Sweet Valentine Part Two: The Way He Kissed Me Makes Me Wish I Were Still a Poet

 

Currently, Sweet Valentine and I are on a pause, taking stock of things. I need time and space to feel some griefs and manage some OCD/codependency stuff, and he needs time to think about what he really wants and can offer. Usually I would just let someone go at this point, good old "If it's a maybe then it's a no." from Cuddle Party rules. But I didn't want to let him go. I asked if we could be in touch in a month and see where we're at, and he agreed. I don't know if that decision is hopeful or just avoiding the inevitable, but I really, REALLY hope I get to kiss him again.

Back to the perfect coffee date. When it felt like we were wrapping up at the coffeeshop, I said "Well, should we take it slow and say goodbye here, or should we go to my place?"

He picked coming over, hooray hooray!

This all felt easy and natural in a way that's rare for me! Letting chemistry carry us forward like a slutty and helpful wind. No overthinking, no negotiations, just him on my couch. <3 <3 <3 Just pouring ourselves into each other.

He may not, in the course of the processings and ponderings, turn out to be the right one for me, but we kissed like we were absolutely meant for each other. His mouth tasted of nothing but mouth. He didn't mind when I bit his lip. Our tongues slid together and apart and around and across. His beard skritched and sanded my face in the most satisfying and life-affirming way.

It's hard to believe something so beautifully transcendent could happen on an ordinary Wednesday morning, in the middle of my ordinary couch nest. Surrounded by books and blankets and Squishmallows, with Younger Cat nosing her way in with typical comic timing. Home. Magic. Peace.

The Goodbye Boys

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A partial list of goodbye boys since last fall:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Adorables,

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

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

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

The Song Sender Part Two (Electric Boogaloo),

and Mr. Adorkable.

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

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

Knotty Thursday: 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.

Mostly

Is how much I can be on a break. Will have to find a road to enlightenment besides chastity, I guess.

Why a Break and the Next Quest

It should be noted that I wished for extra time to write and draw this morning and then we got an early dismissal because of the blizzard. And a snow day for tomorrow! It’s pretty superstitious but I do consider snow days to be evidence that the universe hearts me.

As I’m typing this I reallyreally miss my Mystery Man (Yes, I got smitten with somebody via Twitter, are you even a little bit surprised?) but here’s how I realized I had to take a break even from him: On Sunday afternoon I was getting ready to go out and having a nice exchange with a couple of the Mystery Ladies and just for a tiny second I thought they might be displeased with me. (They were not.) Before I could stop and think, tears were coming right out of my face, and I realized several things:

1. Ohyeah, I’m kind of a submissive. And also just kind of not okay.

2. Even though I’ve never (as far as I know) seen him/them and only know some of their names, I have real feelings for him and his family. As Twitter followers and then as friends and then a flirtation, they’ve been in touch almost everyday for the past while, and I can’t afford to lose that.

(Also I can totally understand now how people get invested enough in strangers to be Catfished.)

3. He’s not a loophole, he’s just a guy I really like.

4. The internet is magic.

So when I got home from my weepy date with the new Spike Jonze movie (on not entirely unrelated themes) I wrote a love letter 140 characters at a time explaining why I have to let our cute little nice thing go for a while, and he wrote back all kinds of wonderful supportive poly-mensch things that made him even more irresistible. I feel like I’m fighting the tide of myself, but I can’t can’t can’t be worrying about messing up and losing friends right now.

The tears weren’t about the Mystery Ladies, of course. They were for all of the trying and failing to be good for Sweetie, for the emotional land mines I’ve kept running into over the past few years, for how hard it was to ever do anything right by anybody’s girl sometimes.

Last year, counting immediate metamours, I broke up with/broke things off with/ let go of at 11 people. Given that one of those was my wife of 10 years and there was also the whole Scary Party fiasco and a brand new career on top of everything, it’s no wonder I’m still randomly weeping.

I don’t want to take a break. I don’t want to keep saying no to genuine affection when it’s been my wish for so long. But in order to really be able to experience the love I’ve been wanting, I think I do have to shift the tide a little. I think that some of the crazy, excited, twitterpated love that gushes out of me all of the time (sometimes making a mess) is actually meant for someone in particular: me.

From years of bad decision, self denial, abuse and self-abuse, I’ve got the proverbial hole inside me. Like any vacuum, it’s eager to fill itself up, and will do so hungrily and desperately if I let it. The (sorry, there’s really no other way to say it) hole in my heart doesn’t care what’s healthy or fruitful, it just wants to be filled.

So I think what I really need to do here is to slow all the way down and let it be empty, then work on gradually filling it up with self-love. I’m not supersure how to do that, but I know that if I keep trying to love while I’ve got that emptiness, things will keep getting poisonous and broken, and I will really never learn to let myself be loved.

