us than to keep looking for the kitchen table or otherwise more available guy/constellation that I wanted. Sorry, me!

And while I’m fumbling through the push-pull cycle of neediness/withholding/being marooned on weeknights, it’s important to acknowledge that there was a three-day trip coming up for us, mid-February. I can’t fully explain why that wasn’t factoring into my heart’s schedule math. I really, REALLY wish I could have made it to Friday the 17^th.

Anyway, a week before the actual breakup, after I admitted that the texts were carrying too much weight because I missed him ALL the time, because I wanted more intimacy and more groundedness to our connection, he suggested daily calls. (I remember in the beginning, he was always telling me I could call whenever I wanted, but that never felt like the right thing to do for whatever reasons.)

So we picked a time that worked for both of our work days (This daytime stuff has a mistress vibe to me, but I don’t think it would’ve if our hearts were aligned.) and had nice calls for a few days. I liked having a little more of his ordinary dailiness in my ears, but I also resented the impingement on my work/art/whatever during the day.

But it was lovely, those little chances to know him a little more. Until Thursday before last. My small-talk go-to, what are you making for supper?

Thursday was Chinese food night, it turns out, so I was like, “Oh yay! Send me a fortune!”

“Nah. That’s (Younger Daughter)’s thing. I wouldn’t want to mess with that.”

She likes to smash the fortune cookies when they come, a precious tradition for sure, and one I would never have asked to be present for. But would really have liked to be present for, I guess it’s okay to admit.

A fortune cookie slip is so small. Grab it after dinner when you’re clearing the plates, snap a pic, easy-peasy!

I didn’t say that of course, I just made agreeable noises and let the subject move on to other things. Like I did after so many little rejections like that.

I couldn’t and can’t fathom how I could have “messed with” his daughter’s tradition by wanting a picture of a fortune cookie slip, but that’s how it felt to him. I guess, like the me world and the family world would have come too close, the fortune cookie slip turning into a vortex and then a black hole that would destroy both worlds somehow. He was having a protective instinct, I don’t think it was intentionally cruel or phobic, but just whoa. Not this.

Aside from the closetedness, his conservative background, and general resistance to change, I can see how being in a relationship with someone who wants more could feel claustrophobic, even threatening. I can empathize with the pressure there, I felt it too, from the other side. A mismatch feels oppressive no matter what anyone tries, that’s why there’s breakups!

But being seen as a threat to children. That’s just something you just have to live with, as a queer educator, as a queer ANYTHING. I’ve lived my whole adult life with the societal idea that I might be a “groomer”—it was there the whole time, even before the DeSantises of the world decided to make the implicit prejudice more explicit.

I know that it’s partly his own shame, his own dissatisfaction with his own poly situation that made that cookie slip vortex such a real fear. I’m just really, really sorry to have put my poor heart in the way of that shame and fear, especially since I saw it coming. So I’m writing myself a little apology.

Dear Self,

Yes, I knew better, and I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t listen to what you really wanted, that I tried to make you settle for so much less.

In fairness though, we also deserved the pleasure and happiness he WAS able to give! There’s no reason to feel ashamed of all that! It was real.

Self, I’m going to try to hear you. You want someone you might see on Christmas Day, even though the 20^th was lovely. You want someone who will share his life, organically and at a pace something other than glacial. You want to take your time and date whatever number of people feels right. You want to feel like a gift, not a duty or a burden. You want to bloom and vine and grow love all over the place. You want to have bad days or panics or sad moments without feeling like an annoying todo list item.

Self, you’re a morning glory, not a bonsai, not a cactus, not a pruned miniature rose. You want to love big. You’re already doing it. Go ahead.

 

Fuck this Brunch Epiphany and Fuck These Two.

I don’t know how long The Shy One had been trying to break up with me. Maybe since we tried getting back together in July.

It’s been a while since I’ve written. I wanted some privacy to let the thing with The Shy One grow on its own. What happened was, it didn’t. I’ve tried really really REALLY hard to figure out how to fit into his life, but the space just kept getting smaller. Still, there was so much goodness there too—sex so profound and beautiful I never did learn to get my head around it. Pretty lingerie I’ll take pictures of before I put it away maybe forever. Cuddles in front of Gilmore Girls. He let me drag him through The Fancy Gardens even though it was freezing cold. He came to my Christmas party and met my students, and my mom, and the one aunt who’s not too vocally fascist to talk to.

