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.

Two Phone Dates, Two In-Person Dates, That’s Enough for Now

Phone Date One: There’s something refreshing about the times it’s SO CLEAR someone isn’t a match. He seemed so promising! Cute, (Kind of a This Charming Man vibe!) nearby and! He was starting a flower garden! He suggested a call, so I told him what time I’d be working on my puzzle. (1000 pieces, a cherry-blossom landscape and soooooooooooo hard!) I sat down with a pink wine spritzer, hoping for a lively chat.

And it was okay! A little of that good banter thing I’m looking for! But when I asked him what kind of person he was looking for, he said “Just someone with some sense.”

“Oh, well that’s not me.” I said inside my head.

I mean, I’m sensible about lots of things—my apartment is passably clean, most of my bills are paid. My car’s maintenance is always up to date, though that’s partly because there’s Cute Car Place Guy. But going into a potential romance with the admonition to be sensible? Just, no.

He then went on a long tear about a lady who didn’t “pick up after herself” so my yikes became a superyikes.

Rope Date: I was at brunch showing Rainbow Pal my matches when this plan came into being—something about Rainbow Pal makes me want to be more hopeful and brazen. Friendship! It’s great!

Anyway, this thirty-year-old stoner dreamboat was just the SWEETEST, so gentle and kind and willing to learn. And willing to spank! Tattooed and spindly, he looked beautiful in my ropes. With my instruction, he did a pretty great job tying me up too! But this sweetie pie was just beginning his journey, and I want someone(s) more worldly, and with a little more fight.

There’s also this: The afternoon before this superpleasant rope date, I called BFF to cry my heart out about The Shy One. I’m SO TIRED of crying about that guy. Though he doesn’t read this and I’m sure he’s busy amassing Eid presents for some less-complicated girl, I can feel him over my shoulder, judging me for not moving on fast enough.

Phone Date Two: Facebook friend-suggested a kinky cutie I’d matched with summer before last but had never met, and I decided to give it a second try, violating my newish “no sequels” rule.

You know those profile pictures you sometimes see on Feeld that just show all the kinky toys some dude has? It was the conversational equivalent of that. He kept listing kinks like I was a questionnaire, and when I told him mine, he was like, “Is that all?”

When I described my very sweet Ma’am-ing style, he said “We’re going to have to work on opening you up.”

Jesus fuck. Friends, if there’s one thing I don’t need in this curious, fragile, regularly crying part of my life, it’s to be MORE opened up.

Kind (I hope) goodbye-again note, unfriend, reblock.

Couch Romcom Date: I’m not sure if I’ll go back and finish Ticket to Paradise. It made me yearn.

I liked this guy a BUNCH because he sent me a picture on Thursday of Junior Mints he’d bought for our movie date Friday. Thoughtfulness, attention to detail. I love it.

I ventured into the Frilly Things box and put on the gorgeous lilac Rihanna bra and panties set. I was hot from a long spring walk, so I just wore shorty pajamas over the frillies. I felt cute but tired.

He arrived a little late, but he was adorable—tall and beardy and cuddly AND he talked like Ron Funches. That may be a very specific fetish that I have.

He was warm and kind on the couch next to me, if a little unfriendly to my dear older cat. He was a gentle kisser and at one point he kissed me on the forehead, a gesture that makes me wish him all the miraculous hot gorgeous true love in the world. His presence was so calm and still that my EXTREMELY shy other cat came out from hiding behind the dryer and sniffed the toe of his shoe.

But I didn’t feel the spark, and I gently-as-possible told him that, before the movie was done.

Dear friends, I’d almost postponed the date because ninety minutes before he was scheduled to adorably bring me Junior Mints, I’d been sobbing to BFF about The Shy One again. I’d been frozen to my spot on the couch, unable to uproot myself enough to tidy the apartment or get cute. Eventually I rallied and I’m so glad I did! Movie date guy deserved my effort, and so did I.

But Let’s Be Honest: I’m still madly, pointlessly, helplessly in love with The Shy One. It’s time to take a dating break for a little while longer, hoping it won’t take too long to pass.

