Goodbye, Sweet Valentine

 

Sweetpea and a new tiara should arrive tomorrow!

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

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

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

2. Always get the concert tickets!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Knotty Thursday: Simple Gauntlets and Bowing Down to Love

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Not a match.

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

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

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

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

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

Okay, I'm Completely Lost

 

Mulholland Drive helps me.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And he said he needed to ponder that too! 

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

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

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

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

Why them and not me?

Is it the fat?

What am I missing?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 Review and a Glimmer of Faith, Part 2

The next day was Thanksgiving Eve. I’d expected to wish EG well on his trip to see family and spend the evening cleaning up for Thanksgiving with BFF. I had a dystopian audiobook ready and everything! 1984 from Julia’s perspective!!!

But EG wasn’t leaving til 10 that night and was determined to wedge in some sex, in-person or virtual. I told him I was in chore mode but I’d see him after the holiday, but send cute pictures! I meant, like, what’s your Thanksgiving dinner sweater like, but he said “No promises, I’m sharing a room with my brothers.” I guess there was only one kind of picture he was interested in sending.

And he wasn’t backing down on the before-he-left sex. “How about fifteen minutes going down on you and 15 minutes penetration?” He typed, after I’d said no.

Is this what I’m supposed to be? A sex app, ready whenever you need me, no basic courtesy required?

I again should have blocked him but I tried to be cute instead, sending back a Ma’am-ish “You need to learn to take no for an answer.”

“Forget I said anything, Ma’am.”

“Forgotten, (kiss emoji)”

But as I folded clothes and swept up, I realized this wasn’t a thing I liked.

“Are you looking for strictly just sex?” I typed. “I tend to like chitchat no matter what kind of connection. I understand if you’re looking for something more casual.”

And then Entitled Guy was pissed.

“After one night of terrible virtual sex you ask me this?”

The difference of perspective about the night before was jarring—where I’d experienced playfulness, openness, so much hopeful hotness, he’d found something lacking. I had let him do most of the work (those <3 lovely! <3 voice memos!) but that seemed in line with him wanting to be a Good Boy in the first place!

I guess maybe the “terrible” was because I didn’t want to Facetime? To have been un-terrible, would I have had to do what he wanted, when he wanted it?

Am I just playing an entirely different game from everyone else? Is it time to put away the Ma’am/Good Boy part of what I like?

Thinking back to my beautiful 2022 Good Boy, I hope not! Though that connection was fleeting and didn’t really have a real-daily-life potential, he was so cute, playful, and fun! (Pardon me while I pause to compose an opera to his dick, too!) And there was so much adorable chitchat in that dynamic! I remember the passion with which he told me why Sunkern is the worst Pokémon! (He said it with such contempt! Sunkern!) I remember him singing along to Carly Rae Jepsen’s Boy Problems! I think, I hope, The Good Boy felt fully human and fully celebrated—I know I did!

Ugh this year of dating! There have been some real gems, and like three or four languages I started learning, but my heart hasn’t moved forward as much as I’d hoped it would. If I’m honest, my heart spent most of its time this year mourning and still loving The Shy One. It’s so annoying that he set me free to find My Person and this is the dating year I’ve had!

I can always keep trying, can always keep hoping that someone will sweep me past that memory and into a new swirl of emotion. But also, if that’s what I needed this year for, okay. I’m in a process and I don’t think a cute shortcut is coming to speed things along. It’s okay. I have time.

Two Hauntings and a Lovely Monsieur, Part One

Last Friday night, peaceful and close to sleep, I was swiping through Bumble a little bit, matching a bunch and generally feeling hopeful about the futures of my heart and hoo-ha, when, OF COURSE, there he was. The Shy One. Not the same picture he’d sent me from Sierra Leone, but one from the same series. His lips. His gentle eyes. His lightly bratty smile. His pink, pink sky.

I’d been feeling a little more steady, a little more over him lately, but the profound surge of fight-or-flight that came from a few moments with that picture pre-swipe-left smushed all my illusions of progress, at least for a little while. “You both like Ed Sheeran and Burna Boy!” Bumble unhelpfully proclaimed. Darn Spotify being connected to Bumble. Darn Afrobeat being my yard work music lately. Too, too much connection everywhere. Every algorithm a tangled road back to him, back to wistfulness.

