His Name Is Off the Mailbox

 

Thanks, Mountain Goats!

The Guy Next Door is gone. I finally had the courage the other day to retrieve my flower pots that had wandered into his yard. On my side of the border between our places, he left his beleaguered monstera-y plant, with crinkled-up leaves and bent stems. I'm not a healer of plants or men, so I put the plant at the curb for someone the plant has less baggage with to rescue.

It's lonely without him. (The man, not the poor plant.) Even after we stopped talking, he was kind of an imaginary friend. I liked knowing when his car was home, the state slogan on his license plate felt like a comforting/vexing chime in my head. Whoever moves in next won't be like this, I hope, won't get all tangled up--I'll probably only notice them if they're having a particularly loud conversation or smoking on the patio, or if they have a cute pet.

This guy, I was insane about him and insane with him, but the connection still meant something to me. The door that opened between us, that let two messed up minds find comfort in each other, I still think it's a miracle.

In the cold cold depths of winter, when I was still learning not to go to his door, I lit candles for myself in the window, both to ward off the pain and to show myself love. (Also there was an Indivisible directive about window-candles. Mine can't be seen from the street, but they still count.) I hoped the light gave him comfort too, snowday after snowday, but that really wasn't my business.

I'm still figuring out how to thaw. I'm DEEP in my step work and leveling up my family estrangement, trying how to figure out how to treat myself if I am, as I'm beginning to see, worthy of kindness and care. I took a dating break until at least June, but I'm starting to wish and hanker.

When The Guy Next Door showed up last summer with his red cups of hibiscus tea, I was jagged and at sea from last summer's trauma work, from a lifetime of trauma work. He gave me such a pretty spark and distraction, a (kind of fucked up) way to care for myself until I was ready for the next phase of growth and healing.

I imagine him out and about in some beautiful sex-positive frenzy, having all the fun my codependent ass isn't ready for. I imagine him going home to Think About What He's Done. I imagine him joining the life of some more copacetic and traditionally-shaped girl and hitchhiking that life wherever that takes him.

I'll probably never know. I get to stay here and try to be emotionally sober and not get swooshed into any more distractions while I face myself, while I learn to love myself. I miss my friend, whether he was imaginary or not. He doesn't live in my heart forever, I don't think, but I wish him everything good. And I hope someone is taking good care of that plant.

A Helpful Mini-Adventure With a Lovely King

 

Last week, when I was deep in my angst about neighbor stuff, a very handsome and distinguished gentleman pinged my Feeld. He said he's a dom and would love to try for a rope thing with me! I fought the OCD that was telling me to NEVER LIKE ANYONE AGAIN and said hello. I'm so glad I did.

On the phone, there was instant chemistry, instant brainstorming of scenes. He called me his princess, he called me a Good Girl, and most importantly, he told me he thinks I have more agency than I think I have. Since I frequently feel helpless about compulsions and fate, agency lit a spark in my mind that's been lighting my way these snowy, sleepy days.

From the moment I took TGNS's hand and placed it on my head, my submissive side has been guiding me, and Lovely King felt like an extension of that energy that kindled in me back on Leftovers Night. Like a bright thread I can follow, telling me to bow down and recognize the vastness.

Lovely King and I planned a date, but it was a little further out than I would've liked. I asked him if he would help with my Bowing Down to Love Itself project, and he agreed. Each day after I got in my cozy floor-nest and did my Child's Pose with a hand on the back of my head, after I relaxed in the vastness of love and the stretches in my body, I'd text the Lovely King and tell him I'd submitted to love, tell him how I was feeling. Sent pretty pictures sometimes.

He responded each time with a "good girl" and was very dutiful with the "good mornings," though not with the goodnights. I knew he was only beginning his adventures, and we were only beginning ours, but without much friendly chitchat between praises, the situation started to feel cold.

Friends!! I told him how I was feeling! Without fleeing or panicking! Huzzah! I said I liked more chattiness from a potential dom, and I while I like sharing, I don't like the feeling of being one of many.