After I said goodnight to movie date guy, I felt an odd kind of happiness. It felt good to be alone with myself, to play phone games and listen to emotionally neutral podcasts and just have some private time to heal. I feel like I’m on the right path again. It’s all the right path.

A Beautiful In-Between Time

 

“We are still somehow bound together in a giant conspiracy of love, mutual care, and ongoing life. As we are not lost to creation, we are not lost to one another.”

-Martha W. Hickman, Healing After Loss: Daily Meditations for Working Through Grief

The past few months have been a prolific untangling of griefs. For a while, I had a list of eight main griefs and I rolled a D8 each morning to see which one to think about. I only wrote about a page and a half on them each morning for a while, but they really helped my sorrows get less crowded and easier to think though. Then I found Ms. Hickman’s cute book in the Little Free Library and now I prompt myself by opening to random pages—that made the grief writing more floaty and free, more sourced from the divine.

The idea of my inner tanglings being part of all creation, being part of a “giant conspiracy of love” feels so freeing, so hopeful. I can feel the invisible string between me and The Shy One healing, transcending, becoming more of a spider web than a boat anchor chain. He’s starting to feel more like a wished-well and beloved but not-my-business stranger than a permanent gaping hole of want in my soul. Most of the time.

That progress is bittersweet. I’m gradually making room in my heart for myself and for whoever is next. I’m spending less energy spiritually reaching out. It feels like the pain of being without him won’t last forever. Sometimes. But that means that someday he’ll really be gone. He’s really been gone for two-and-a-half moons, I know, but the pain is still a way to claim him, a magical-thinking way to keep staying in touch.

A better way to keep the love alive is to appreciate the ways that he changed me. The goddessness he helped me to tap into seems to be sticking around. I do still worry that I’m not lovable, not family-able, but I’m convinced down in my bones that I’m beautiful and worthy. The hotness I felt with and from him extends beyond the sparkly box of frilly things, beyond ALL the gorgeous pictures of both of us saved in my Hidden folder. It’s starting to feel like a permanent part of me.

It's deeper, somehow, than the brazen sexiness that has buoyed me through these ten years of adventures. A soul-shimmer, a glint of mischief that sparkles out whenever I meet a stranger’s eye. Even on a bad phone date, it’s there, playfully jollying everyone through.

And there’s this thing that happened the other day! An app guy asked me what I’m looking for and instead of doing a bunch of poly/hookup culture-equivocating, I wrote back “Boyfriend material!!!” with three Care emojis. Such an ordinary thing to be looking for, but it made me feel like a QUEEN. Like a Crystal Gem tapping into her powers, Rose Quartz but maybe less problematic. Or not!

I hope I changed him too, in some beautiful way, though I thought he was perfect. I hope I somehow lightened the load of the world for him, the way he did for me. I hope I’m living in The Shy One’s bones telling him that he’s beautiful, worthy, and free, that he’s not here on earth for duty or punishment. I hope I’m in his ear when he’s writing fiction, nagging him to maybe let his protagonists win once in a while.

I hope, like me sometimes, his soul gets lit up by all these profligate Ramadan flowers and he feels buoyant, playful and, I’ll keep saying it, free.

 

Two Moons Later

January 3rd moon--we were free and in love.

I wasn’t going to type this one up, but there, last night, was the full moon looking down from a halo in the sky when I went to take the trash out. Moving on is a labyrinth. It’s the cycles of the moon. Grief is an unpredictable tide.

Last week, I had that lovely burst of horny healthy moving-on inspiration, and it was real. But then, just as quickly as the happy, hopeful vibes had come: a wall. A panic. The vulnerability, hopefulness, and mostly-real self-assurance it takes to be dating is A LOT, and I just sort of crashed.

It helped to tell the lukewarmly interested new guy that I heard his lukewarmness, that I was glad I’d gotten to meet him but we weren’t a match. But the feeling of exposure kept coming until I deactivated Feeld and took it off my homescreen along with Hinge and Bumble. I turned off all the notifications.

I felt the panic recede after that but, close to the end of my workday last Friday, a new tide of missing The Shy One came in. The way I deal with that grief is finite: I sing along to Frank Ocean’s Moon River. I screech along to Robyn’s Dancin’ on My Own. Sometimes when I really want to twist the heartbreak knife a little, I put on Virgo’s Groove. (I didn’t realize that Beyoncé sings about “You’re the love of my life” in that song-aaaaaaalllll the times I heard it when he and I were snuggling, I never noticed. At least I know my life doesn’t have just one love.)