But the feeling I couldn’t stand anymore was Waiting for Him to Text Back. I wanted to throw my phone in the river because no matter how much he tried to stay in touch, the distance between us would not close. He said he loved me but I couldn’t feel it.

And the feeling of Wondering If He’s Ignoring Me Because it’s Her Time (It’s ALL her time, turns out, I kind of knew that last May.) And I’m Not Allowed to Know When That Is. (Because it’s always.)

Or wanting to send him a picture of the sunrise or sunset or a painting or a cloud but feeling resentful because he’d kinda stopped sending me pictures of anything after he got home from his big trip. Then sending him the picture anyway because he said text whenever but that wasn’t really the rule either. (I still don’t know what the rule was, only that I got snapped at if I got in touch wrong.)

To paraphrase William Carlos Williams, so much SHOULD NOT depend on an emoji. Or a GIF. Or a “good morning.”

Anyway, so brunch:

I was trying for every-other-month brunches with Mrs. Shy One. I really liked hanging out with her and was learning to think of her as a regular non-fictional human and not Nakia from Wakanda Forever. (Mrs. Shy One doesn’t look like Lupita Nyong’o, it’s just a vibe.)

Last Sunday, we went to a place she picked, full of cool people and hustle and bustle and noise. All the menu options had a lot of adjectives. I tried the Deep Fried Bread Pudding French Toast with Candied Bacon and Lingonberry Jam. I thought lingonberries only existed on Portlandia.

It’s not her fault (Probably? ) that I felt ugly and stupid and clownish and poor sitting there with her. But these two things she said, jeez.

When she asked, “Who else are you dating?” I joked like oh, you know, just this one guy. And she was like “Who?” And I was like “Uh, (The Shy One)?”

“But I know you’re always out there, right?”

I mumbled some excuses like having too maybe-misleadingly-slutty of a profile pic, but, no, not really. Just then, just this past while, I wanted to be dating just him. He was a lot. A LOT. And I needed time and space to settle in if I was going to. I was swiping Feeld sometimes, not totally off the market, but like, let me just be in love with this guy for like five seconds. I think it’s a totally valid way to be poly sometimes.

I felt so stupid, like I wasn’t doing this right, like I was too dowdy and dim and simple and needy to keep up with these two FUCKING SUNBEAMS.

(Did I mention that he emigrated for her? Crossed the whole ocean and came HERE of all places?! And I had to clamor for anything other than a few hours on a Tuesday.)

(But actually, we had a trip coming up on the 17^th. The ticket cancellation showed up in my inbox at 4am. At least he couldn’t sleep after the breakup? But why couldn’t I make it til through to the trip. Other than I couldn’t figure out how I was going to eat or poop all weekend and I was scared of ending up stranded in the middle of a pretty-scary part of the state.)

ANYWAY back to brunch. Mrs. Shy One said something like “Oh it doesn’t matter if I don’t see my girlfriend for a couple of weeks, I always have dick at home.”

This pronouncement SUCKS for everyone involved, but it really made me come to terms with all I was left out of, all I was missing. I couldn’t imagine ever being that filled up, that confident, that wanted, that loved. I mean, I had that with Sweetie-Now-BFF, but I couldn’t figure out how to fit in that relationship either.

I could never measure up.

I could never have what she has, especially if I kept pining after a guy who erases my existence to every single other person in his life. Who lies to his kids about his love life and would only let me drop him off at home once.

“It’s my street,” he once said angrily, while of course being cuddled and feted on my street.

Their life is perfect without me, without ANYONE else. The rest of the world is a threat to what he really wants. (I mean, the rest of the world IS a threat, but that’s seventeen other conversations.)

Not with a bang, or a sweet-but-resolved text. With a “good morning” that got lost in the ether yesterday. I called to check in later in the morning, and he offered to send me a screenshot as proof. She’d done the same thing when my phone dropped her text confirming brunch. These two are scared to fucking DEATH of me. It’s so awful that they felt like they needed receipts.

I didn’t want to be scary. I tried to ask for as little as possible, to be self-contained, to self-date my way to satisfaction, to just be quiet and leave him be as much as I could stand to in hopes that I would stop being an irritation. That he might miss me and be kind and want to be near me.

