Modern love... Walks beside me... walks on by

A mostly-heterosexual, chubby, brown girl's guide to dating in nyc

[nevergonnafallfor-blog]

Portland trip w Mr. Ex

It is summer, and I am ready for vacation.  To be more precise, I am ready to go explore a strange city with Mr. Ex, except this time, I have friends in this strange city that I want to hang out with, and this time, there is a wedding we will be attending together.

My flight gets delayed about an hour, so our flights end up coming in around the same time to the airport. Mr. Ex convinces me to wait for him, and after picking up my suitcase from baggage claim, I wait for him.  He comes walking up, scanning the room, looking for me, and I stand up, his arms go out and I walk into them.  We hold each other for a long moment in that airport, it feels quiet all around me.

We’re in the taxi heading to the Air BnB, and I feel the beginnings of something deep inside.  By the time Mr. Ex leaves, I’ll know what those first little rustlings were, but for now, it just feels nice to be beside him, holding hands, his thumb moving over my wrist lightly.

We get to the AirBnB which is great, we have this windowseat which I go bonkers over, and every day we’re there, I get to spend a decent amount of time laying out on the windowseat, reading a book.  Our first night, we get in and wash up and snuggle on the couch, and my friend BV is texting me since he’ll be going on vacation the next day and tonight is our only night to hang out in Portland.  He drives over to us, and we walk out to a bar/restaurant.

Portland feels very different from NYC.  It looks similar, and people look similar, but there’s no one out and about on a Thursday night, and the whole city feels deserted.  Mr. Ex seems to be getting along with BV, who I admittedly am not that close with, but who is big-hearted and kind and I’ve always liked.  When we get home, Mr. Ex and I roll a j with some weed he brought from Denver, and we snuggle for a few hours, talking quietly before having sex.

In the morning, my friend JL, who I am much closer to, comes over to take us all around town.  I tell him I want to go to the famous bookstore, and a weed dispensary, and someplace delicious for brunch, so we begin the day with brunch.  Mr. Ex is possibly starting to get annoyed at the lack of alone time we’re getting on this trip compared to our New Orleans trip which was all alone time more or less. The first problem happens as we walk up to JL’s car, he has a minivan with 2 front seats, and the back is all taken up by a mattress, so he can take trips and sleep in his car.  Mr. Ex takes one look at the backseat and is all, we should take an Uber.  But we’re in Portland now! I exclaim, I’ll sit in the back, we’ll be fine.  And I lay out in the back while JL drives Mr. Ex and I around.

The second issue comes up at brunch, where we wait for about 2 hours to get food.  At this point, I’m like how is this any different from Brooklyn? Mr. Ex grumbles about the wait pretty loudly, making JL feel bad and defensive for bringing us there.  But the food is delicious when it comes, and I go on and on about it’s deliciousness to make JL feel better for his choice.

Then we go to a dispensary where Mr. Ex buys me weed to my heart’s delight, trying to remind me that we’re only here for 5 days, and then we go to the bookshop.  In one of the aisles Mr. Ex kisses me, and I remind him of how I took him to my favorite NYC bookshop on our first date.  I remember, he whispers, moving my hair out of my face, and when someone comes hurrying down the aisle we move apart and go our separate ways, promising to meet in the rare book room on the top floor.  Where we find JL, and look at giant books under lamps, and I’m in my happy place until I realize how bored Mr. Ex must be.

Next stop? JL asks.

Anywhere he wants to go, I say pointing over to Mr. Ex, who likes German beer halls, and… well I’m not sure and what else.  

So we go to JL’s apartment to smoke, and because he has a beer hall right next door.  Mr. Ex thinks he got too stoned (this is the problem with legal weed, it fucks you up wayyy too much) and he kept talking about needing to balance it out with some booze.  AH shows up, and she’s magical and zany and charming, and I feel Mr. Ex relax a little more around her.   We go to the beer hall, where without my noticing until it’s too late, Mr. Ex gets ridiculously, rip-roaring drunk.  This means, he’s less quiet, and more disapproving of things.  AH handles him like a pro, while both JL and I get sorta pouty and annoyed at his just complaining about everything.  JL keeps talking about taking us to a dance party at the end of the night that’s close to our Air BnB, and Mr. Ex starts bashing dance clubs, and isn’t quite listening when JL is telling him that we’re not going to a club, but a dive bar with a fun dance night.  This is when I realize that they probably don’t like each other much, or get along.   This is when I also start getting annoyed at Mr. Ex for getting so fucked up that he can barely function. We go to a thai restaurant, where Mr. Ex decides he doesn’t want to eat, even though he’s drunk.  He ends up eating food off all of our plates anyway. And I can tell JL is starting to get incredibly annoyed, for no other reason that he thinks Mr. Ex is rude, and he might be wondering what in the hell I’m doing with someone like him.