I wanted, when I parked at home Friday night and the blaring speakers went quiet, to find out if The Shy One had really loved me. It had been an unspoken agreement with myself for a few weeks that his love wasn’t real, it was a way to be less mad at him for going away, less mad at myself for not finding a way to feel okay in that relationship. I knew where to look, that his second-to last letter was probably right there in my “sent” folder.

It had to be finite. I do NOT go down heartbreak rabbit holes, my depressive brain can only confront these things a little at a time. So I set a timer for 20 minutes. I got into child’s pose and said a prayer for him, for me, for moving on, for new love. I sang the loving kindness meditation I wrote myself right after the breakup:

May I bloom and expand.

May I remain curious.

May I honor the longing.

May I thank and let go.

May I put it away til it feels
easier.

May I hear my heart, my body, and my mind.

May I internalize the love.

May I leave scarcity behind.

May I live in faith.

The Shy One’s second-to-last letter was from after our second-to-last fight. It was full of paragraphs and plans, apologies and ideas for how we could get closer, how he hoped to help me feel more secure. It was a lovely letter, hopeful, kind, and attentive.

Rereading it, I felt my body calm down and my heart quiet: He’d loved me. The knowledge was like a warm internal blanket, soft, solid, dependable, secure. I knew I had that love with me, that it was going to be a resource for whatever comes next.

Then I read through the WhatsApp messages from his Sierra Leone trip—no struggle. Just hotness, kindness, and future plans. And one video I definitely was not ready to look at, maybe never will be. My soul aches to think of the couple who wrote those texts, who selected those GIFs, so full of hopes, so briefly free.

I was done before the timer went off, full and secure. I worked on my puzzle and lay down for a peaceful sleep.

It definitely doesn’t feel like that all the time. They say (or used to say in, like, the Eighties when I was little?) that it takes at least half the time you were with someone to get over them. If I count from our first date, which I do, we were together ten months, so that’s five. Two down, three to go?

I don’t know how long it will take til my body stops missing him, stops wanting him only. Dear moon, dear universe, dear Christmas box of pretty lingerie (a completely reasonable thing to pray to!) please let him not have been my last love. Yes, give me time to honor him and heal, but don’t take too long sending the next sweetheart. Please.

A Surge of Horny Health!

 

I had a coffeeshop maybe-a-date yesterday with a guy I’ve been interested in for a while. I was rom-com awkward and klutzy. He was either very gentlemanly or not interested, maybe both. But my body gave me very good news: I AM READY TO DO ALL THE THINGS!

We had a perfectly lovely and polite time talking about all kinds of things. He’s a writer too! He has a cool project going that he is super-passionate about, what could be more dreamy than that?!

I was tooooooooootally listening to what he was saying but also, his hands. So big. So thick. So strong-looking. Oh boy. Oh my. Oh swoon. Oh my goodness.

“These are very good hands,” I said “I bet they’re very good for…hitting people. Like, on the butt.”

In fairness to my shy phrasing, the coffeeshop was close to home and there was the real possibility of work clients overhearing. Despite my awkwardness, he briefly wove our fingers together, like a combination of a hand-hug and a vote of confidence. Yep, strong.

He had a call to get to (Or, “had a call” like a get-out-of-date-free card?) so I didn’t get to take him home. (In a gentle show of optimism, I had sort of tidied.) Instead, I stopped at the store to buy myself flowers and had a VERY pleasant nap.

Ohfriends. It might not be this guy, but it’s gonna be somebody. And they better WATCH OUT.

Knotty Thursday: Human Macrame! Healthy Hoo-ha!

 

I started out with this nice simple design: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KX_Tfn186sQ but putting a ring at the center of the harness felt so freeing and gave me so much extra length that I just got a little carried away. I like it.

Also a star of last night's self-date: the Big Pink Rabbit! I hadn't been penetrated by anything since January, given the blood and sadness and post-surgery "no visitors in there" orders, and whoa was I in an extra good mood all day today!

