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:

Perfect Friday Night With Dreamy Playlist Angel, Part Four

 

Snuggling under the covers with a roped-up cutie is like a whole vacation in itself. I recently redid my bedding all in soft pink, it's like curling up in an aggressively cute cloud. The perfect place for a perfect boy.

I like holding him close, protecting him from the world. I like his angel-floppy hair and his open, sincere face. I like him lots. The confidence he'd shown when he kissed me at the door was here in the cloud bed too, eager and game. Both of us, just so happy to be here.

(Side quest: so many of these stories culminate with me on my face, screaming into a pillow in joy and delight. Is this scary for partners? It recently sunk in that I would be jarred by this level of emotion and noise from a partner, maybe others feel the same? I remember Lovely Guy saying he felt like he was being violent even though he wasn't. Poor dear! Maybe I'll talk to people about this?)

Anyway, confident. He bent me in a way that felt new, one knee over his shoulder. He hit the spot so neatly and thoroughly, a heave of relief and pleasure. Fitting together like puzzle pieces seems like a thing I should have gotten used to by now, should have learned to take for granted, but I never have. He just made me feel so, so good.

When I came (and came, and came) I cried out "Thank you, oh THANK you!" over and over. I remembered briefly that "grateful" is a stereotype about lovers my age, then realized I don't care--I was born grateful and I hope, in fifty to seventy years, to die grateful too.

The rest of the night was sweet snuggles and music-and-movies chitchat, what else could anyone on this earth ever need?

It took a couple days for OCD to start yelling at me about it, obnoxiously moralizing and strictly anti-fun. Here are some of the things that my brain decided:

*If he's not texting in this moment, I am forgotten and humiliated.

*I'm sabotaging my chances at romantic love by letting myself play casually.

*He is automatically going to choose the other lady he's casually dating, therefore proving I'll never measure up or be any good.

OCD is an asshole! I felt a little relief from breaking things off, but my body didn't want that! After a few more days, the anti-fun obsession machine quieted enough to hear my body's opinions, which were:

*Yes!

*Yay!

*More please!

He was admirably copacetic about the breaking-off and then un-breaking off. I want him to keep coming over as long as it's fun for us both, and who knows what that will look like! He's coming over Friday night for Mulholland Drive and ropes, wish me luck! :)

Knotty Thursday: Bowtie Karada!

 

*Choir of angels noise*

Friends, I don't think I really felt spring last year! I mean, I enjoyed it! The spring flowers and the flowers all year long were extra lavish and brilliant--it probably had something to do with climate change, but it felt like nature was loving me back, helping my broken heart take care and more forward. 

But yesterday, oh my, I could feel spring in every cell--fizzy, present, set-free. I know it's March and it'll probably get chilly again, but welcome, welcome, welcome spring.

I could also be feeling so loose and hopeful because I recently cut my work hours down a bunch--after a couple-month flare -up of depression, I realized that I need more margins everywhere, that I need to take care of myself or there will be no more work at all! This is an epiphany that always seems to arrive in February, because winter, because overwork, because my beautiful and cumbersome tapestry of traumas.

I'm so glad to be remembering what life was like before twelve-hour days!!! Art projects, field trips big and small, the spark coming back to me, like every year I doubt it will.

So, back to Rory's Brainworks! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8RzP5vML1g

The back of this one is really pretty, hope I get to try the whole thing before long!! I'm proud that the knots are so careful and specific, and I didn't space and start noodling around like I usually do. I really didn't think this picture was blurry when I took it! Maybe happiness just makes me blurry?

What I Want, Part A Million

 

Like what Lorelai Gilmore eventually got, but with fewer hats.

Stars, hide your fires,
these here are my desires,
and I won’t give them up to you
this time around.

And so, I’ll be found,
with my stake stuck in this ground
marking the territory of this
newly impassioned soul.

--Mumford and Sons, “Roll Away Your Stone”

Festive Easter Mumford and Sons are waaaayyy more assured than I am, of course. It’s not that I think new love’s not possible, it usually-to-sometimes feels possible. But I sort of have no idea what kind of person will capture my imagination next—love surprises me and vexes me every time.

At the same time, I want to rid myself of the idea that I have to adapt to any given situation that comes along, as if it’s somehow…undemocratic? to have preferences, as if I’m not entitled to want perfectly ordinary things. Specific things. It’s necessarily a kind of bitter don’t-make-mistakes-again list, but I’m sure time and attraction will soften the edges soon enough.