He confirmed the one-of-manyness and said he didn't have bandwidth for what I need, but wanted to keep in touch! Which was so nice! But not the right way to go. I am so, SO proud of myself for making this choice! For making choices like a person who believes in love. 

Self-respect is HARD y'all. But practicing submission by bowing down to Love Itself feels like something nobody else should be walking me through. It's a project to do with my own hurt and hopeful heart, with quiet and candles, Girl Scout cookies and nice lotions and all this miraculous snowday free time.

Love has me. It has scooped me up like my own personal Totoro. It's hard to keep that faith, but I can keep the ritual. That's enough for now.

Two Great Loves Is a LOT! And Relationship OCD

 

Irving on the train, knowing he's been loved.

I haven't wanted to post for a while, mostly I just don't want to keep repeating the same story--I continue to be amazed at how many people are out there not being the right one.

One thing that's new is OCD therapy! I've been getting treated since November, when I realized it's not superhealthy to think that my dating life is CURSED. (I still kinda think it is!)

The way they treat OCD sometimes is exposure therapy--just leaning in to whatever awful thing that compulsions are helping me avoid/make worse. The other day, I was telling the therapist all my deepest, darkest fears of what happens if I never find love again.

I could be alive another 40 or 50 years, and I have a hard time imagining those years without this quest, this longing. I can keep looking, but I also want to make sure I'm not missing my life while I'm focused on what's missing, who's missing. I want to keep living a full and lush and vivid life, no matter who comes along.

The other day, the 22nd, it was the three year anniversary of my first date with The Shy One. I decided to do my exposure therapy by writing him a letter in my journal, not one to send. I searched up a picture of him on that night. His face was the absolute pinnacle of post-quarantine cute: soft of face and fuzzy of hair. A peaceful and satisfied smile. Beatific! And of course there were the ropes pictures, the ropes that liked him so much and went on so easily.

OF COURSE it's hard to move past the magic of that night and the subsequent messy-beautiful of my ten months with The Shy One. I hold out hope that I will some day, but it's truly taking FOREVER.

But when I started the journaling, I found myself writing about my OTHER favorite first date, with BFF-Formerly-Sweetie. I'd given her an invitation (Sesame Street themed, with glitter inside) to come to the poetry reading I hosted. She'd told me she had something to tell me after the reading, so the whole day was anticipation. It was a two- reading day, and I stopped in between poetries to have some spicy blackbean soup at a neighborhood cafe. My tummy was so nervous that I couldn't eat much. After the reading, she told me she hadn't really dated anyone before, and she wanted to try dating me. It was a dream come true.

A decade of months and a decade of years. A messy love affair and a marriage/lifelong friendship. Some people are out there searching for their best friend, and here am I calling mine 2-3 times a day.

Unlike Irving, who could only sense deep within himself that he had been loved, I was present for every moment. Yes, I was a mess, and yes it's over, but it WAS. Relationship OCD makes me doubt everything, makes me think it couldn't possibly be real, but it was nice to visit that knowing for a few journal paragraphs, and it stuck with me.

Dating is boring and vexing and not the good kind of tedious. I'm lonely and pining and frustrated a lot of the time. My hormones are changing too, making the urgency less in a way I both welcome and fear.

What I'm practicing in OCD therapy is learning to live with uncertainty, and that certainly helps. But so does the knowing that I was and am thoroughly loved.

Closure Is a Thing, Part Three

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dear Ribbons: Is a "Hoe Phase" Worth the Risk?

 

I feel like The Guest House might be annoying advice to get, but it's maybe the best advice ever.

Would you like some advice and praise? Write in please! Tell your story at thekittencalendar.blogspot.com and put “Dear Ribbons” in the subject line!

Dear Ms. Ribbons,

I met someone and we had passionate, awesome sex. I was really affected by it. We talked about intense things and really connected. I was with them nearly all day both times we were together. Overall it was a very intense experience for me even though it was theoretically casual.