Also contributing to the good mood: I went to my follow-up appointment for surgery and all is well! The IUD is in the right place, all the biopsies came back clear, and I only have the slightest spotting! Please pray to all the slutty gods and goddesses and nonbinary deities that the evil rogue periods are done! 

First Date, Full of Grace

 

OMG did you know there are guys who live BY THEMSELVES?! And you can just, like, go over there? Amazing.

Last Friday night, after work, I packed up some buttery chardonnay and some chips and drove ONLY NINE MINUTES for a couch date. It felt good to put on a cute bra, a low-key cozy-cute outfit, and nighttime lipstick! It felt so uplifting to just go talk to a cute stranger about whatever.

He was nice, and looked like he had lovely spankin’ hands, but he said something immature about my body that let me know this wasn’t the right guy for me.

And again, just like back at the heated blankets, a Shy One memory came like a visitation, only he’s not a ghost. The imprint was a clear rectangle of movie light on my soul. The way The Shy One used to move up my body with kindness and grace. With attention to detail. Married-guy ease and talent that I wanted to send Mrs. Shy One a thank you note for. A care I think I have to describe as dad energy. He took care of me. And now he’s taking care of me by being gone.

Back in real time, I hugged the nice but too-boyish thirty-something goodbye and realized it might be a while. Now that the push and pull and tears and hotness and dizzying affection of The Shy One are over (Have been over for a whole moon cycle.) my body, heart, and soul have time to understand what’s happened to us.

As I felt that time and space yawn out before me, I felt joy and relief and deep praise, from the top of my thoroughly beloved head to my driving-home toes.

I called BFF on the way home to brag about this date that hadn’t worked out, or had, in its own way. I felt giddy, sparkly, in a bubble of golden peace. (Don’t worry, I only had one glass of wine!)

Cozy in bed, I listened to the rain and wind outside, just wailing and spattering and gusting. I felt alive with the weather. I felt loved. I felt home.

A Year After the Sparkly Festival

Last week in my poetry class (the absolute BEST thing I have going on in my life right now) my friend from church mentioned having helped get the congregation’s Maypole ready and I had such a deep, yowly pang for the Sparkly Festival and all that it means. I almost said the heck with it and bought a day pass, even though I am recovering from acute stress and therefore avoiding all things overstimulating.

I didn’t go, but the longing seemed like a good, healing sign, and the nostalgia got me wondering just where sexiness fits into my life nowadays. For a while, it didn’t figure in at all. The stress of teaching at a harsh school had me wishing for as much shelter, as much covering up as possible. The parts of me that were vulnerable—poetry, compassion, art, sex, retreated inward for safety as I went into survival mode. It was easy to welcome back the less complicated aspects of creativity, to write and draw and paint up a storm—in fact, it’s the only way to heal I’ve ever known. But sex is harder to let back in, especially since it’s hard to see where I stand in relation to it.

In the time since I was last blogging regularly, I’ve done one thing exactly right—I moved into a dream apartment in the most woodsy, flowery neighborhood in the city. Gold Star Wing Girl says it’s like I live in a cupcake, and I have a back terrace that’s so private it may as well be another room. Saturday was so perfect, the sun so warm and the air so lilac-scented, it seemed like a good place to see where I was with my old friend, nudism. Only the cats would be able to see me, and they were too busy sunning themselves and chasing flies to care.

The vine covered walls and perfect square of blue May cartoon sky were so encouraging. I changed into my pink fuzzy robe, sat down in my cute turquoise Adirondack chair, and gave some naked Saturday-afternoon reading a try.

I can’t imagine why it felt bad, certainly nothing bad happened—what even COULD have? My heart raced in an unpleasant way and I had clothes back on in minutes. Such a harmless, pleasant idea cast the day in this weird darkness, which luckily I could walk off in the gorgeous neighboring woods. (Maybe I’ve at least made my home a little more Festival-like, now that I think of it.)

Experienced and self-aware as I’ve managed to become, I’m vexingly at a loss as to how to express my sexy side. Sometimes it feels as though the trauma work I did last year took away more than it gave, or maybe it’s the trauma OF work still sticking with me and wanting me to pile on the shelter. I don’t know.