So, AH and JL drop Mr. Ex and I off at our place to nap before the dance party.  And JL texts later about it, but Mr. Ex seems to be sleepy, and I want to not be a jerk to him.  I lay next to his drunken, slumbering form and go back and forth. Do I want him to remain sort of quiet and mysterious around my friends?  Is he not allowed to just be himself now and again?  Angrily, I think, NO! But if I’m being reasonable, I know that he should feel free to be himself, and not be judged too harshly for it.

And I guess this is when the rumbling I first feel from seeing him at the airport lets itself be known as discomfort with the idea that we’re just not that compatible.  No matter how much I love him, no matter how nice he’s being right now, in this moment that I needed it most.  At the end of the day, we’re just so very different from each other.  Our idea of a good time is even usually different.

And with this realization I bow out of the dance party that would be filled with all my art school friends. And I weirdly start to look forward to the last 2 days of the trip which will be happening without Mr. Ex since he has to go back to work.

But first, I have to survive a wedding with him tomorrow.

[nevergonnafallfor-blog]

a text from a friend

[nevergonnafallfor-blog]

Shut it down so the better one can rise up

My dream of the monsters chasing me around dark and lonely hallways replays in my mind, after the most recent emotional explosion happens.  After my hope gets blown to bits and sears an image of human-monsters onto my retinas.  That growing nose covered by a birthday cone hat, the horror-story face of the female monster behind him, their evil laughter, their lonely demise.  Their cries for help that are not for me to answer.

I call my therapist, who I haven’t spoken to in months, why do I feel like this, I cry to him, I’m powerless again.

So he asks me what I have to do to stop feeling this way, at the hands of someone who doesn’t know what love is, crawls around like a bottomfeeder to feel something, anything, annihilating the innocents.  He knows he has access and he’s using it to bully you, he might have lied about breaking up with her, he’s been lying to you and himself since you met, he reminds me.

And suddenly, somehow, I know. I’ve always known, I say wonderingly, I just didn’t want to be unkind, but I’ve only been unkind to myself.

My therapist reminds me that this month was one of quiet introspection, of willpower turned into action.  This couldn’t have happened at a better time for you, he insists, showing you again the kind of soul-deep love you desire and are holding out for, where you both give your all to each other, it’s not something everyone is capable of, but also this month always lets you display your strength and power, what you are capable of.  

I ramble for a while longer, he didn’t even ask how I was doing, didn’t even wish me happy birthday, not one question about work or family or anything!  Not a single one! Just talked about himself, just went on and on about his own shit.

And the more I speak, the more I know what to do, and a peace settles over me.  A calm after months and months of bad faith, of a storm of selfishness and casual, constant cruelty.  I’m free.

“’I thank you for concern, but really, there is nothing to be done, you see, once something has happen, a person has two choices. Reject or accept. To reject, you suffer all manner of harm. Your legs ache. Your head is in pain. It covers you. To accept, you must swallow the pain, whole, in one piece, and even then, you suffer, for who can swallow so much pain? But still you must make a choice.’” - from Uncertain Origins 

This is when Mr. Ex displays his superpower of somehow reading my mind, because he calls me to go over plans of the hot springs we’ll visit on our trip, the pictures and maps I emailed him during the week.  We end up talking about the time we watched 4th of July fireworks on N’s rooftop 3 years ago.  After a barbecue we threw with my friends after spending the morning at the beach.  

Mr. Ex had taken the subway out from the Upper East Side to meet us by the sand and sea, and it took him almost 3 hours.  We were setting out to leave when he came walking up to us, watching me in my bathing suit with a smile on his face, his hand up to shade his eyes from the glare of the sun so he could find us.

After that, we did groceries together for the impromptu barbecue, and he helped us grill food in N’s alleyway.  Then we sauntered up to the roof, kept our arms around each other, walked over to a corner to watch the sky light up above our heads long after everyone went back downstairs, as the neighborhood firestarters continued their show after the city sanctioned one ended.  And the way he kissed me underneath the sky exploding.  The reflection of the fireworks like sparkles in our eyes.  The glow from spending a holiday in the arms of the boy I liked.  How we went home and explored each other thoroughly, we didn’t have sex for months after we first started dating, taking our sweet time with each other.  The way he watched my face and would smile slightly when he would see how effective his ministrations were.