 

I feel like emotionally and physically it’s taken a full week to recover from seeing them. I’ve been unable to work much or focus or maintain any conversations not about this person for days. 

 

I feel at a crossroads. Personally I want to have a hoe phase and I’m definitely attracted to a lot of people, and my desire is pretty ferocious and I feel pretty desperate to get out there and explore. I feel like my need to be with more people and try things is at the center of my life rn.

 

 But I don’t know if I can do what just happened over again. If it’s going to feel like that every time to have great sex it might be too much. I’m especially worried about exploring kink and the kinds of sex that are likely to be especially vulnerable and have lots of emotional feedback.

 

I’m also kind of confused about how to take this hookup that just happened and wondering if it means something that it hit me so hard.

 

Is casual sex not for me? What can I do to stop the pleasurable part of my life from overtaking the other things in my life that are important to me? What’s a kind of jealous and sensitive person who doesn’t want to use that stuff as a crutch to do lol

 

Curiously,

 

Twitterpated

 

Dear Twitterpated,

 

Thank you so much for writing to me! I’m so honored to be a part of this profound thing that happened to you!

 

First, in the spirit of Judge Chutkin, let’s take the temperature down a little. Not on the lovey-dovey emotions! Let’s keep those ablaze. The thing you’re feeling is, I think, one of the main reasons we’re here on this cool planet.

 

But please talk to your self-judgement and ask it to simmer down a bunch! Let’s do that old therapy trick of—what if this were happening to a friend? If one of your besties came to you distracted, confused, besotted, you’d greet them with curiosity and joy. You wouldn’t rush them to define things, urge them to be sensible, remind them of their other priorities.  If this were happening to a friend, you would just be with them where they are. See if you can give yourself a little bit of that friendly grace.

 

There are no prerequisites for a “hoe phase.” By all means, just have it!!!!! You absolutely do not have to meet some imaginary standard of casualness to slut it up! Plenty of people will be as hot for your romantic nature as they are for all of your other very hot qualities!

 

And, you can take all the time you need to absorb the beauty, pleasure, synchronicity, and meaning of passionate awesome sex with this very special human! You don’t need any permission, label, or ticket to the Relationship Escalator in order for this experience to mean a lot to you—it just DOES!

 

Give yourself space for this. It’s so big!

 

I for one CANNOT understand people who breeze through sex and love and kink like it’s no big deal! It’s a big fucking deal! Our bodies are there! With our hearts, minds, and souls! Do anything you want to in order to internalize and honor this ordinary miracle that happened to you! That you helped create!

 

Please try not to worry about being too jealous, too sensitive, too ANYTHING. Let yourself experience this moment as EXACTLY YOU.

 

I can’t tell you what to do about the current person except this: Talk to them. See how they feel and feel how you feel. You might like to swirl around in these lovely emotions for a while! Or you might let them go and look for someone(s) even more right for you.

 

I trust you with this precious thing, your precious heart! I promise, you’ll know what to do.

 

Your comrade in twitterpation,

 Pretty Ribbons

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.

Dear Sierra Leone, Part Three

If you weren’t so far away and weren’t, you know, a country, I’d have you over to watch Breakfast at Tiffany’s. It’s my second favorite movie, after Slacker. I used to have it on VHS. I’d watch it after scary movies so I’d be able to sleep. It’s about a scared, lost but fabulous lady and whether or not people can belong to each other. Spoiler alert: they do. (If you watch this movie, I’m really, really sorry about Mickey Rooney.)

The other day I was listening to Danny Lavery’s podcast (https://slate.com/podcasts/big-mood-little-mood) and he was talking about the Relationship Escalator. No one actually calls it that unless they DON’T want it, he said, they’d just call it “commitment.”