Today at church, we were doing the rites of spring, and the minister was shyly wading through the bawdier aspects of Beltane. The friends I was sitting with joined me in emphatic applause each time he mentioned the sexytimes rites of spring, as he, in his own very much clothed way, admitted that the world NEEDS naked shenanigans. (If I haven’t mentioned it lately, Unitarians are awesome.) So I know from the forcefulness of my applause that I am still aligned with wanting to romp naked in a field, I just can’t seem to want to do it.

As I’ve been working to convert the blog into a book, I’ve had to fight the feeling that the story doesn’t belong to me anymore, or I don’t belong to it. I struggle to feel entitled to it because I ended up writing it as an outsider. I wanted so much to serve you, but by the end (and I’m remembering that this was the point of the story in the first place) I could only end up serving myself. My somewhat disappointingly boring self.

The way the sermon ended felt oddly personal to me. Inspired by the Song of Songs, the minister gave us the go ahead to spout whatever love we had—“If it’s flowery, if it’s corny, that probably means it’s good.” He said there is a time to leave one’s love-nest behind and go out into the world and convert the love into other kinds of goodness.

On the way home from church, I felt lonely, maybe because my brunch pals aren’t around this week, but maybe lonely for the parts of myself I can’t currently access or express. I have such a deep love for my adventures. I miss them like camp friends who rarely keep in touch, but who save me and influence me and cross my mind all the time. I’ve felt little slivers of my sexual self coming back, and I’m curious and impatient to see what form it will take. All I know to do is write the book, so I don’t think I have any choice.

Progress/Grief/Progress: A Year After the Big Therapy Project

One Saturday last April it seemed as though a fissure in my psyche released, healed, and closed, and with it, the door to all I’d experienced in my three years of adventure. It was a triumph and loss all at once. As I page and edit through the beginning pages of the blog to start wrangling it into a book, I miss the person I was at the beginning of the story, aglow with adrenaline, defiance, and denial. As I face the story for what it really is, the end of a marriage, a labyrinth path to things generally being healthier but less exciting, I have to grieve for what it wasn’t, for what I may never have—a story of belonging.

After I walked away from that festival last spring in what an uncharitable commenter called a tantrum but what felt like both defeat and acceptance, I really did walk into a happier life, in almost all ways. It felt the way I imagine being newly sober might feel—missing the thrills but welcoming the lack of roller coasterness, the feeling of belonging to myself, to my own life.

I spent almost every weekend last summer at my aunt’s beach house, bonding with family, swimming with my cousins. I felt entitled to be with my own family in a way I never had before. I went to my sister’s for a no-reason visit, walked along with river with my niece and nephews. I sat in the yard at my mom’s dream country house and watched hummingbirds for hours.

I didn’t make it as a teacher, didn’t get to be the change I wished to see. Despite everything I’ve learned here, I never figured out how to not be blamed for every single thing—in the fall, a student pushed me into a door, and somehow I ended up being made to apologize to him. Another child tried to push a locker onto me, and I was told to “stop putting myself in harm’s way.” Eventually, I started having real panic attacks. On my second to last day, I went to the emergency room because my heart hurt. A doctor told me I could stop panicking, if I stopped going there, so I did.

I say this to say, so many times in the last few years I’ve jumped in with both feet, fallen in love with every single person and thing around me, then unequivocally rejected the whole thing, the social equivalent of a bad donor heart. I guess that’s kind of what I’ve been.

As I begin turning the blog into a book, the big emotional risk, the scary part, is not the scary stories that await me—I feel safe from all of those fears and panics, perspective and strength did come as I’d hoped, right on schedule. What’s hard to confront is the love, held in there like so many bookmarks. Though at time I saw those adventures as a transformative dream, it wasn’t, it was real love, even in the most baroquely fake situations. And with real love, real loss. I held every single character in my heart, just like I loved the teachers and students and entire causes I walked away from this winter.

In some ways, these two post-teaching months have been the happiest, but I’m restless not really knowing what I am, having these vast reserves of unexpressed something waiting  in case true love or vocation miraculously come along. Though I’m by and large optimistic about what’s ahead, I get overwhelmed sometimes about the whole population of lost loves behind me, the series of identities I’ve slipped into and out of so quickly—the loss and loss and loss.