(OMG someone in my self-compassion group just said that oxytocin is physically addictive and takes around 90 days to…un-addict? I have no idea if that’s true but it makes me happy to retroactively curse every sweet ex with 90 days of jonesing.)

Anyway! The list so far:

1.     I’m a get-in-all-your-business person. I’m a family person. No matter what someone’s situation, I want to know their entire gestalt. I loved the way that The Shy One had begun folding into my family and chosen family, and it would have been so fulfilling if that folding-in could have been mutual.

 

Yesterday one of my neighbors told me she was trying to win over her boyfriend’s kid, and I felt so full of joy for her. Her perfectly ordinary trajectory gave me the hope that those kinds of steps might happen for me AND that I might have the courage to admit I want them. Doesn’t have to be kids, could be family, chosen family, neighborhood bonding. I know it takes time and trust, but I want to be in the next guy’s world.

2.     No closets. There are plenty of reasons to be compassionate toward closeted folks, to support them and listen to them and root for them exactly where they are at. But if I date them, I’ll end up being treated as a threat to their happiness, their safety, their social capitol, their parents’ approval, whatever. That is an AWFUL position to be in, and SO TRIGGERING given my life as my own family’s scapegoat.

So here’s the rule: I have to be able to tag a guy on my main-feed, un-anonymous Instagram and be like “OMG look at my boyfriend’s whole face he’s sooooooo dreamy.”

I feel like a lot of the stuff on this list is what straight (and straight-sized) women feel entitled to as a matter of course. So I’m gonna try to learn that good entitlement.

I want to remember that shame that’s understandable is still shame. It still gets on me and in me, and the world (and past traumas) will provide me with enough shame without me voluntarily signing up for more. Discreet boys can stick with discreet ladies. Maybe the shame makes it hotter?

3.     I’m going to scream the next time someone calls me “Solo Poly.” I think it’s a totally valid thing to be but for me, it feels like I’m expected to be on the margins of someone’s “real life.” That’s really sad and triggering for me, and it’s possible I assign it to myself as punishment.

Or maybe I’ve been afraid to say what I want—I want a guy’s undivided attention. He can be poly, I think, but he has to have the capacity to be ALL IN, to give me his whole heart. I can give my whole heart to lots of people, flowers, clouds, sunsets, etc, there HAS to be some dude who can do the same.

And he should please definitely, definitely, DEFINITELY stay over and make pancakes in the morning. Maybe linger around all day and snooze.

That’s enough for now, I think!

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.

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

 

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

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

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

Dear (Me),

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

That warmth. That connection.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Love,

Unconditional Love

Knotty Thursday: Hishi Suspenders (Kind of)

 

I really liked sending a nakeder version to The Shy One this morning. Such a lovely muse.

Okay, so this might actually be prettier if I'd stopped sooner, but the winding and tightening and adjusting and scooching all around just felt so good. So hard to follow directions when my head's in that loopy knotty place. Had the best time with myself last night and woke up in SUCH a good mood. 

Fuck This Sexist Piece of Kindhearted Advice

            Not the first part, that’s like my whole thing. The “let love find you” part.

Last week, I left the library where I worked with Mr. Makeout Music. There were a lot of good reasons for doing so (Work crushes can sometimes be a sign that I need to be doing something more absorbing.) but the main reason was that it was exhausting to keep pretending to be okay around him. I wasn’t. Now that I’ve got the time and space and naps to heal, the pain of him is almost gone.

            Because I couldn’t bring myself to walk past MM one more time, Sweetie went to clean out my desk for me, with Awesome Genderqueer Librarian’s help. In the bag with my collection of kid art and my desk socks was a lovely stack of “We miss you!” cards from kids and coworkers. It was very gratifying to still be valued there, after three sometimes-crying months of love-shame and election grief. The woman who wrote the above advice is one of my favorite humans in the universe, but it unleashed a stream of gleeful annoyance that I’m kind of excited to paragraph.

            It’s partly that she knew (Ugh, everybody knew.) that my leaving was even about heartbreak at all, but mostly it’s this—I’m mad at myself for spending three months crying about a guy who got scared of me because I made the first move. He has tried to frame it in other ways, but from where I’m sitting, he adored me until I took his hand.

            Of course he had the right to decline my advances for any reason, but I hated the way I felt around him after that—too big, too excited, too complicated, too much. About our weird somewhere-between-friendship-and-the other-thing situation, he kept saying “just let things develop organically” every time I had a question or needed a clarification, but I think what he meant was, let things develop on his terms.