What a weird thing to feel bad about, wanting commitment, but it definitely feels like I was telling on myself when I let it slip. In my defense, it was in the haze of beautiful rosy-hued morning goodbye sex, right before he left for you. The Shy Ones wear stretchy bead bracelets instead of wedding rings, and I said with the confidence of the just-thoroughly-fucked that I wanted a bracelet too, a purple one.

I maaaaaaaaayyyyyy have said I wanted a commitment ceremony too. None of this meant marriage, it meant whatever kind of commitment we came up with. He said the bracelet part might be doable, but I wonder.

Is that why he came back liking me less? Did the bracelet idea get vetoed and he just didn’t have the heart to tell me? Or did I know deep down he wasn’t That Guy and push him away? Did he want to keep some of that freedom he felt with you and I was the thing most jettisonable?

It’s far past time to stop wondering, but he did bring something back besides  maybe a little malaria. (Which, I’m so sorry I overreacted. I only know it from novels. I thought he might die.) Maybe he brought back a deeper commitment to his faith, to his family, his eldest-son leadership responsibilities. It SEEMED like he brought back that gift of all families everywhere: shame. I heard it in his radio silences, in his quick zippering.

No matter which, I have a confession: I thought somehow this would be the Last Waiting. I thought I could somehow graduate from the always-missing-him if I got good grades those weeks in Being Self Contained. And I aced the exam, we both did. Unlike the regular text thread, burdened with pain and paragraphs and push-pull logistics, the WhatsApp thread from when he was with you, it was all love.

Thank you for making us that unlikely space to be free together, to belong together before reality smashed back down. Maybe because when he was with you, he was happy. Maybe missing him hurt less when he was across the sea than when he was across town.

There was a bracelet, not a wear-every-day-as-a-symbol one. It’s carved out of coconut shells, dyed beautiful jewel colors. It came with a necklace and red earrings like tiny coins. They live in The Box of Things to be Worked Out Later by Unseen Forces (The God Box for short) in an envelope marked Prayers for a Bigger Life:

Sierra Leone, I can feel myself getting unstuck and ready to be moved forward by grace and love to wherever and whatever. I think I’m finished writing to you, but you have my whole heart. So many, many things do.

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.

 

Knotty Thursday: Tough Love and the Four Braid Harness

 I haven't written in a while. I've been lazy about learning and teaching the ropes, so I asked The Shy One for some tough love. He told me I couldn't see his dick until I learned the four-strand braid well enough to teach it to him!

The way Rory of Rory's Brainworks taught it just wasn't clicking, so I went over to Macrame You Tube and picked it up so quick! It's been a while since I had a big learning-a-rope-thing surge of happiness! There it was!!

When he came over yesterday morning, it was sooooo tempting to just fall into snuggletown and forget the rope lesson, but my Teacher Voice prevailed. I was stern and somehow got us vertical and focused. I put the harness on him first. You really REALLY wish you could see the pictures I'm keeping to myself, especially this braid-over-his-buttcrack situation I improvised. It was a proud, proud day.

His phone kept chiming and buzzing downstairs. Apparently his colleagues could not live without him for the morning. So after a moment of gently kissing his rope-decorated dick, I went downstairs to get him his phone. That's when this glorious thing happened:

I joked that that's what he should say, but I didn't know he actually said it until later. I didn't know it was a life goal of mine to cause that sentence! It may be my greatest achievement!

When it was his turn to tie me, the harness came just as easily. The ropes tried to echo the braids at the top and got tangled at the bottom, but untangling them was just another sensation for my superalert body to revel in. His hands on my shoulders and the top of my back. The stopping to kiss. The sex-and-crystal-store smell of him: salty, sandalwood, and something else. Jasmine? Gardenia? Definitely something sweet. 

Love.

 

We’re in a new phase of the Kitten Calendar adventure now, friends. It wasn’t an accident when the word snuck into some goodnight GIFs. The Shy One loves me back. We had deep, complicated conversations in the days following my Big Jealousy Weekend, and those eventually landed at him saying the phrase.