Today my beloved therapist, whom I’ve seen sporadically since we finished the project, had to cancel our appointment. She’s been doing that lately, switching my times around and so on, and today, I was done. She wasn’t one of my people anymore, somehow. I let her go and I felt something in my brain heave and swirl, maybe it was the real end of the story, maybe this is being free.

I’m new to the world again. I’m taking everything slow. I don’t know what I’m here for, except to write and eat brunch and pet the cats and take pictures of flowers. My type-A side wants a mission, my creative side wants to be a kite, seeing where things take me next. I honestly don’t know.

Big Therapy Project, Week Four: Mini-Update

Well, the kids' interim reports are due tomorrow, so I'll just say it's been like this: panic, rest, write, repeat. As long as I keep the dishes up to date, keep writing reams, and! Outdoor recess! I think I can get where I'm going.

Well Enough to Be Bored Silly!

Now that I'm starting to get used to living on my own, the learning curve on my life has diminished a great deal and I'm starting to have some left over energy. Doing chores that were formerly Sweetie's is getting less fraught with emotion and more routine, and I'm getting used to the fact that I'm a cute-car-having adult who can take care of myself.

The thought of going backward in ANY way makes my body feel seized-up and nauseated, so I know there's no backtracking to drama and hurt. Being pants-on for a while, I'm antsy and unsure of what to do with myself besides work, write, and sleep. As I look for the next healthy inspirations, though, I'm trying to see the boredom as an itch that tells me my insides are healing.

Happy Shivaratri!

Huzzaaaaaaah For Employment!

Ohthankgoodness I am headed back to work next week. I got hired at one of my dream schools and I am so excited. It's an assistant position so I'll have to get a second job too, but the place is so neat and peaceful that I knew it was the right thing to try. This'll give me a place to learn, teach, heal and grow as Sweetie and I make our transitions.

Thank You Note to the Beach

It occurred to me yesterday that I really would have lost my marbles this summer if it hadn't been for the nude beach. I'm so grateful there's someplace I can go to feel 100 % okay with myself AND be loved/shoved around by the ocean AND be surrounded by all manner of penises. (HOORAY!)

It's been so great spending time getting to know The Lady of the House there too--that friendship is one of the things making me feel like I just might be on the right track.

Sparkly Festival of Awesomeness Part Eight: Ending With a Sky Full of Stars

So, yes, it’s taken eight posts to describe a few hours. I hate to finish typing it because I’ll be lonely for them, it’s been like writing them all a nice long letter every day or so, but I guess it is time for new adventures. Plus, I’m pretty sure there’ll be other ways to stay in touch.

After Mr. Sweetheart and I were done, Mr. Shiny Eyes was rarin’ to go again. He said he usually needed more rest in between times, so this must have been extra special. I was of course ready for more as well. Mr. Sweetheart left to go I-don’t-know-where.

Mr. Shiny Eyes put me on my side and folded me so that my knees were on my chest and pushed himself blessedly inside me. “You’re okay if it doesn’t take long this time?” he asked but I was feeling such a thrill again that I panted “Just..a…couple more minutes…”

Far from being tired out, I was primed for this and the way that his dick moved inside me felt like a fucking miracle. I shouted and shrieked louder than I had all day. We came and came together, and it felt like a gold-star accomplishment.

Mr. Sweetheart came back from wherever he’d been and we all cuddled for a few minutes before we realized we were starving. It was starting to get chilly, too. I got up and (stupid clothes!) put on fresh underwear, bra, pajamas, and sneakers. (Anything you can wear that outfit to is my kind of event!)

By the time we were dressed, a few of their friends had joined us in the tent. The woman who’d been running the shop at the front said that everything had sounded great, and the guys gently mocked me for being excited about that compliment. Hey, I’m a showoff!

While he started up some snuggles with another lady, I kissed Mr. Shiny Eyes goodbye and told him that I didn’t ever want to stop kissing him.

“Well. is that a problem?”

I smiled big and said, “No, I guess not.”

“Though occasionally you’ll have to stop so that I can kiss someone else…” and with that, he pulled down the other lady on top of him and I left the tent. Mr. Sweetheart said to be sure to come back up after dinner. He thanked me for the afternoon and I said “Hey! Thanks for liking me that way!”