            Even the way our flirtation started, with him visiting my department or my office when he could (He had keys to my office, but I certainly didn’t have keys to his.), with me waiting around with an open heart and what I hoped was a pretty face for him to come and be praised, it sometimes made me feel helpless and trapped, even when things were nice. In one of our fights, I said I wasn’t a web cam girl, just waiting around to approve of him. (He probably wished he hadn’t told me his porn preferences…) The way the building is designed, he could see me from almost any of his posts, and it felt really claustrophobic sometimes.

            The “let love come to you” (if you’re a woman) paradigm is part of what makes the traditional structures of dating unworkable to me. When I like someone, I really like him/her/them. When I want ANYTHING, I try very hard to be awesome at getting it. If I’m attracted to somebody, I tell them. I ask for what I want and see if it works for them. I’m not Sleeping fucking Beauty, I’m an adventuress on a quest. On a good day,  I’m a goddess, and men have been known to kneel down for me without my even having to command it. I have a dominant, honest, brave, ridiculous heart that knows what it wants and will always go after it.

            The passiveness of the “wait for love to find you” paradigm takes me to a dark place. It reminds me of necrophila. It reminds me of rohypnol. (When I just Googled that for spelling, the horrifying third choice was “rohypnols buy.”) It reminds me of back when there was MySpace and all of my guy friends liked girls whose profile pictures managed these slack, vacant expressions. I could never have made my face look uninhabited enough to resemble the ghost/zombie girls who were the style of the Mid-Zeroes. It reminds me of the time I was told that I smile a lot for a submissive.

           

            The boxed-in passiveness of the advice reminds me of Moana being told that everything she needed was on this one little island and that all she had to do to be happy was reject the song of her own soul. (Did anyone else see her and her many new islands as a polyamory tale? Maybe it was just me.) Like Moana, I am an explorer, a leader, a navigator. I won’t sit in a box and wait to be clicked on, and I hope to never tunnel-vision myself into any more narrow little islands of gendered constraint.

Like many of my rants, this is really a culmination of an argument with myself. Since my brokeny teenage years, I’ve always “known” in my heart that I’m not passive enough to be loved by a man, that I could never be compliant or compromising enough for a straight cis male. That idea is offensive to one and all, but it didn’t come from nowhere. I would love for it to go away.

When I look at it objectively, I see that Mr. Makeout Music was a rare exception. I am surrounded, past and present, by men who have enjoyed being sought out, pursued, and pounced upon. Far from being a turnoff, my literal and figurative bigness and enthusiasm have drawn the best, most adventurous, most oomph-filled men to me. Some of them have even stuck around.

Though I’ll always appreciate the way that he woke up my body and heart, I think Mr. Makeout Music mostly served to show me what I don’t want—I never want to try and make myself smaller or less in hopes that someone with a narrower scope might see me. I never want to be stuck on an island again.

            I know that romantic love isn’t something that can be to-do-listed into existence, but I WILL have agency. I will not sit in a box and wait. I will not listen to the fears and the family/social pressures that kept me away from the water. I aim to untie myself from the hetero/mononormative shore and learn to sail. My heart knows the way.

Worthiness and Whether I'm Not _______ Enough

Just would like to refer back to this the next time I'm tempted to ignore a genuine concern because it might not seem poly enough or anything else enough:

"When you get to a place where you understand that love and belonging, your worthiness, is a birthright and not something you have to earn, anything is possible. Keep worthiness off the table. Your raise can be on the table, your promotion can be on the table, your title can be on the table, your grades can be on the table. But keep your worthiness for love and belonging off the table. And then ironically everything else just takes care of itself."--Brene Brown

Big Therapy Project, Week Two: Ache and Gentle Progress

Heartwise, I’m still missing the Mysteries very much, and I probably will for a long time. I hope to never mix star-crossed love with internet-addiction again—I keep wanting to hurl my now-retweet-notification-less phone out the window for making me so lonesome for them. But I’m starting to forgive myself for taking comfort in a thing that didn’t make sense, because it also DID make sense. I wish I were still writing and receiving those “I love yous,” and now, in calm and quiet heartache, I still know I really meant them, so maybe somehow they did too.