He loves me. I’m loved. It feels like a safety net and a bedrock and a sunny meadow and a beach day.

Being loved isn’t new of course. Though I couldn’t always be in touch with it, I’ve been surrounded by so many different kinds of love all along. Work love, art love, nature love, friend love, even the sometimes-impossible-seeming family kind of love. Sweetie-Now-BFF and I have loved each other since 2001, with no signs of dissipating. On the teetering cliffs of romance, I’ve had a strong foothold in love, maybe that’s how I grew into someone ready, or just, he was one of the very-right ones.

I’ve had so many (JEEZ so many!) connections with men that have felt fulfilling, sexy, exciting, and (from my end at least) loving, for a few weeks or a few months. Sometimes I told them I loved them after they were gone, after a this-girl-is-crazy-loving-me-after-just-a-few dates reaction was no longer a worry or concern. I’ve loved. I’ve been wanted, liked, and THOROUGHLY fucked. But this.

It feels, a rare thing in my shifting/fleeing/healing/losing heart, like the earth is steady beneath my feet. My life can be serene, or lovely, or a cyclone of emotions, or a mess, or a newly vacuumed apartment, but his love is holding still beneath it all. A harbor. A cove. A weighted blanket. I can mix as many metaphors as I want. I’m in love.

It's tempting to remind myself to stay vigilant, to wait for some imagined other shoe to drop, and it always could. But The Shy One has asked me over and over by now: Have faith. There are tricky parts, disconnects and differences to listen and squabble and evolve through. But I have a home in someone beautiful. A home in this moment.

I fell asleep with him the other night. It took several Tums and some melatonin and eventually I’m going to have to stop feeling too self-conscious to get up and have my night cereal, but for a couple of hours, I slept. Next to his beautiful, strong body, his soft hands petting me, his breath in my hair.

My cat is very shy. She usually sleeps with me, either right next to me or perched on my hip. When there’s company, she generally hides in the closet. Dates have only known her as a grey streak as she runs from the closet to her hiding place inside the couch.

But Saturday night, while I was laying blissful and awake next to The Shy One, I heard the grey cat’s claws kneeding the side of the mattress. I reached down to pet her, and she jumped up. She sat on my hip for a moment before she remembered there was a non-me person in the bed. She fled almost immediately, but still. It feels like progress.

Pagan Boy Visits in a Dream

 

A few weeks ago, there was this dream. I’ve had variations of this one lots of times--Pagan Boy and I were getting back together. We had a whole sexy thing brainstormed, but then I stepped out of his apartment for a moment. We lived in an art installation, the way you sometimes do in dreams. I spent the whole rest of the dream (I think it’s Prozac that makes my dreams so long and Byzantine…) trying to get back to his place. There was an electricity map where you could check to see who was home. I thought I’d find him back there, but there was someone else.

I woke up so sad. We’d finally made a date, we were finally on-again, but I realized all over again that he’s gone. Passed away from Covid last year while we were planning a remote friend-date to watch The Apple. We’ll never get back together. We’ll never meet for coffee and flirt. He’s just gone.

The griefs of Covid and its attendant tragedies take a long time to sift though sometimes. Everyone knows the stages of grief don’t come like a ladder, step by step.

Like any other lover, he… visits? during self-love times, and that happened the other night. It was a real memory, a real day in the summer of 1994. He was moody and I was crampy, but we went to the local naked swimming waterfall anyway. We sat on the margins of the fun, barely stitched together in our own misery.

I was self-conscious then about my tampon string, but my present day remembers one moment with great warmth and shimmer. Pagan Boy watched me from the shore or on a stone in the middle of the stream while I crouched down in the shallow water and opened my legs to him. The cold water and his half attention lit up my clit in 1994 and in 2022. He couldn’t really see me and I couldn’t feel much besides the cramps, but still, an opening up, a fresh opening-up.