I was really conscious of wanting to give them space (or else I just needed a little space) and I was superaverse to appearing clingy, even though I had the urge to get them to both lie down and fall asleep with me. Maybe next time.

Shaky legs and trying-not-to-be-clingy notwithstanding, I had such a lovely time in the dining hall with Sheandhim. (Most of my dinner consisted of chocolate chip cookies, because if I’m already being this decadent, why not?) I got to learn more about their relationship and family and there was a lot of leaning my head on her shoulder, a lot of hugging. We promised to plan a double date soon and hey! I should really put that on the calendar.

It was dark by the time supper ended and I made my way back up the hill to Mr. Sweetheart and friends. They were sitting in a circle of lawn chairs still eating their dinner. Ms. Sweetheart was sitting next to him and offered me her chair, but I preferred to sit at their feet. She patted my hair, which was a wonderful bed head rat’s nest, and said “Ugh, these boys don’t know what to do with hair. Let me fix this.”

She was going to fix it with her fingers but I dug a brush out of my backpack and she as-gently-as-possible got the tangles out. The last time I’d had my hair brushed was during that terrible quasi-aftercare with The Man, and this was the complete opposite of that feeling, the perfect healing for it. Accidentally, another auspicious ritual. A soul-retrieval for my hair.

During the whole mess with The Man and The Wife, I’d started to worry that I didn’t have what it takes for poly. He’d convinced me that I was this weird possessive thing that I’m really not. Being accepted and cared for by Ms. Sweetheart brought me right back to who I really am—a humming engine of compersion ready for a million more snuggles and a whole universe worth of love. She probably didn’t know she could accomplish all that with a hairbrush.

When my hair was all smooth, I shifted over to sitting at Mr. Sweetheart’s feet. He ran his fingers gently up my neck and through my hair as he and his friends talked and I occasionally chimed in. The stars came out and I realized how much I’d missed them. New resolution: see more stars.

When it came time to go up to the parking field to meet Sweetie, Mr. Sweetheart walked me. We stopped and kissed under those stars and I just COULD NOT believe how lucky I was. Am. (I wanted to say goodbye to Mr. Shiny Eyes, but couldn’t imagine where I might find him.)

Sweetie was already waiting in our little blue car. I kissed Mr. Sweetheart goodbye and got happily, exhaustedly into the car. I was so glad to see her as I yammered all about my day and we wound down country roads to our hotel.

Cuddle Party Part One: Yay, a Lot Less Grief!

I am so excited and happy to have a new adventure to write about. Before I start, I thought I’d share the cuddle party rules, copied from www.cuddleparty.com:

“ARRIVE ON TIME: Once we begin the Welcome Circle and orientation, sorry, we can let no one enter late. This creates comfort and safety by knowing that everyone is on the same page about rules and expectations.

WHAT TO WEAR: Pajamas – nothing too risqué. Think more comfy than sexy. (More drawstrings, less lace! No shorts.)

WHAT TO BRING: Sorry, no liquor folks. Juice or sparkling cider is always welcome. A pillow or stuffed animal if you like. Otherwise, just bring your smiling self.

STICK TO THE RULES:

1.                      Pajamas stay on the whole time.

2.                      You don’t have to cuddle anyone at a Cuddle Party, ever.

3.                      You must ask permission and receive a verbal YES before you touch anyone. (Be as specific in your request as you can.)

4.                      If you’re a yes, say YES. If you’re a no, say NO.

5.                      If you’re a maybe, say NO.

6.                      You are encouraged to change your mind.

7.                      Respect your relationship agreements and communicate with your partner.

8.                      Get your Cuddle Party Facilitator or the Cuddle Assistant if you have a question or concern or need assistance with anything during the Cuddle Party.

9.                      Tears and laughter are both welcome.

10.                  Respect people’s privacy when sharing about Cuddle Parties.

11.                  Keep the Cuddle space tidy”

In order to capture what Saturday’s party was like for me, I need to backtrack a little to the Snuggle Party that I attended back in February. It was called a Snuggle Party because it didn’t follow all of the same rules, just most of them. It was a little more sex-friendly—women were allowed to strip down to their bras and sexy touching was encouraged. But all the neat stuff about yesses and nos were in place.