I’m not really sure if I can go on identifying as poly, not because I don’t love a whole bunch of people at once but because I keep not asserting my real needs because I end up feeling guilty and ashamed of emotions and reactions that don’t seem poly enough. I keep pushing myself to accept more metamours than I can manage because not to do so doesn’t seem compersiony enough or something, and I try to power through and understand jealousy instead of recognizing it as the warning sign that it is for me. I should be able to identify and avoid things that don’t make me feel safe or cared for, but instead I try to process, change, and adapt to them lest I should not seem loving or understanding enough. When I type it out, those seem more like problems with my own boundary drawing than with poly, but I still don’t ever want to feel that nothing-feeling that I felt last Thursday night again, and I don’t know if there’s a way to avoid it in the poly world as I keep finding it. Relationships are a ways off for me anyway, so we’ll see.

Anyway, mental health: After last Thursday’s panic attack at school, my therapist made an extra house call Friday evening. By the time she got there I was in a pretty giddy state from being back in real life, but I had really worried myself the day before, so for the first time in my entire life, I broached the topic of being medicated. I wondered aloud if I should have an as-needed prescription for panicky times, but knowing how important it’s always been to me to not be medicated, she said it’s not necessary, that things aren’t serious enough to start messing around with my brain chemistry. I felt very validated, relieved and proud about that. (However, I threw a bottle of Tylenol in my work pocketbook—it’s been proven to ease existential despair, so maybe it works for temporary soul death too.)

Yesterday at work, another momentous mind-thing happened. I happened to witness something particularly ugly and triggering (in an inner-city school, this is a semi-weekly reality) and I didn’t scream or cry and my soul didn’t flee. I notified the proper people and teams and stopped downstairs after school to talk to my mentor about it. As we talked, I felt the experience physically leave my brain, like a little pain-butterfly. That doesn’t mean that it wasn’t an important or upsetting event, but if I could not carry around every scary thing that happens in my body, that would be a very good thing.

The Big Therapy Project is to start a dialogue with my 16-year-old self, and I wasn’t sure if she’d talk to me. Last week, she showed up in a dream, surly and sniping, in the guise of an old not-quite-metamour. She said I’d never given her any reason to trust me and then completely shut me out, so I’ve been asking her all week what I could do to help her feel safer. Somewhat unsurprisingly, she asked for privacy. She liked what The Puncher’s Girl said to me the last time I was at the Regular Dungeon: “Let me get your clothes, you don’t need to be any more vulnerable.”

And since I’m finally making her a priority, keeping her from slipping through the cracks, no longer putting her at the bottom of the pile, now that she is my highest and deepest priority, I have to take care of her and do what she asked for. This is a pants-on operation for a while (except Mr. Sweetface, whom she likes) until she feels safe again. I un-RSVPed from some nakedy things as an act of love for her. I don’t know how long it will be, but I do know that it will be worth it.

16-year-old me is deeper and wiser than adult me in some ways, she’s even optimistic. As awesome as she was at the art of the zipless fuck, she’s the one who believes in sex for love and she would really like me to keep trying for it. Maybe it was that summer writing letters to that nice Catholic boy, or maybe she’s just where the heart part of me lives. After I spent about 45 minutes writing a conversation with her, I felt spent and warm, the way I did that weekend at the Big Poly Conference. I slept better than I had in a long time. If I can keep turning my attention to my own heart until it’s healed, I believe I can get better and be closer to the loving person I really want to be.

Single Life Week Four: A (Mostly) Good Christmas and a (Mostly) Bad Date

My favorite thing about this last week was going to Christmas at my own local Unitarian church—usually I’m out of town so I’ve always missed it. Since I went by myself, I expected it to be sort of a solitary, reflective evening—I stood at the cookie trays long enough to watch all of my peanut butter blossoms disappear and then made for a pew, drew myself inward and listened to the choir warming up.

Then this couple I’ve been crushing on for like a year walked in, all vitality and smiles. They happened to choose a pew with room for one more, so I made a beeline to go sit with them. Just as always, they were rosy-cheeked and friendly, either full of natural well-being or having just smoked a bowl, or both. We chatted about their pre-church walk in the woods and their upcoming holiday plans. I learned that they live nearby and often have brunch at the little place down the street from me, and promptly invited myself along. I found out that he grew up Unitarian and asked him what is was like to have so much less shame. They’re both musicians for a living and I was a little intimidated singing next to her since she’s a voice coach, but actually we sang together beautifully.

