A Beautiful In-Between Time

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Two Moons Later

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

May I bloom and expand.

May I remain curious.

May I honor the longing.

May I thank and let go.

May I put it away til it feels
easier.

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

May I internalize the love.

May I leave scarcity behind.

May I live in faith.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Okay, Yes, It Was a Miracle

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy Friday! 65% Less Rotten Inside

Since I'm curious about that nice energy that started moving around in me at the Big Poly Conference, I decided to see what would happen if I chanted daily. And here's my gold star for doing so every day this week!

In addition to doing my om namah shivayas every day before work, I've been belting out early Beatles songs every time I'm in the car. I think I'm making my way back to my joyful self.

Holy Christmas, I Gave Somebody Advice!

Over the weekend, I got to be extremely proud of myself when a friend and reader I love and admire asked me for advice. The relationship issues she shared went along with a lot of the themes I obsess about here, so I thought my response to her was worth sharing. I was shocked to find myself sure of what to tell her, but if you ever need the strength to leave someone, I might be the girl to ask; it felt like I was also writing the letter to myself.

"Okay. Rereading your letter this morning made me really sure of what I want to say.

First, as much as I’ve tried to be open minded about people’s fantasy lives, I completely agree with you about his rape fantasy. I think it represents an unhealthy desire to be disconnected during what is supposed to be the most connected of times. Aside from what it says about his view of your personhood (and his own) I don’t see any potential in that kind of scene to bring you two closer. But all of that is moot, really, because you don’t want to do it. To me, that is the most powerful and valid of reasons not to do something, sexwise. Your wants and preferences are important, especially when it comes to something that has such a high physical and emotional risk factor.

And the part of you that’s not getting fulfilled? The sexy part? It’s important, vital, lovable, and (I think) divine. It’s life itself, the force that moves the universe. You deserve to feel it, to express it in whatever way feels good to you. Anybody who doesn’t want to love and honor and DEVOUR that part of you is absolutely not worth your time.

And your counselor is right: you can’t change him. For the part 12 years, I had very similar pains and frustrations with (Sweetie), I spent so many years BEGGING her to get her teeth fixed, to take care of herself, to get out of the job that was rotting her soul, etc. You wouldn’t believe the RELIEF that came when I realized I didn’t have to do that anymore, that I’m no longer responsible for her, that I never have to make her into someone I can stand to live with. I’m so grateful that I never, EVER have to nag her about anything ever again and I thank heavens every day that those are no longer my teeth to worry about.

A bad relationship can make you blind to the things that make you lovable, can make you feel like you can’t have or don’t deserve an escape route. But you can and you do. You are brilliant, powerful, tenacious, and loving and (if you don’t mind me saying) one of the most desirable people I’ve ever met. (Pause to take the sexTARDIS back to 2001 and leap upon you and yours…) It might not look this way now, but I could not be more sure that, after however much alone time you want, you could have absolutely ANYONE your heart desires.

To egalitarian-minded girls like ourselves it might to be hard to admit this, but it’s true: the world is full of people who are not good enough for us. He isn’t. He might be for someone, some day, but not for you, not now.

So take the alone time you want. Try to get inside yourself and see how brave and loving and worthy you are. Don’t dismiss your sex drive as unimportant; it’s there for a reason, and it deserves to be celebrated and appreciated.

There’s happiness and sex and joy ALL OVER THE PLACE waiting for you, and no matter what you decide, I’m here ready to send you all the gold stars.

Love,

(Me)"

Rejection is Not an Assessment or a Humiliation…Right?

As a poet, I should be better-prepared to be rejected. Over the years, I have received hundreds of rejection slips for hundreds of poems, manuscripts, etc, and only very rarely did I feel that they had any bearing on the quality of my work. If only I could have that same confidence about myself!

Though it’s been mostly a very happy week over here, I’ve been laying awake with very jealous, hurty feelings about the Mayor of Kittentown. It’s isn’t so much that he belongs to her now; it’s that he officially no longer belongs to me. I’m bothered by the difference between being able to belong to multiple people and only belonging to one—instead of just having a different heart, I worry that I might have a deficient one. I think childlike thoughts like “How could he just throw me away?” in spite of the fact that I broke up with him about two and a half times. I knew we weren’t going to fall in love, I always encouraged him to keep looking (which looks, in retrospect, like its own kind of cruelty…) but the loss of our physical friendship is hitting me hard, it’s breaking my heart, making me feel a little bit dismantled.

Rejection bogs me down. For whatever reason, his rejection seems to negate everything good that he made me believe about myself: that I could trust a man, that I could have a happy bisexual life, that I’m can be beautiful and sexy to men. Somehow it feels like he took those things away just by not wanting me anymore, that I need him (and Bill, and Fireguy) just to have those hot feeling back, but I understand intellectually that that’s just not true.

These men so far, things have gone so wrong with them that I feel as if I have failed a series of entrance exams, that I failed to qualify for their gender. Losing each of them has been so exquisitely painful that it’s hard to feel connected to the good things that have happened, to all the real progress that I’ve made.

I tend to mistake rejection for facts: Bill said he couldn’t have a serious relationship with a poly woman, so I felt unlovable. Fireguy didn’t like being written about, so I thought the project itself made me unlovable. MKT’s simpler (?) idea of love makes me feel like I’m too hopelessly, messily complicated for men.

And I AM complicated, but that doesn’t mean that there won’t be a guy who’ll love me for it—I believe those are called, uh,  polyamorous guys—who’ll be willing to share his life with me. Two of the men in the previous paragraph identified as monogamous, and the other was a heartbroken mess, so I don’t think I can make any generalizations about them, other than 1. Duh, date poly guys and 2. Don’t be a rebound redhead.

I would love to have back all of the good physical lessons I got from them, to not have the hot self-discoveries cancelled out by the fact that they’re gone. Not too long ago, in a Poly Weekly episode about minimizing scene drama, either Minx or her guest said something like “Just because someone disagrees with you doesn’t make you less awesome.” I would LIKE to think that just because someone doesn’t want to fuck me and/or fall in love with me doesn’t make me any less lovable and/or hot.” No one can turn back time and take away those experiences—no one can take any of it away.

Of course this goes back to the heart of this project—learning to approve of myself so that I don’t have to wear myself down trying to gain approval from others, except in fun ways, of course. I started this quest for my inner Bettie Page because I wanted her confidence, the way the looks boldly into the camera, the way she returns the gaze. She is not going to shrink timidly into nothingness when the lens turns away from her, and neither am I.

Dear Divine Whatever,

Please help me to collect and feel whatever good they’ve all given me so far, to take it in as fuel to bravely move forward, believing in every glance and touch and step, having faith in whatever radiates out of me at my proudest, most joyful moments.

(To which I can imagine the Divine Whatever saying: “Good girl. So pretty.”)