I attended the Snuggle Party as part of a fantastic conference day, one of the happiest days of my life, actually. I had spent the day feeling accepted and body-positive and had even had the most wonderful Indian food and gelato date with Sweetie. (She brought me gum so that I wouldn’t have too-spicy breath while snuggling—we know she’s awesome like that.)That was the day I started my tradition of getting fresh socks after every adventure—so soothing.

All of that wonderfulness aside, as soon as the welcome circle began, I got a terrible pain in my middle back. No matter how much I stretched or sat up straight or exhaled loudly, it huuuurt. I have a skeptical/aloof view about body energy, even though I experience it all the time, but this definitely felt like some terrible blocked energy. It began to radiate down from my back into my hips, and up into my shoulders. I went to the facilitator for help and she said the only way to stop the hurt was to stop dismissing my grief (over Bill, over all that time fighting being bi, about the hurt in my marriage, and so on), so I did—I cried a little to the snuggle facilitator and a lot to Sweetie on the way home. I call it a snuggle fail, but it really isn’t. That crying was so productive—it was kinda like handing in homework, and you know I love handing in homework.

Sweetie was overwhelmed and scared by the depth and breadth of my sobbing, but she did the best she could as we drove home. What I was crying about was, I felt like everyone there was so nice and someone bad like me could never belong with them, like I would only cause trouble with my bad energy. “You’re good enough,” Sweetie said over and over, “You’re good enough.” Scary as those tears were, I knew they were getting me somewhere.

Back to the present, on Saturday, Sweetie and I had had such a wonderful day together and I was settling into a book of Jonathan Franzen essays, so it was hard to pry ourselves out of the house. Like on so many other adventures, she’d offered to drive me and go to a coffeeshop nearby to work on her graphic design. (It occurs to me that it might be good to drive myself next adventure...) When we pulled up to the ashram, it was a somewhat foreboding house on a woodsy lane—spooky. Sweetie offered to see me in but I took my suitcase and kissed her goodbye, found my way to the back of the house and went in.

I saw one couple that I knew right away, that was comforting. It was hot in there, muggy and something else. There was a spread of snacks out in the kitchen that people had gathered around—this Cuddle Party was part of a weekend-long series of Tantra workshops, so people looked flushed and tired and seemed bonded. It didn’t look the way one might picture an ashram, just a regular pretty-big kitchen in a regular house. The body smell of everyone was less funky than one might expect—it was fresh. Not quite clean, but clear.

Cuddle Host One, a solid, sensible-seeming butch lady, came over and introduced herself. She gave me a waiver to sign. “This says you don’t hold us responsible if you have an emotional breakthrough.” Ok, noted. I felt aaaawkward and couldn’t find a surface to write on. I ended up ruining the email list by putting it down in some water. I didn’t really know where to put myself, either.

When I saw the room being set up for the Cuddle Party, my first instinct was to run. It seemed impossibly small for all of these people. Cuddle Host One was spreading out all kinds of blankets and pillows. I thought about adding my own blanket but didn’t want to have to pull it out from under anybody of I had to leave early. A cute fifty-ish man was asleep in front of the air conditioner. There was cute/radical Etsy-style art on the walls—that made me feel at home. There were lots of books on the shelves about being bi and sacred—how nice!

Comparing my body’s reaction to the Snuggle Party back in February and its reaction to this Cuddle Party really lets me know that I’ve gotten somewhere. Though there was awkwardness, there was no anxiety or pain. There were some guys who weren’t being careful with space, but I didn’t feel scared of them. I settled in and let my curiosity take over, knowing that Jonathan Franzen was there if I needed him, but letting myself be soft and present. There wasn’t pain in my center, but warmth—I wasn’t ready to let strangers hug me, but I was safe.

 

My teacher-brain suggests that I use Cuddle Parties as a quarterly assessment to see how far I’ve come towards inner safety and self-acceptance. I can’t always see the progress I’m making, but as I settled into that room of strangers the way one might settle into a warm bath, I could see I deserved a gold star.

Next: The Welcome Circle