We giggled, grinned, and sang our hearts out through the service, singing all of the verses of the original carols with capital G God left in—not always the case with Unitarian songbooks, but I liked it. The packed church was beautiful and reverent as we passed the light from candle to candle for “Silent Night.” I felt so grateful to be home and then and there I committed to making my own church part of the yearly Christmas routine.

It made me so happy to have spent that time with the cute couple, not in a hitting-on-them way but just enjoying them and seeing that real, playful, spiritual love is a possibility in this world. I liked sitting next to their love and knowing it was real, knowing that I’d put myself on the right path toward finding it for myself.

As I walked home that night, the thought came to me clear as Christmas lights: “I’ve moved on.” It felt like I was walking into a new life. According to every Christmas movie ever, it’s a terrible tragedy to be alone on Christmas, but that moment of hearing myself felt just as festive as any other part of the week. Just listening to the chime of my own soul was a quietly awe-inspiring thing.

Christmas day, as I’ve already written, was pleasant but sad towards the end. I was glad to welcome Sweetie over and eat out favorite things, watch some Project Runway and do our family calls. In true Cindy Lou Who fashion, I didn’t miss presents at all, not the giving or the getting. I felt simple Christmas joy in my heart.

The night was rough, though, lonelier, and in the dark I started to scroll through all that was missing. Christmas falls on one of the longest nights of the year, and it really felt like it. I was glad to be home safe and warm to grieve in my own bed, and when I woke up the next day I was glad that it wasn’t Christmas anymore, just an ordinary day.

Friday I’d made a date to meet an OKC guy for the first time—he was cute and I was glad to entertain him as a possibility. We met in his (Slightly upscale, compared to mine) neighborhood. He could have been the ghost of everything I thought I wanted when I first started dating guys—tall, gentle, beardy, hipsterish in a well-scrubbed way, fairly inscrutable.

He was pleasant enough but I didn’t feel a spark or a pull, so I was somewhat surprised when he invited me down the street to his apartment, ostensibly to meet his cat. I’d already made up my mind that this could be a casual sex afternoon and if that’s how it turned out, and that’s how it turned out.

I loved his apartment. It was boyish and dark and full of pop culture toys. I could imagine taking many naps there. The very sweet orange cat was ensconced on a pillow beneath the window next to a Kermit the Frog doll. “That’s his sleeping friend,” the guy explained.

He (the guy, not Kermit) got very familiar very fast, so fast that I felt like “Huh?” but I went with it. It’s amazing how quickly bad decisions can was over me sometimes, like I’m in the cast of Girls or something. Not necessarily a good look at 39.

His dick as big but the rest of him was just kind of too smooth. He touched me sort of gingerly, like he wasn’t sure how to work me. He kind of fucked me like he thought I was fat and I feel apologetic to myself for the distasteful way he moved my belly aside—Dear Belly, I love you, I’ll try to never let it happen again. His couch smelled like cat pee and when I had the sex-moans that sounded like sobs, he said “Don’t cry, baby,” and I think I might have actually rolled my eyes at him.

I was getting off and bored silly at the same time and I told him he could be rougher, but I don’t think he could. He had these amazing big hands that couldn’t smack convincingly, what a waste.

Eventually we admitted that it wasn’t working and parted ways with no drama at all. What a blessing, a bad match that only lasted part of an afternoon. He tried to make noises about being friends but his number was deleted (I’d never even put his name in my phone) before I was half a block away. My only regret was that I never got to ask him why he had a set list of Hall & Oates songs on his fridge. Was he in a Hall and Oates cover band, or had he been to see a Hall and Oates cover band on a night significant enough to warrant the posting of a souvenir? Or had he been to see Hall and Oates themselves? Ironically or unironically? I’ll never know.

I felt wretched as I walked back to the bus stop. After all I’ve been through, all of the genuine and special moments I’d experienced, how did I let meaninglessness slip in, as it were? The simple answer is, I wanted a penis in my vagina, and he certainly provided that. Also now that I think about it, I was trying to gloss over some deeper feelings I was having about other characters. Not a good strategy, but nothing to feel terrible about. Though I wouldn’t repeat it, I’m kind of turned on writing about it (Pause for personal time…) and I’m glad I took a risk even though it didn’t pay off. They can’t all be beautiful stories. Though I’m not going to make any pronouncements swearing off vanilla guys or casual sex in hipster apartments, I am not, in fact, on Girls. I am a grown-ass woman who knows she doesn’t have to settle for disconnected. On (slowly) to the next things. Especially after hearing this in the supermarket really cracked me up and made me love my weird life: