✎ Journal || 02.16.24
Lonely, ain't it? Yes, but my lonely is mine. Now your lonely is somebody else's. Made by somebody else and handed to you. Ain't that something? A secondhand lonely.
Toni Morrison, Sula
Was it always so big?
If the size of the box in the back of our guest room closet wasn't enough on its own to be intimidating, I knew its contents were. I knew that it was taped and tucked neatly away in a space Sam and I hardly touched in our converted firehouse home, forgotten and buried as our lives expanded in all of the ways we planned. As we shifted, moving all of us and adding more to us, that big box followed, nestling in the same way we did.
Cozy, only rustling when we did. Comfortable, only transplanting when we did. Stuck, only budging when we did.
I've weaved through nearly a decade with Sam, none of us making it into the box. And as we inch toward that full 10 years in April, I know why. He's always made sense of me, always been able to smooth out friction, and tempt me to be someone who doesn't hide from him, doesn't need to, and couldn't if she wanted to. He'll be 34 in a few days and we've been celebrating him all month--because February is his month, after all. My young thing grew up on me. I sprouted right alongside him, and now I'm waltzing my way to 35, having finally housed so much of what I thought I'd never find a home for.
Was it always so heavy?
If the box had been harder to get at, I probably would have given up, waited for the next move to let Sam lug it to a new home. But it eased out of the closet without a fight, parted its flaps at the suggestion of a sharp pair of scissors, spreading in a deep exhale to sigh over a decade of my life into the room.
Zuri said I should open it. She saw me once a week for an hour for so many months I lost count. Listened, took notes. She saw me on the heels of an emergency room visit, the cause of which was pegged as "exhaustion", earning me a place among all those late 90s/early aughts starlets whose lives I thumbed through worlds away from the concrete constructed housing projects in Philly I called home. She saw me within a week after a long search for a black feminine mental health professional that actually did feel...exhausting. She saw me, unpacking in that painfully slow way I'd always been accustomed to.
Cortisol plateau. Burn out. Fatigue. Irritability. Horrible sleep. Blood pressure spike knocking my noggin with a headache so bad I could barely stand.
Took me weeks to calm, to land on real therapy (not using Sylvia and Sam to wade through all my problems) as an alternative treatment to the listlessness I tried to treat with quitting my day job and immersing fully into a schedule of dominatrix work that was...a bit much. But she saw me, waited me out once we'd started, sat dutifully through a slow mental striptease that satisfied nobody.
She still sees me every other month--virtual now since Sam and I left San Fran for the farmhouse not far from Houston. There's so much more to us than I ever imagined there would be. We've spread out and spawned, got land and a little one, but stayed so close I can tell when he's hungry just by looking at him. And I swear that that little green-eyed, curly-topped version of him and me running around makes the same faces when it's time to eat. I see them, chasing chickens and playing in paint, one of them designing my tattoos and both of them fascinated by each one, loud and happy and silly and sweet. My adventurers. My big one and my little one getting all the best parts of me I never needed to pack away.
Was it always so full?
If I didn't know myself, I'd be surprised that the box was in order, arranged from the newest things I'd stashed all the way down to the oldest. Scribbled moments, most dated to confirm their place in my timeline, others bearing names that told me exactly where they belonged.
Took Zuri and I months to get to the box. When I finally mentioned writing as a former outlet and let slip the existence of my written stored memories, I could practically hear the click in her mind, something locking firmly into gear and ensuring that we would go as far down that road as we could.
Jordan was at the top. Didn't give her a second thought after I moved out of our shared complex and ended a friend/client relationship that shouldn't have ever started, but she was represented in the notes I took after my meetings with her; a few filled pages of desires unfulfilled. I had every intention of fulfilling them, too--wanted to mold myself into both friend and fantasy and be whatever she wanted.
Owen was underneath. Our old schedule--what tools he wanted and on which days, cards he'd sent--most of them hand-drawn, wishing me happy holidays and the like. As of his last update, he was lawyering in LA and he'd found someone local to satisfy that part of him that needed to be disciplined. We drifted after I left the Haight, after he brought me out of retirement post San Fran relocation, after a lengthy goodbye session that included our usual everything but the one thing I never gave any of my clients. He got close. I touched him, trespassed over the line that was meant to keep our relationship professional because he wanted me to and I wanted him to have what he wanted.
Ian was all throughout. I wrote about him most of all, several silly poems and stories about the way my hands would sweat when we clung to one another on the walks home from middle school, about the first kiss we shared in a coatroom, about lying on my back for him for thirty seconds of something we were both too young to understand or appreciate but would get plenty of practice perfecting with each other over the years. I don't know if he still exists. I recognize that thought as a luxury. He wanted me first and seemingly most of all, wanted me as Senay and even more as his very own Vixen once I started dabbling in domme work. He picked outfits for her, helped her practice her swings, remained just enough of an asshole to turn that sweet, soft girl into something dangerous. I wanted to be each edge of his entire universe because for so long I believed that's what he wanted of me.