I feel dirty, and broken, and ashamed. I’m literally surrounded by pretty presents that couldn’t bridge the gap.

I wanted to be part of his life. Of their lives. I didn’t want to be a secret. I wanted to meet the kids, or at the VERY LEAST for The Shy Ones to learn what a babysitter is.

He wrote it as a starcrossed kind of story, just circumstances. But I wanted him to see me. To choose me, not instead of them, but alongside.

He said he “prays that I find my person,” but my mind doesn’t work that way. I don’t want The One, I’ve loved many Ones and will (I GUESS) love many more. I think they’re all valid, they all count. I wish this one had counted more to him. I wish he could see me without the threat that haloed me in his mind no matter what I tried to do. I wish he could see me.

It really pisses me off that in like six months I’ll be like oh, poor us, just a bad match. I hate magnanimous. I hate how small I tried to be in his life, and I hate how I’m an ogre in his mind anyway. I hate this.

The Goodbye Boys

Connection and attraction are weird. The two times that Mr. Adorkable came over, I felt like we were almost supernaturally linked, not just the way our bodies fit together, but personality-wise as well. We chatted and laughed like friends and played so beautifully. And then he’d go back home and hardly ever text—I should have taken that signal and kept it moving, probably.

Not-texting wasn’t how it started though. The first weekend that he had my number, back at the end of August, he was attentive, flirty, infinitely selfie-able. He was my cute text company on my solo birthday trip, to the point where I missed him when my hotel room turned out to be a Wifi-hole. I sent him a picture of a sunset mountain, of my outfit matching a wall of Warhols. Company.

But after our first date, the textiness stopped, and I don’t know why I didn’t just admit that I HATED that. Anybody can text anybody every day or so! Still, I was mindful of bandwidth. And he was so lovely and present and playful in person.

Before our second date, I reached out to ask him if he’d ghosted, a really bad sign! But he said he hadn’t, and I got more attached. Again, a song came on at the right time like we were in a movie.

But then, the not-texting again. We made a third date, but it took some nagging.

(My work life is mostly nagging--it’s my superpower! I vow to not opt into any more of it in my free time.)

(And I also vow to just recognize the next case of He’s Just Not That into You when it comes along!)

Anyway, when Mr. Adorkable told me a few hours before the planned third date that he “wasn’t feeling connected.” I wanted to be like: Duh. You didn’t even try. But I know things don’t work that way.

My point is, besides BEING TEXTED BACK IS NICE, that I’m feeling burned out from the goodbye part of dating.

A partial list of goodbye boys since last fall:

The Coach, (didn’t want to be in person, possibly dick-catfishing me)

The Lovely Guy, (very lovely, it just ran its course)

Superhot hookup guy who looked like Finn from Star Wars, (Gave me a fake last name)

This Charming Man, (Love, heartbreak, Chappelle fan)

The very-not-a-match-hookup who probably gave me Christmas Covid,

The Good Boy, (Can’t really complain about that one)

The Shy One, (GLAD I UN-SAID THAT GOODBYE!)

The Southern Charmer, (“Sometimes it’s all just…too much.”)

The Adorables,

The boy with the Sonic the Hedgehog tattoo, (Also one that said “Keep it real”)

The high school principal who had First Corinthians tattooed on his arm, (I thought this was the most romantic thing ever.)

The goth boy who was delightfully dommy in the car, (Also a terrible texter)

The Song Sender Part Two (Electric Boogaloo),

and Mr. Adorkable.

No wonder I’m so tired. I’m not writing this to slut-shame myself, far from it! I just want to acknowledge that that’s a LOT of hope/hotness/goodbye for one year. Some disappeared, some ended in wrenching conversations, one re-ended in a sweet, healing way, one un-ended.

So it’s time for a little break from strangers, time for my body and heart to process all the sexiness and wonderfulness and sadness and shame and loss and phone-checking. This year of adventures was a busy, beautiful, ravishing gift, but Mr. Adorkable was one goodbye too many for now. Just for now though.

Knotty Thursday: Pretty Half-Hitch Pattern!

 

TMI alert: I'm deep in the hot-flash woods of perimenopause, and what that has meant this month is that I've had my period for THREE WEEKS. I had to get special medicine to make it stop. Along with end-of-the-world heat and a broken car air conditioner (now blessedly fixed) plus last week's breakup thing, I felt achey and crabby last night all the way to my bones.

I found this nice futomomo pattern that I liked:

(Did you know that futomomo literally translates to "fat leg"? Love it.)

But I wasn't feeling bendy enough and I kept worrying that I was going to bleed onto my pretty new post-breakup sheets. It took me a loooong while to accomplish anything, but finally, I put on my trusty lo-fi mix and settled into just practicing the pattern--I think it turned out lovely!

He’s Not a Pet, He’s a Bird Who Flew in by Mistake: Part One

 

"He’s not a pet, he’s a bird who flew in by mistake." That’s what I told myself in a dream last Saturday morning. In the dream I was talking about an actual bird, sort of a muted, pastel painted bunting, but I knew right away who dream-me was talking about. In a span of a few days, The Song Sender had gone from an actual-date-offering, text-attentive Sir to barely passing the Turing Test.

There was truly some beautifulness between the aftercare panic-and-flee of our second date, the un-break-off that I initiated, and the true end on Wednesday night, when I probably should have been practicing my knots instead. I’m equal parts irritated to be spilling more paragraphs on him and ecstatic to have so much to say.

I’m even sort of comforted knowing there are a few people out there (Looking at you, Steampunk Guy!) who truly cause me to take leave of my senses. Not in a cute, aw I’m crazy about you sense, but the actual departure of my mind. This time, thankfully, I guess my mind hadn’t gone TOO far away.

I was surprised at how amenable he was to making an aftercare plan. He even signed the paper during our dinner in a nearly-completely-empty pho place. But, he was even harder than usual to talk to, and he said there would be a little more negotiating to do when we got to my car.

He told me that he didn’t have space in his life for something as intense as I wanted, that we could only be really casual, if at all. The reason for the robo-boy texting was at least partly because a lady who’s subbier, easier, and less available (just cheating on her fiancée rather than expecting anything relationshippy or, you know, ethically non-monogamous) had popped back into his life.

I mean, as has been THOROUGHLY documented here, The Song Sender is actually pretty awful, he really is, but I thought, why not? Why not get dominated once a month or so and free myself from endlessly worrying about the tone of his texts, endlessly worrying that he was forgetting me. It seemed fine.

So I took him home and it was..fine. The hair pulling and the “pretty little slut” and worrying about bruises but not too much. He kept “forgetting” that my right arm has been broken and dislocated and can’t deal with quite as much manhandling as the rest of me. That fucker was definitely going to dislocate my wrist someday if we’d kept on.

In between finishing himself off and getting up to pee, he asked me if the song Goodbye Horses was on the makeout mix I’d made us. I listened to a few notes while he was in the loo and deemed it perfect, until he was like “It’s time for a movie moment, I have to show you this clip from Silence of the Lambs.

“UH, maybe AFTER aftercare?”

Sadistic or just stupid? Maybe both. I stayed this-is-fine cool and did my aftercare steps, and they simmered me right down. And then there was the clip, in all its lotion-in-basket, rotten, viciously transphobic horror.

“All these queer kids going around liking this song ironically, or unironically,” he said, “Not realizing this is where it’s from.”

Honestly, fuck you FOREVER. I still stayed cool. I had on my slutty-brave armor and it would NOT be disrupted by this fool. We lay there semi-snuggling and looking at each other’s Feeld profiles. It was kinda fun.

Knotty Thursday: Broken Heart and Untangling Break

This, but make it poly. Luke tells Lorelai she'll get the whole package, and she does.

I haaaaaaaaate it when a date starts with a breakup, and I don't let myself know it til the end of the night. If then! The Song Sender sensed I was having the feelings, and said he wanted things to be much more casual. I thought this would be fine! 'Twasn't.

Twice is enough times for The Song Sender to break my heart. I can't regret any of it, but it's time to give myself some space for the hurt and sadness.

I'm long past due for a "what I want" kind of post, but for now I'm tired and bitter and I have to get ready for a long work day.

 

Knotty Thursday: True Lover's Knot.

 

A dramatically named knot for a heartache week. I miss The Shy One so, so badly. I'm at the part of heartbreak where I question every choice I made that led me away from him. Where I wonder if there'll ever be anyone(s) so special again. The fancy teacup. The daily pictures of flowers. His sweet face. The month of sunsets. The kisses.