I sobbed to BFF about it. I made a bedraggled Instagram story about it and sent it to three Close Friends. I never wanted to swipe again or kiss another stranger or text another (possibly cursed) “good morning” to anyone else.

But when I woke up in the morning I felt…mostly fine! The matches in my queue were cute and viable and it definitely wasn’t THEIR fault I got pink-sky-haunted! I said hello and felt my forward motion starting up again, just slightly rickety like a wooden roller coaster.

And then, last Saturday afternoon, a whoooole bunch of WhatsApp notifications. It was from a new number to get around the block—shady, but I’ll allow it. He sent a beautiful dreamy-sad faced picture: The Princely Guy.

He missed me. We would never forget me. Three kiss emojis, the lipstick print kind.

Of course I wrote back, what am I, made of stone?

He just wanted me to know he would always be there for me. The Princely Guy is one who uses the “love” word casually, which I like, instead of treating it like a taboo or a weird grail.

The Princely Guy had moved away and I definitely didn’t want a long-distance relationship. But it felt good to know everyone’s not out there forgetting me.

By Sunday night, I was on the phone with Le Monsieur, one of the Friday night matches. He’s a beautiful divorced-dad sweet talker my own age, originally from La Cote d’Ivoire. We talked for an hour and a half (!) while I worked on my maybe-impossible 1000-piece dahlia puzzle. He made me laugh. He made me want to remember my like SEVEN YEARS of French I’ve never really used. There’s a lot of Google Translate in this flirtation and I LOVE IT.

I thought it would be a while til I could meet Le Monsieur, but it wasn’t. 😊

Sex, Love, and The Shy One, Part Three

 

Sex, Love, and The Shy One, Part Three

I want to try and remember, the way our bodies loved each other so easily, traversed all the very real distances between us and bridged the gap. Together. The most possible together.

The warmth of him. The way he gave himself to me wholly and (almost) without reservation. When he held my hand, my hand felt home, it felt made to be there, folded into infinity, across ages, across universes, folded into whatever divine thing made him. The best possible hands, the best possible me, glowing with light and safety and hope and wholeness.

And the kisses, slipped together and seamless.

Last time I quoted Lottie, this time it’s Lettie. In the bonkers treasure that is Fast X, Michelle Rodrigues says to Vin Diesel something like “If you spend too much time looking in that rearview, there’s things you might miss…like eternity.” But eternity doesn’t work that way, Lettie! Eternity is everywhere and everything and always, you can’t face toward it or away from it, it wraps you up and winds you into the solidness of being, grounds you to the center of the universe and doesn’t let go. Eternity holds your hand. Is this the purple-est prose ever inspired by a The cars..they drift! Movie? I don’t know. All those big, big explosions.

The Shy One only slept over a handful of times, and each time, no matter how many times I’d gotten off (SO MANY) it was so hard to sleep next to him. I was wound up tight with excitement and wonder, not wanting to miss any chance to feel him breathing next to me. Mostly, I slept after he left in the early morning, exhausted and glowing. The sadness of him leaving so quick only occurred to me after I woke up. There should have been a way for him to stay and make me pancakes, but there was always the beautiful pull of home.

It wasn’t all a starfield of bliss. Once, he grabbed my hand to show me how he wanted his penis stroked, impatience and contempt glimmering through him in a way that made me wonder if I’d been doing it all wrong all along, if there was only one meant-for-him person in the world who knew how to do it right.

When I wrote the first draft of these paragraphs, my heart just melted and filled with peace: My darling just wanted to go home. I wish I’d found a way to be kinder about it, and kinder to myself about it. I wish, wish, wish I could have been a kind of home for him, that someday I’ll be that kind of home for somebody new. Somebody mine.

I got self-conscious sometimes about my blowjob skills. I worried aloud once that I was bad at it and I think he actually agreed. He could have meant “Yes, I know you’re self-conscious about it.” Or “Yes, you’re bad at sex.”

Given time, and maybe less judgement, I could have learned. I want to have that part of intimacy, where you take your time learning somebody’s body, letting him learn yours. Every pairing or constellation is a new beginning, and I hope for many more chances to learn.

This morning, I can see myself there in the middle of my biggest dream, maybe being bad at blowjobs, definitely fucking it up in other ways, and feel peace. Today, just for a little while, I’m tuned into my eternity wavelength, past present and future and never and nowhere all at once. Stillness and peace and ungrasping love. Something like acceptance.

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 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.

 

Okay, Yes, It Was a Miracle

 

The tides of heartbreak shift so fast! Last night, I wrote this draft about miracles, but my mood this morning is kind of just—well that was a crazy thing to try! Why did I think the thing with me and The Shy One could EVER work?! I mean, it did work, in its own halting way, as long as we could manage it, but, really, this?! Nuts.

A therapist told me once, not unkindly, that I may not have the best judgement. She was talking about how I thought I should be a full-time teacher in a pretty harsh school district. Actually though, I’m glad I did that too. Sometimes I do a hard and beautiful thing that smashes me to smithereens, but I come back together eventually, in a new, expansive, not necessarily wiser shape. Once in a while, I break myself. I don’t think I do it on purpose.

But let me stop comparing this cute man who wasn’t a match to the job that nearly killed me. There’s no why except attraction, except curiosity, except love. It’s beautiful how two such badly mismatched people could have tried so hard, for so long. (To me, ten months with an asterisk is LONG.) I was fighting so hard for what he couldn’t give. He tried his heart out to be enough for me, and it made him sad that he couldn’t get there. I hope he felt acknowledged enough, appreciated enough.

A year ago, when I was getting ready for Valentine’s Day and enjoying the last bursts of loveliness with The Good Boy, I would never have imagined the year of love and adventure that was to come! Even the sequel with The Song Sender seems like it was fated, written in the stars—and that guy SUCKED.

Now here I am, with a for-later treasure trove of frilly things, a deep abiding love in my homebody heart for Sierra Leone, (Buy WHY, Frank Ocean song. Just why.) a Hidden Folder full of hotness and cuteness that I never, EVER would have dared to imagine when I started these adventures 11 years ago.

Even that Monday “good morning” text that went missing in the ether, that accidental silent morning that made me cry so hard and so deep about feeling so disconnected, even that perfectly ordinary glitch seems like the most powerful divine intervention I’ve ever witnessed.

How could something that was THIS much of a mess still feel so sacred, so how-it-was-all-supposed-to-happen?

Darn gratitude. I was really trying to be salty. I’m sure I’ll be that too.

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.

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.

Fourth Date Tears: Part Two

In my neighborhood, there’s a little woods. I don’t get to walk there in the daytime too much because people let their dogs off leash and then I get mad at the people with the dogs off leash and then I feel like a monster.

They’re really pretty woods though, lit enough by the edge-of-city light that we didn’t need a flashlight. I steered The Shy One through, wishing I could feel the romance of the moment. Instead, the leashless dogs info came out, and I felt truly lost about how to be human.

“I’m sad, I said. “I want to be a real girlfriend. I want to be free. I want my heart to be free to go where it wants.” (I’m sure I didn’t say it this articulately.)

It’s been too many tears already in such a new connection, that’s for sure. He held me there, in the middle of the little woods, crying onto his shirt, both of us sorrying again and again.

“Are you still dating?” He asked, as I was wiping my face and starting up the path again.

It’s probably unfair, but my heart broke some more. I remember this feeling. I HATE this feeling—the feeling of not being fast enough, poly enough, TAKEN enough to be a safe bet. I don’t think that’s what he was saying, but I felt pushed to move on from him, whether we broke things off or not.

I haven’t been dating for a little while. Even during Ramadan when we were confined to texts and calls, he felt like a lot. He felt like enough. I’ve been working on a local primary campaign, building up my business for summer, and spending as much friend time and taking-pictures-of-flowers time as I can. Getting settled in with The Shy One and getting ready to meet Mrs. Shy One was a lot on top of all that. It wasn’t that I was suddenly monogamous, it’s just that people take time  for me to learn, especially when I really like them.

In the grief that was layering itself onto the evening, the not-dating felt like another way I was failing him, failing them by not having enough chill, not feeling able to sink into the warmth of Things As They Are, feeling like I was both too much and not enough.

The little woods has a kiosk where I like to put street art, woods art I guess, it always stays up a long time there. The Shy One held my bag while I tidied the old art and put up some new.

The story of The Good Boy came out after that, as unwelcome as my petty ramblings about the leashless dogs. (It’s an important bird area, people!) I felt wretched and stupid and not-nice, unable to find my way to the present with the beautiful man next to me, who seemed devoted to me in his own way, who, if I wanted (at least for a few hours) wasn’t going anywhere. I really wanted my body and spirit to stop hovering with heartbreak and panic. I wanted to come down to earth and be with him. I wanted to be with him.

An Absolutely Beautiful Mess: Part Four

 

The most important part of the story: Lying still first thing with him sleeping on my shoulder, breath hitting my collarbone in sweet, soothing rhythm.

But also, two things that turned the next few days into a hurricane of anxiety:

1.     My period, which had only been gone for four stupid days, came back after some particularly transcendent sex. (Nice to meet you, Reverse Cowgirl, I love you forever.) Though he didn’t have any particular reaction about it, the Rogue Period’s return set off a series of alarm bells and triggers that I’m still trying to parse a week and a half later.

2.     WAY worse: First Poly Partner broke up with The Good Boy via text while I was halfheartedly writing my morning pages. I gave him space to call or process or freak, but I couldn’t figure out how to help. I also couldn’t figure out how to not be the asshole who’s pissed at how much our time got interrupted, not mad at him or her, just crabby at the circumstances and still trying (and succeeding, I think) to stay sweet.

I’d planned to make brunch, but the vibe was completely unbrunchlike. I don’t know how my neurotic, hurt caretaking and his kinetic grief could have even lived in the same universe as brunch.

My heart was broken for him and them and a little bit by them too. I have so much new empathy for BFF-Formerly-Sweetie who had NO END of happy days interrupted by heartbreak and why-doesn’t-he-text and metamour pains. (Later, after The Good Boy had gone home, I called to apologize to her and she said shush.)

The Good Boy and I held each other for a good long time before I sent him off into the beautiful snow. My heart physically hurts while I’m typing this. He didn’t feel able to make plans with me, and I was jangled by both the calendar upset and by my currently broken body clock. A couple of days later, we decided to take a pause, and that’s where we are now.

I’m so lonesome for him. In my head I’m so sure he’ll fall for somebody else or decide to be monogamous or just forget me. In my heart, which is wiser, I’m grateful that the universe (or just the internet) put us together for at least this little while. Love will help me untie him from me, if that’s what he decides he needs, but I’d rather bind him close.

 

 

This Meaningful Sex, Part Two

 

Before I wade back into the feelings, I’m writing myself a permission slip to put dating life aside until after New Year’s. (Aside from The Lovely Guy, who’s easy to trust and be myself around!) There are plenty of year-end crafts and projects to lean into, and I’m especially excited because I’ve decided that I don’t have to spend time with my unvaccinated brother! Having excused myself from traveling to family, I’m excited to spend the month in my own life, making room for whatever quietly arrives. I may even get to see a gemstone exhibit with The Boy Who Sewed Me a Pillow, if I’m superlucky!

Anyway, back to the processing at hand. A (mostly in my own head, but still) horny week has given me a little perspective, but I still find it hard to imagine  connecting with anyone as much as I did with This Charming Man. I understand, on some level, that This Charming Man was maybe just really good at sex. But so were Steampunk Guy, Mr. Shiny Eyes, so IS The Lovely Guy. I remember that glimmer-of-love moment when I came with Mr. Sweetheart as Mr. Shiny Eyes held and kissed me. I remember the Mayor of Kittentown’s endlessly welcoming dick.

But this was the first time, with a man, that I felt truly present, safe, and adored. Truly intertwined with him, body and spirit. That feeling could have been solely provided by my ridiculous love-drunk imagination, but I don’t think it was. Not solely.

When I set out on this quest ten years ago (!), this was the thing I was looking for. Not just to be able to step over my decades of barriers and fuck men, but to learn how to fully and unselfconsciously let them in. It was the missing piece I’ve deprived myself of for so long. The longing crashed and burned so many relationships, probably a little bit this one too.

I told him, the last naked night, that no one had ever fucked me so right before. I don’t think that’s grammatically correct, but he said “thank you.” and sighed the most satisfied sigh. I loved the way he held my head up by my hair because he liked to watch me cry out for a while before he let me bury my head in the pillows. (Let us now praise doggie style, now and forever my favorite possible thing.) He would hold me so sweetly and gently after we (“good girl”) came, but his dick stayed hard and I liked just laying there, petting it. Making friends.)

(The time he slept over, in the morning as he was getting dressed, he let his dick stick up through top of his boxers, pointing upwards out the top of his jeans. Such a fucking treasure of an image, that alone makes all these paragraphs worthwhile.)

I don’t really know how to put these pieces together to help me understand how I ended up feeling so deeply, but I guess love doesn’t need an explanation. A few months ago, before I met him, when dating life started to be so exciting and unbalancing again, I told my then-therapist that my goal was to “let the moment live.”

And I did! I put the paragraphs aside for a little while, didn’t ask what the meaning or status was, just let us be. I just let him please me. I let myself have him.  I let down my guard and let us love, and even if he wouldn’t have phrased it that way, I think it was something real and true.

In the context of the five-millionth breakoff of this blog’s life, it’s hard to frame my time with This Charming Man as progress, as a major heart-victory, but it was and is. I wholeheartedly let a man in. I let us adore each other so fully until our time was done. As the heartbreak lifts, little by little, I can feel the truth of him return to my body and soul as the gift that he was. As a strength. As another facet of the love that I am made of.

I don’t want to face the world of men with the hurt and defensiveness I’m feeling now. Yes, I probably should screen better, but I also want to leave room to be open, to push myself, to be surprised. I hope that openness will blossom out of me before too long, but for now there’s the grief that honors this big important thing. For now there are Christmas crafts, and friend-plans, and gentle hope. Putting the swiping aside for a bit, I feel sad and free.

 

 

Seventh Date Tears, Part Three

 

To get to the rest of this hard, hard day, I have to backtrack to the date before it. The Failed Fancy Garden Date was on a Friday, and the Monday before we’d had (my favorite) a make-out-in-front-of-Gilmore-Girls-then-have-all-the-beautiful-sex date. Our connection that night felt so thorough and deep (Ha, yep, that too, but for now I’m parsing out the emotions.) that I couldn’t think how I was going to shift into casual mode for The Lovely Guy’s already planned Friday night visit. Awash in satisfaction, peace, and a little bit of the Relationship Escalator, I decided it was time to let The Lovely Guy go.

The Lovely Guy and I had a sweet and kind text exchange, and he told me to reach out again if I ever felt the need.

This Charming Man hadn’t asked me to be monogamous, but I wanted to give him my whole self. I was ready to sink into lovely-dovey mode like a warm bath. I had well and truly fallen for him and I was doing the move-too-fast thing. It made me happy and also freaked me the fuck out.

Anyway, back to the Friday of the garden date. When This Charming Man left to go home and plan for his D&D game that night, I had time for a little nap before work. But instead of napping, I texted The Lovely Guy and asked if he happened to be free that night, and he was. He showed up fresh from work with a big bottle of my favorite pink wine.

The Lovely Guy really came through as a friend that night. He advocated hard for me to keep going with This Charming Man, explaining the cultural differences between me and both of them, shedding welcome light on some of my white lady blind spots. Plus, after the moderate tangles of the afternoon, it felt really nice to be talking to a cute liberal. Really, there’s enough to disagree about here on the left.

I sent The Lovely Guy off early even though he was so cute and smelled so good. Neither he nor I wanted to make things more complicated or confusing with This Charming Man.

When I woke up the next day, it’s possible that TCM was already all the way gone from me. His like-clockwork “good morning” (Which we’d sometimes followed by talking about what we’d dreamed. Ohhhhhhhhhh OMG I miss him.) was noticeably absent.

Either way, I knew I had to let This Charming Man go. I wrote a way-too-long breakup text. I used the word love, which I meant. It sucked. I cried all day. I watched The Starling, and then Birdbox, and then A Quiet Place, all scratching the itch of my lost and fighty mind.

I know dealbreakers are real. I know you should never start a relationship hoping that something deep about the other person will change. That Friday, in that great garden tangle, we’d both been trying to fix each other, and that is fundamentally unkind. Still, it feels like a great failure on my part, to have found such a beautiful connection and then let it fall so thoroughly apart.

I wish, wish, WISH there was something I could’ve done—not panicked, slowed down, asked the right questions, let him know I heard him. I wish it didn’t have to end the way it did. I wish it didn’t have to end at all.