We re-broke-up not long after that sunny sad day, but we shared a bed as friends after club nights a few more times. His monumental snores drove my roommates crazy, and I was smushed into the wall by our two monumental bodies in the bed. The smush of him felt good to me, made me feel real and loved.

We’d overhear the roommates fucking in the next room and the air between us would get tense and frustrated, but still, he stayed. Still, we slept.

By the time, in the twenty-teens, we were having coffee in the same town where my sister lives, we were both poly and kinky. He was an oasis of being myself in the midst of any family weekend. Without that oasis, I really don’t know what to do.

 

How I Found Out I'm Kinky Part Two: A Mixtape

Writing about my ol' song sender has me going back to some of the songs he sent. I've been avoiding them for a while, feels good to be back.

Postscript to the Shy One

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What are you thinking?” I asked.

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

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

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

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

Unicorn Stuff Part One: Less Than/Equal To

 

As I tiptoe back into playing/dating life, I have trouble getting my head around that one day. The day I thought I could have The Shy One for a boyfriend and Mrs. Shy One for at least a friend. I can’t overstate the fulfillment I felt in those 24 hours or so. Included. Appreciated. Was it over so quick because I wanted it so badly, because it scared me to death how badly I wanted it? Did I need to sabotage that happiness because it was too much to hope for?

Probably not. Probably what happened is what happened: Her overstep with the writing brought the truth out about my feelings, made the closet of it all more untenable, or made me see that it just was all along. I didn’t know how to make a boundary around my (broken, I hated to admit) heart, but I did know how to fiercely defend the writing. That part seemed clear—if it’s the writing or the cuties, it's got to be the writing.

But I did feel a DEEP fear around the happiness that was them, and only a fraction of that fear (maybe ¾? 5/8?) could be attributed to the present. I do have a unicorn chip on my shoulder. I “knew” I was going to be treated as less-than, vetoed, cast aside. I’m giving myself the assignment to read all my couple-trouble posts and see what exactly is wrong with me.

Confusingly, with The Shy Ones, my trouble wasn’t really with the hierarchy. I was more than ready to defer to the wife-and-kids of it all. I felt honored to put my desires on hold for Ramadan, to, in my own spiritual-not-religious way, submit to something higher. Even/especially since it wasn’t my something, even if the thing I was submitting to was just what time the sun set each day—that’s a lot. I liked letting myself be small, treating his life and his faith with honor and deference—it was one of the most meaningful relationship months of my storied life.

That lovely feeling of letting myself be small, the relief of bowing to him/them metaphorically if not literally, was possible because I felt equal as a human being. I was equally-but-differently valued, adored, and praised. When he momentarily balked at the idea of getting mail from me, that egalitarian feeling began to crack. When he told me I needed to pretend we were just friends if I posted pictures of him on my public feeds, the possibility of any kind of equal footing shattered.

Does that possibility of equal-not-the-same exist? I tried to make it clear to Mrs. Shy One that I knew the right role to occupy, but that I wanted to be seen as a whole person. I begged her not to see me as a threat (I should’ve been saying all this to him, I’m so sorry.) but I absolutely was a threat.

If I’d been allowed/allowed myself to love as much as I wanted to love him/them and if by some miracle he/they felt that big love back, all of our lives would have had to grow and change. They were years and years away from that kind of expansion, if ever.

In these lonely-then-less-so couple of weeks, I’ve asked myself over and over why I couldn’t fit, why being out of the closet with him was so important, why the deal broke when I really, REALLY didn’t want it to.

“I want my heart to be free.” I said, and I have compassion for myself about that, but what does it even MEAN? What good is a free heart when I’ve lost someone(s) so dear? I guess that’s what I aim to find out.

Knotty Thursday: Heart Knot!

 ...Did I sort of accidentally make this one last week?

Anyway, I hope to have something with a pretty human in it (Self and/or others! *ahem* to the universe!) next week, but I've been having fun with these flourishes while my heart gets its act together. Better a heart knot than a heart tangle! 

Postscript: The Southern Charmer and The Good Boy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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