Was it always mine?
If I had to disturb the box--and I absolutely had to once it was locked in with Zuri--I had to settle up with everything inside and still had to live outside of it while I worked my way through. So I lined up what I could, what I felt like I needed: long talks with Sean without any of the other 8 kids around, a few lines to Stacy to let her know I'm breathing, blocking Ian in every way imaginable, and continuing that months-long search for a way ahead and out of my own.
My mother was further down and everywhere I looked. Mother's day poems, birthday cards, stories that all put my need for her attention on full display. Her letters and the responses I never sent are near the top, angry first drafts that prove that I didn't always understand her addiction as a disease, all detached from the sobriety chips she sends each time she gets a new one. First, the chips came every couple of months, then each year. Last one came at the seven-year mark--she sent her six-year chip when she received her seventh right before we moved. I started writing her back after the second year, months after I started seeing Zuri. Nothing lengthy and we never call or text--just enough to know the other is alive. No money, no gifts. I sent her my address in Texas and let her know that she's a grandmother now. I'm waiting on that seven-year chip. I want her to be good for herself in the way she never could be for me.
My dad was lowest of all. A letter from 6-year-old Senay anchoring the paper pile, an apology for not being able to attend his wedding, like that was her fault and not the result of the machinations of a woman helplessly steered by an addiction. In the box, I spent time asking why Sean left, contemplating what I needed to fix to bring him back, and imagining my life if he returned. I could see the point where I found out that I'd basically written the new version of him into existence, when I saw just how good of a father he could be to Imani and Jaycen and the rest. My jealously is all over those pages, teen angst that I channeled into self-loathing sonnets. Sean is good. Always has been. And when I think about my munchkins or the beautiful being I popped out who he is the epitome of a doting grandfather to, I am so glad that he is.
I spent too much of my life twisting into everything I thought Stacy and Sean wanted me to be. And I never got it right in a way that would give me back the family I longed for. So I packed. Jordan, Owen, Ian, Stacy, and Sean. All of them, all packed up. Waiting. Bound tight and staying exactly where I put them.
I had to talk about boundaries with Zuri. We stumbled there somehow when I tripped my way through the story of how I began my life as Mistress. Tamara and Arthur sat between Ian and Owen. They were a very detailed account of the rush I felt after ordering Arthur around that first time and many follow-up chronicles all related to the job I fell into (and in love with) because the word no always eluded me.
I couldn't pinpoint too many boundaries I'd set--with anyone. There were so few things I asked for, required, expected, and actually held fast to upholding. I took what I got--polished it up, dressed it, made it mine, then penned my experiences so they didn't have to live in my head.
Thought I got it all out of me, shed it once and for all. But there it all sat, written but never digested, never aligned up with the life I ended up living outside of that box.
Was it always with me?
If I was in a rush, I wouldn't have read a thing in the box. But slowing down and eventually ceasing domme work after my emergency room visit left me with plenty of time to peruse. I read deeply, hours at a time, the highlights of which I took back to Zuri, laying out for her all of the things that nicked at my brain the most.
Over time, we settled on a few:
Sean and Stacy colliding the way they did. Sean leaving the scene and never stopping to survey the damage and Stacy too preoccupied to realize just how banged up I was. All the roadblocks I've hit in trying to be my whole self instead of straddling between wholesome community work and a deep, fulfilling enjoyment of physical pleasure. Something in me that only saw my purpose as serving others. I'm happiest when I'm helping, even if the help depletes me because if I'm useful, I won't be alone and feel that ache of a loneliness settled so deeply it sometimes felt tangible.
I ended up online at Zuri's suggestion, when I could feel the loneliness breathing in me whenever Sam wasn't around. I found forums first, eventually working my way toward avidly followed profiles, channels, and then a podcast where all those pieces I used to hide could get laid out in segments I research, plan, and write. The podcast started as just another way to climb out of the box but grew into a community I cultivated when I quickly realized there were so many folks in the world just like me in search of a place to put all those things they packed away. We talk relationships, and sex, and love, and trauma, and mistakes, and anything else we pull out of our boxes. Now the subscribers and followers are loyal and engaged and in the tens of thousands and I don't plan to part with any of my life online, despite the ocean of opinions breathed into microphones these days. My space is still there, bound or unbound as I want it to be.
Cozy, a place I can put all of me. Comfortable, a world with borders I've designed. Stuck, a part of me that I'll never put away again.