“Are you going to watch fireworks somewhere tonight?” I ask, my voice hoarse from crying.

“Nah... it’s not as much fun without you,” he says, “that was just... really really nice.”

“Well, I’m going to watch them!  I love fireworks.” I shoot back, and he laughs.

“Fine by me.”

“But I’ll be thinking about how it’s not the same too... without you.” I admit

“Yeah?” he asks.  And I nod, though he can’t see me.

“He wrote: And the folly of humanity is that they fail to see the fleeting nature of life. They dance with the anguish of its ephemera, and then they face death, and wonder how to hold onto things that were not there at the outset. This is the dilemma: how to hang on to love and compassion, but also let go of those objects of our love and compassion. One hand must nurture, while the other hand thrusts away. We must act as if life was tangible and vital, while knowing that it is as fleeting as a puff of air.” - from Uncertain Origins

[nevergonnafallfor-blog]

birfday

The ones who always make your birthday special can go on and get it.

[nevergonnafallfor-blog]

Nightmares and ghosts

I’ve been plagued with strange bad dreams lately, that feel too real, that take place in my room in the gray shadows of dusk, between 4am and 6am.

Recently, it was the feeling that if I opened my eyes I would see something.  I open my eyes, and leaning over the side of my bed is a figure, hooded in a pale gray robe, watching me from the shadowed oval of it’s unreachable, unsee-able face.  I scream and flail out with my hands, trying to push it away.  I don’t think I touch anything, and it stays there while I fitfully try to fall back asleep (convinced it will make it disappear).  I open my eyes again, and this time it’s made that weird dab dance move everyone is doing.  Where they cross an arm across their chest, pushing their face into the crux of their elbow, and raise their other arm up at a 45 degree angle.  I feel like it’s trying to make me laugh, but it also makes it look like a long sharp nose is emerging out of the hood.  I go back to sleep and dream that I am in my old high school.  An old building out on long island, that – like most old buildings – was rumored to be haunted.  I’m running through, in the nighttime, in the darkness, frantic and sure something is after me.  I see a boy and a girl from far away, running too, and I wait, thinking they may be allies, knowing they might be what I’m running from.  When they’re close, I notice that the boy has a birthday cone hat over the lower half of his face, it’s super elongated.  I reach out and pull it off, and notice it has a super long nose, like the hooded figure bent over my bed. The girl behind him has a horror-story face with pointy teeth and an evil smile. They’re both laughing at me.  I’m terrified, but more than that, I’m pissed. I scream as I reach out to hit him and wake up.

Last week I’d had a dream that a buddy from my volunteering committee came over, and sat on my bed, and then just lay his torso across mine, pushing me down to the bed.  Again it felt real, I felt this immense weight.  And I remember just being puzzled, thinking, “what are you doing? Stop!”

I’ve been carrying around a low-level hum of anxiety about Tinder Ginger.  Ever since he emailed me a couple of weeks ago to let me know that he broke up with his girlfriend.  At first read, I felt like my stomach fell out of my butt.  Then I have a dream about him, where I realize it doesn’t mean anything, and his subsequent emails prove it too.  Women will always just be a means to an end, and possibly never more than that.  Never an equal partner on equal footing, never deserving of his wholehearted love, compromise or attention.  I feel bad for him present and future having to live with that, and myself for the tiny seedling of hope his email nurtures within me.

But the dream I have is this: he comes to my apartment while me and my friends are crafting.  I hide in my room, like a princess in a tower, in a castle behind a moat, and he fights through my friends to get in.  We look at each other and the air is electric, tiny filaments of lightning zigzagging between us.  

He starts to ask me if I’ll take him back, and just breaks down sobbing.  We both cry for a moment, then reach out and hold on to each other.  "Okay, fine!"  I yell and we lay in bed, his arms around me, my back to him as I wonder what I’ve gotten myself into.  “I’ll want to be with just one person – just you – soon… but not yet.” He says, and I’m furious, and start to pull away but he holds on tight.  We catch up about other things, I ask him if he’s gotten lucky recently and he mentions he’s turned his pink penis red with all the jacking off he’s had to do.

“Makes sense, there should be consequences for only hurting all the women who ever loved you, right?” I ask (a rhetorical question) and he nods uncertainly.  

I straddle him, teasing him slowly, he’s crowing with delight, and I’m moaning, we’re looking deep into each other’s eyes, but even in the dream a part of me holds back, not giving in to the tidal wave of desire rising inside.   He’ll just use me again, he said it himself. So I get up and walk away.  “C’moooon” he groans, but I don’t succumb.  “Don’t come back until you’re ready,” I warn, and I walk away.  And I wake up, heartbroken all over again.

Because my shameful secret is this: it feels so good to be with him again, and it’s not easy walking away.  The moments with him live in a hollowed out gun metal absence of light.  

In my dream, he says, “You know what we have is real, I know you feel it too.”

But how can that be if he’s still willing to make me miserable to make himself happy, if he’s still as selfish as always, a Pinocchio half-man with no conscience?  (Only in my dream, but also my memories of how he treated me).

Hence the low-level hum of anxiety thrumming through me since we’ve started emailing each other again.  What do you want from me?  I want to ask.  What more could there possibly be left for you to take from me?  Besides the unrequited font of love I had for you before you showed me in a million ways how worthless that love was to you.  How could you come back and not address any of that?

The anxiety springs up because we’re not even really communicating with each other, we speak in a code I can’t quite decipher.  He tells me to watch My Love Don’t Cross That River, and just seeing the trailer reminds me of the kind of love I believed in when we were together.  Reminds me of when we broke up and he said we’d get married one day, and die as old people within a week of each other, finding life unbearable without the other.  The kind of love I don’t think I can believe in anymore, not after how much hurt he left behind.  But what’s the point of sharing any of this with him?

So I don’t, but the words strain against my skin like my scars, the feeling haunts my subconscious with dreams and ghosts, so I spill them out here in an effort to exorcise them from my heart.

And yet, in my heart he remains.

[nevergonnafallfor-blog]

What’s this feeling?

Mr. Ex and I have our next trip booked.  The itinerary looks like this: Portland, OR, then a wedding in Eugene, and then Crater Lake and a cabin in the woods.   When talking to Mr. Ex about it, I mention the wedding in my characteristic style, giving him plenty of options to back out, outright saying that it doesn’t seem like the kind of thing he’d be into doing.  And he calls me after getting my self-effacing email to insist he wants to go to the wedding with me.

“Where’s Mr. Ex?  Can you put him on the line?  I have no idea who I’m speaking to right now.” I joke when he makes it abundantly clear (after a lot of me asking You sure?  You sure you’re sure?)  that he wants to be my date for the wedding.

“Shaddup,” he replies with a chuckle.

And I don’t know what to do with this feeling.  Half of me is in shock that someone is showing up for me, engaging, and also mostly in shock that it’s Mr. Ex acting this way.  But the other half of me is slowly, very slowly, letting out this looong, pent-up sigh of relief.  I’m finally being treated well by someone I care about.

Fucking finally.  

It always seemed like such a simple ask, just be there for me, and it's been impossible for me to get that level of engagement, care, attention, ever before.  It shouldn't feel so foreign, but it does, and it tastes delicious.  I realize more and more with Mr. Ex, that he has a level of trustworthiness I’m completely unaccustomed to.  When he says something, he means it, which is maybe why he doesn’t say much.  

But I also don’t quite believe it’s happening, and as we talk on the phone and email each other over the week about travel plans, Mr. Ex might just be able to sense it, so he starts booking our Air BnB’s and hotels and sending me the confirmations. As if to say, see, I’m doing this, I’m going to this with you.  Trust it, baby.

I tell him about Japanese Gardens and Pok Pok, Crater Lake and hot springs, and Portland, and my friend JL who lives there who’s already excited about seeing us.  When JL asks who Mr. Ex is, I describe him as my traveling bae.

Which seems about right.

But doesn’t quite encompass the way he calls me regularly, asking me about everything, and how I can talk to him for hours about all the little, banal parts of my day and work, and feel him listening to every word I say.  How important and cherished it all makes me feel, but how confusing it is because at the end of the day, he still lives in Denver, and I don’t know how exactly we’d make this work with all that distance.  Especially lately, as he does all these sweet things:

“Have you ever been to Oregon?” I ask, and he responds, “No, was never really interested before…”

And I want to jump on his lap and stare into his eyes, watching his pupils dilate, hold him close to see if he’s for fucking real, because it’s starting to feel terrifyingly real.

Except for that distance.