I've started flirting again, because it cheers me up to picture putting new cuties into my ropes, but I'm not sure what I can/should ask for. The Shy One told me I had every right to ask for what I need, but there's nothing in the universe that gives me the right to find it. I may never find it. I know I've had three good romances and some hot playpals in the past year, but each heartbreak still feels like it must've been my last chance.

All that aside though, I had a lovely time with myself last night. I started from two True Lover's knots and ended up with this harness. I love the way the colors go together, especially since these are the ropes I ordered after my first date with This Charming Man--it was a treat to see and feel that harmony, even/especially two loves later.

Goodbye to The Shy Ones

(art's a Rumi quote)
Time for me to take a little rest in the praise ocean.

My desire to love and be loved by them, whether it was the platonic love that I was just beginning to feel for her or someday being able to be loved by both of them, was so powerful as to be unmanageable. It was so big I couldn’t even see it until I’d started to let it go. I knew (Or was afraid I knew, it amounts to the same in the end) that it was too big a want, too feral a need to fit into their lives as they’re constructed. I was so scared of that big desire. It felt like Kaiju want, Godzilla love. If I was a movie, you’d have to pretend the buildings had been evacuated before they got smashed. This is a terrible way to see myself, I’d like to change it.

Maybe Mrs. Shy One felt that fear too, because when I, last Friday, the day after all the texting joy, asked her permission to blog about her, she decided I needed to check with her every time I thought of writing about her. From potential friend and metamour to editor, just like that. For the sake of “healthy boundaries,” for “honesty and transparency.” (LADY. You pretend your girlfriend is just a friend on your socials. Your husband asked me to do the same. Come ON.)

Mrs. Shy One reaching out to grab my writing process was, to me, the exact opposite of healthy boundaries. To put it in Downton speak, she was putting her oar in. It was clear to me that the only boundary she/they cared about was the one around me.

The bottom dropped out from the whole plan then, and I saw the situation for what it was, for what I was. To keep playing with The Shy One, I needed to be controlled. Managed. Shrunk or at least stunted. Even, my now-panicking brain added, snuffed.

The box I’d agreed to, their affable and understandable closet, was not going to stop shrinking around me.

The part that was absolutely NOT her fault is that I felt completely submissive about the two of them. I knew that they probably didn’t mean to try and control me, but I felt helpless, without a voice to negotiate. I did have a voice. The so-big-I-couldn’t-even-see-it desire combined with the submissiveness I couldn’t talk through without crying, made it feel impossible to listen to them or advocate for myself. It shouldn’t have been impossible, I know. My body was telling me that the options were to fall at her feet or flee.

So I fled. More accurately, I blocked both of their numbers so I could stop crying long enough to get through my workday and get at least a little bit of the story into paragraphs.

The next day, seeing where the paragraphs were going and not wanting to break things off via blog post, I asked The Shy One to come over or call. He couldn’t do either, he said, so we broke up by text. I told him the closet feels bad, that I want them to be exactly them and exactly where they are, but that I just didn’t fit.

He was just as kind. He told me I deserve to love without guardrails or artificial limits. That made me feel appreciated for who I am, and not Godzillalike at all.

I know there’ll always be guardrails and limits because humans are involved and nobody needs to be falling off a cliff.

I’m sure I’ll have more to say about him, and I know I’ve got lots of Unicorn Stuff to paragraph out, but for now I’m just sad, grateful and quiet. I don’t think it’s kind or helpful to compare myself to Godzilla, but for now I’m happy to be back in the sea, at rest.

 

Fourth Date Tears, Part Three

I kind of knew I had to say goodbye, but when we got back to my apartment, I asked him to come up to bed to cuddle. I hoped, like I always hoped in these moments, that the warmth and attraction would fix things, might help me ease open my snapped-shut heart.

He sat with his back against the bed frame and I cried into his lap, big gulping not-cute sobs. We both kept apologizing, a tangle of apologies, a squeezing spiderweb of apologies.

In moments like this, I feel so far from the role I’m supposed to be playing, the easy, sexy playful person I could be before I asked the outness question, when I was sure I had a place in his world. When I was hopeful and free.

I figured if I had to let him go, I might as well let him know how I feel. I looked into his sweet face and said “You know I already love you, right?”

Saying it gave me a wisp of relief, a relaxing of all my tiiiiiiired holding-back-feelings muscles. I think two months is a reasonable “I love you” time, but I still felt dangerous, radioactive with need and want and wishes.