(It really is hard to write this without clichés, I apologize…)

I don’t think that I can fill up the whole thing in just a few months, but maybe I can learn some new habits, break the old patterns and learn some better ones. I think that if I can find a way to give all of the ridiculous love I keep feeling to myself somehow, I can turn myself from a vacuum to the endless fountain I was probably born to be, and give some nice people the infinite, generous love they deserve.

I got a pink glass vase from the dollar store to remind me of the gap in my heart I’m trying to allow to be not-filled-yet. I didn’t get anything to put in there, it’s just sitting there being pretty, with an empty space inside. (Okay, yes, like some other poor neglected pink parts I could name…)

The first few years of this story were all about learning to love my body, finding my inner Bettie Page, and as the Nakedest Person at thePagan Festival, I certainly achieved that. Whenever my work friends are fretting about their body issues, I kind of feel like they’re speaking a different language.

But now I would like to learn to give some of that brazenness and bravery to figuring out how to love my heart. I’ve spent so much of my life impatient with it, trying to tamp it down, pretending it doesn’t want things that other people decided I couldn’t have. In pursuit of experience and adventure, my poor heart has been through the ringer and I would really love to learn how to treat it kindly.

So the question is, what can I, on my own for now, give to my heart, to make it feel celebrated and loved like I did for my body? What’s the heart equivalent of Shibari or fireplay? Where is my heart’s nude beach?

Song of the Week (Okay, Just Letting it Win)

In the course of starting to write about why I'm on a break, I decided that this is a good song to belt out in the car a lot. Sorry, part of me that used to be cool.

Single Life, Week 7: Life After “Thrift Shop”

It’s too early to know what the song of this year will be, but “Thrift Shop” was my song of last year, the one I woke myself up with on the way to work, sweated to at the gym, and heard in my head when something, yes, fucking awesome was happening.

I wrote last fall about how it’s a good philosophy of life; just being delighted at what you find, letting chance and serendipity show me where I need to go. With that theory in place, I left the year with an armload of experiences, many of which were unequivocally awesome, some that didn’t fit, some that were stained and downright nasty. As unegalitarian as it feels for me to say this, chance threw some things my way that simply weren’t good enough for me, and I took them home anyway.

I like that seeing play as a magical thrift shop helped me to take down a lot of the structures of control that I had in place. Though I still do love planning and anticipating, I think that my calendar fixation was a lot about trying to make things stay the same, trying to keep things safe and cozy for Sweetie so that she wouldn’t yell at me and call me names. I learned how to be more flexible, to adjust my expectations, and even how to not want to claim people immediately upon kissing them. Well, a little shaky on that last one, but still.

I really, really miss it, just powering through and experiencing every single sensation that I could, even when the emotional cost was high, even when I had to fight my own instincts to do it. Last night was my first night skipping the Regular Dungeon in a long time, and though I had a fantastic time, I still felt nostalgic for the nights where I was able to experience thing after thing after thing, to slip seamlessly from bottom to top, from fire to floggers, and feel like a princess superhero while doing so. It occurs to me that very, very little of that experience had to do with the Steampunks, so I probably don’t have to give all of it up just because they don’t like me. I hope to eventually return to some of it after the wounds have healed.

Back to my metaphor: In real life, I don’t shop like “Thrift Shop.” Not even when I’m IN a thrift shop. I tend to mostly browse, enjoying the bright randomness of everything and only picking anything up if it’s really special, like a tulip-glass pitcher or a perfect grandma cardigan. I would certainly never take home anything that needs fixing, especially if I already had a broken keyboard at home.

In regular stores I’m even pickier. In fact, I’m currently refusing to buy work pants until tapered legs go out of style. I don’t have a shape or a budget for careless shopping. I’m a grown-ass woman who knows what she likes and should never have to settle for anything that doesn’t fit or that I don’t completely love. If I’m that picky with spending my money, can I be a little pickier with spending my heart?

When my therapist got unavailable because her supervisor wanted to Girl Interrupted me, I refused to even look for another one. I couldn’t stand the strangers’ input that came from the 10-minute screening process. So I waited seven months for my real therapist to get her own practice, and now she even makes house calls. There’s a lesson there about waiting for something that works, rather than trying to fit with things that don’t.

My point, and I do have one, is that I hope to find a balance between the natural excitement and momentum in my heart and the discernment that will allow me to get what I want and deserve. That way I can have chance and magic but also, you know, sanity.

That said, I reallyreally hate being on a break from the pursuit of sexytimes. My emotions are grateful to have the time to rest, but my body is like what. the. fuck?

But remembering what pants-on activities I enjoy is rewarding and comforting. On Thursday night, I sat in the meeting room of a neighborhood historic building (we have a lot of them) and drew while I listened to my friends sing and play the most lovely and gently moving music. I was flooded with a sense of (mostly) platonic wellbeing that nonetheless made me have to go home and ravish myself.

Last night, Gold Star Winggirl (So named because she sends me gold stars whenever I’m awesome at being on my break) came with me to a Bhakti dance, and by the end when we were Om Shanti Shanti-ing, I felt so good and loved that I could have Om Shanti-Shanti-ed for about 10 more hours. The best part was getting lots of time to catch up with GSW and root for her adventures too.

Transcendent and fulfilled as I was though, I still would have liked to have driven over to the Regular Dungeon and handed out some what-for. Funny how that’s the thing I miss most.

But guys! Guess what. Granted, it’s only happening on Twitter (hence the loophole) but for a few weeks, I’ve been spending attention on a guy who actually gives it back. Who is actually nice to me! Who checks on me if I’m sad and whose girlfriends and wives and metamours all seem to be delighted by our exchanges. I’ve never even seen any of their faces and at the moment I’m not ready too, but I do feel a genuine connection and I think this is excellent practice for letting myself be treated kindly when it comes time for IRL flirtations. A gold star for me, and one for the Mystery Man and his family. (I’m quite sure they’ll be good at sharing a star.)

Likewise, the Recurring Character is being internet-adorable, telling me semi-daily which of my (G-rated) body parts he is rooting for. So a gold star to him, too.

Okay, so I’m somewhat terrible at taking a break, but I am still making a lot of progress: Friday I told Sweetie we can no longer do groceries together, and yesterday I told her that this is my last week of sharing the car with her. Next weekend I am going to try and find a car of my own. I’m getting better at letting Sweetie-things go, and that’s progress.

PS. As I leave on pop song behind, I just want to take a moment to celebrate and thank the part of my soul that will always sound like this:

Single Life, Week Six: Antsy But Enjoying the New Goals

Last weekend, I told my therapist that sessions might be boring for a while, and that’s how it might be with the blog, too. (Though adventures must not have been particularly unboring when I was hitting the same patterns again and again…) Anyway, I’m supposed to be mostly taking a three month break from sexytimes. In a way, it’s liberating, not having to worry about making plans or scheduling dates, and maybe letting the (already pretty lax) shaving routine lapse a little bit.

But since even in this hard transition I am still my horny, half-extroverted self, I feel antsy. The adrenaline of the past couple of years, though not always healthy, kept me fueled and inspired most of the time, and now I have to look for quieter, more sustainable forms of inspiration. I’m a little afraid that if I let myself rest for these few months I’ll suddenly wake up 60 with no one but cats. It’s the stupidest of tropes, but there it is anyway.

I know where the next adventure’s coming from: there’s a big poly conference coming up soon. And I don’t think I’ll be away from the dungeon forever—I’d thought I was probably graduated from there, but this morning when I saw the invite in my Fet inbox I felt a little surge of joy—right before I RSVPed no. In pursuit of this break-taking goal, I now even have a friend who’ll text me a gold star any time I RSVP no or just stay home in my PJs for any reason. It’s nice how the right influences tend to come along.

The story now is about self-care and about slow, safe progress. One big obstacle-removal is that Sweetie got a promotion and now works closer to home, allowing her to fully take over the car payments so that I can save up for a car of my own. Yay my future little red car! Trading the car back and forth has been a too-often chance to see each other, and that’s getting dicey. Plus, pretty soon I will never again have to drive the car that I jumped out of.

In some ways, it’s getting harder to let Sweetie go. Now that she’s free from her terrible commute and the job she hated, she’s getting frustratingly appealing. I’ve had to stop having her over for TV because the other night I got the biggest urge to hold her hands during some Community reruns. As the pain of the bad parts starts to heal, all I can see it the love and it’s hard to move on, even though it’s paradoxically the moving on that brings the appeal. It makes me both reluctant to and impatient to get further and further apart. Sometimes we still do groceries together but it ends up feeling like a date, so I guess we’ll have to knock that off too.

The big excitements of the past week or so have been little acts of self-care: staying late on Friday to give my Monday-morning self a break by getting the homework packets ready. Remembering to buy batteries, adding DVDs to my Netflix account so that I can have better movie nights. The big social adventures have been after-church brunches that have made my heart so happy and full. (Resolution with the Cute Church couple: “Waffles in ‘014!”)

Slowing down has given me the chance to do what I always wanted to do: feel all the feelings. I feel sadness at letting go of Cute Master and Pretty Slave, but a happy hope that I’ve left a pattern behind. I feel nervous excitement at making new neighborhood friends and navigating social situations at which I have pants on. I feel frustration, of course, at being away from sex adventures, but pleasure in knowing that I’m the only one I have to please.

I vacillate between shyness at the year’s goals and wanting to show them off, but I like the way you guys help me keep myself accountable. The theme of the year is kindness to myself, which I know will make some friends and readers (and also, me) sigh with relief. It’s fun thinking of new ways to care for myself, to reach out to people closer to home, to look for magic in the world, to try (though I’ve always had a nice time keeping it at arm’s length) to embrace my faith.

I’m still smarting from everything I’ve let go, but sometimes when I’m washing the dishes or making the bed or cooking myself breakfast for dinner, I feel the odd sensation of liking myself. It’s a real thing and I think I can learn it.