He didn’t say it back, but he was kind. He smiled down into my sniffling, sheepish face and said “Isn’t it good to love people?” That smile.

I did try to say goodbye then. I said, “I have to let you go.” But he took that to mean just timewise and said, “Why? It’s barely eleven?”

“That’s not what I meant, “I said, but I let him settle back into bed after his time-checking. The saying goodbye would’ve been easier if it hadn’t been for the kissing.

“Do you want to look for that other person?” He asked.

“I guess I don’t really have a choice.”

“Do you want me to be with you while you look? The most important thing is to be your friend, but I can be more if you want me.”

“I want you,” I said, and then his hand was under my dress, resting on top of my long-wet undies and then sliding his fingers underneath. I was breathless with want. I wanted him to hold me there like that forever, open and warm, together.

I asked him to fuck me and he did, leaving the dress on, sliding into me slow and sweet, smiling big as he reached over me to close the window so I could go ahead and scream.

Except. Also. I grabbed his hand and placed it over my mouth, careful not to cut off breath but relaxing into the dominance. It felt good, a relief and a release, but also I wanted to tame myself to him. I wanted to make myself still, soothe all my hesitation, be his in whatever way he had room for. I wanted to be the right girl.

Midnight came too fast and I pulled him back to me a few more times before letting him go. I asked if I was still his girlfriend and he said yes. We had plans to go to an art installation on Saturday. We said goodnight and I felt desperate, lonely and lost.

Knotty Thursday! Friendship Knot

 

Yay haven't learned a new knot in a while! This one is soooooo cute, it reminds me of two pairs of hands clasping.

This breakoff week, (Still missing The Good Boy and The Southern Charmer a lot!) I feel SO VERY grateful for my friends. They are so extra there for me every day, I couldn't be luckier. I feel a little antsy taking a (sort of) (very short) break from flirting, but it's been a gift to remember how rich and full my friend life is. 

And! Speaking of friendly awesomeness! Mr. Adorable started writing text-letters again! So lovely to hear from him. 

Postscript: The Southern Charmer and The Good Boy

Last week was kind of a rough week in Kitten Calendar land! *cry emoji* First, The Southern Charmer and I had a not-a-match second date. I miss him a bunch!

And then, to my sadness and also some relief, it was time to say goodbye to The Good Boy.

On Saturday night, I came home from a perfect-on-paper-but-no chemistry date with someone new, got a little emo, and gave TGB a call. He works late, so it wasn’t supercrazy to call him at 11:30 at night. When he didn’t pick up, I kind of knew there wasn’t any more hope. I left a message saying I missed him, called BFF to lament my lack of attraction to perfect-on-paper guy, and went to bed.

You know on Top Chef or whatever when the judges tell you you’re out of the competition, you have to be all gracious and say “Thank you for the opportunity”? (Unless you’re Jen from Philadelphia, a hero to one and all, who got superpissed and swore her way out! And thus is my second favorite! After Marcel, who said “You don’t fuck with someone else’s mise en place,” possibly the best sentence ever uttered!)

That ritual moment, in addition to a lack of people skills and also other skills, is why I could never be on a competition show. But in the case of responding to The Good Boy’s three very kind breakup texts the next morning, I did the gracious response. I genuinely AM grateful for the opportunity, so that made it easy. I untied from him via text without any grasping or hoping, just generosity and (Gasp!) dignity.

Afterwards, I felt numb and lonely, tired and sad. I wondered if there was some change in my search parameters, some rule I could make that would save me from the hurt and loss that sometimes (okay almost always) follows the best connections.

On a bright, clear, breathless hike with my pal Adorable Queer Librarian that afternoon, I asked zir if ze thought I could do anything about it. We walked up hills and around all the trees, saying hi to dogs and their humans, talking about every topic we had. Then, on the last hill, almost back to my car, ze said “To answer your question, no. I think you should just go ahead and be even more you.”

With friends like zir, it’s hard to be sad and pretty much impossible to give up hope. I miss The Good Boy, but I’m well on my way already to being my grateful, isn’t-it-a-miracle-we-met-at-all self. Yesterday, I gave myself two weeks off from flirting, but today I bargained it down to four days. See you Thursday, Maybes! Thanks for being there and being exactly you.