I had a dream this weekend.  I’m traveling somewhere with my family, and Mr. Ex is going to meet me there too.  I have to hide him from my parents, and my sister helps me with this.  When I see him, dream me feels this strange intensity of feeling, and I mean to give him a short hug, but neither of us can bear letting go so I bury my face in his throat and he groans.  Hilarious antics ensue, as we try to keep him hidden from my parents, I pass him a note in a park where my family is, on a bench far from the familial festivities, CIA-spy-style.  But despite my best efforts, at one point, my parents catch us, holding hands, grocery shopping, and I hear them behind me, saying my name, a question in their tone.  I turn to Mr. Ex and he looks at me, steadily, “Are you ready?” he asks.  And it’s weirdly like the dream I’d had years ago, when we were dating, except instead of panicking, I look at him and feel this enormous bubble welling up in my chest, and I smile, so that we turn around to face my parents, still holding hands.

And I wake up, and I’m just like, what does it all mean?

There are no final answers yet.  There is so much I haven’t shared with  Mr. Ex, and I still don’t know if we’re right for each other, if being so far apart is part of what makes us appreciate each other so much more.  But this not knowing is strangely sweet, not yet tinged with sadness.

And I’m so fucking excited for our trip.

[nevergonnafallfor-blog]

That Stanford Rape Case everyone is talking about

I’m sure you’ve heard, I mean everyone is talking about it, and as much as I loathe to jump on social media’s latest sacrificial lamb to slaughter (mostly it’s just people being people and making stupid mistakes on a grand, public scale) the latest story shows just how much rape culture has permeated American culture, and it’s sickening.

So of course, I’m talking about Brock Turner, but fuck him.  Seriously (and this is a whole new topic) but my friend wished for him to get raped in jail so he could understand how terrible it was, but another friend was like he’ll just blame it on the victim some more.  I was silent for most of this, because I understand the visceral YOU’RE TERRIBLE I HOPE TERRIBLE THINGS HAPPEN TO YOU reaction.  Except… that I don’t actually want it to be true.  I don’t want other people to get raped to understand why and how wrong and degrading it is, but I DO want rapists to understand it.  And maybe this goes back to hating the process, or more accurately, hating what is HARD about the process.  But it’s really about how maybe sometimes bad things do have to happen for you to become a better person?  You do have to suffer to understand how you’ve made others suffer?  (so stream of conscious right now, bear with me).  Be that as it may, I still can’t speak the words out loud, the: I-hope-he-gets-raped words.  I hope he understands what he’s done, and I hope that is more devastating than any actual physical harm that may come to him.  (but then again, that’s all I wanted from Tinder Ginger too, and I think wanting people like this to understand might be an impossible and unreasonable ask, and the fact that it’s not our responsibility to make them understand is the only comfort I have left).

But barring all that, I want to talk about the brave, devastating letter written by the victim, and shared by thousands.  I want to talk about reading that before going out to meet my friends on Saturday night, and falling to the floor bawling because of how relatable her feelings of loss, and isolation were as a fellow survivor of sexual assault.  How hard it was to read and know that through it all, she just wanted to be understood, to have a voice.  But she did have a voice, her voice rose out above all the others.  And feeling empowered by the fact that though the people who hurt us may never understand, we can understand each other.  And have that be enough.  We need to make it be enough.

One part of her letter that really hit me the hardest, was when she described this moment: “I stood there examining my body beneath the stream of water and decided, I don’t want my body anymore. I was terrified of it… I wanted to take off my body like a jacket and leave it at the hospital with everything else.”

Reading that made my heart stop for one second, I remembered the same feeling with the boogeyman, after the first attack happened.  Going home and staring at the mirror, knowing everything had changed but not being able to pinpoint it exactly in my reflection.  Also, that feeling whenever he reached for me again, of being terrified of my body, of how my body betrayed me by being wanted by him, of wishing I could find a zipper somewhere and let it all fall, a golden brown puddle of skin pooled around my ankles, my anxious and terrified soul free in the air, flying away from his grasping, clutching grip.

Reading about the judge giving the rapist a lenient sentence, and the father describing the rape as “20 minutes of action” are classic examples of rape culture.  How being drunk and the bad decision-making that comes with a certain level of drunk, gives people a CULTURALLY ACCEPTED excuse to rape -- but not rob, murder or even operate a moving vehicle.  How pervasive these thoughts are in our culture, that this father’s letter was able to persuade the judge to be lenient in his sentencing.  Of the lack of remorse or responsibility taken by the guilty party, and the guilty party’s enforcers… oh I could go on and on.

But I wanted to take as much of the focus away from the rapist as possible, and put that focus on the emotional intelligence, and reasonable request from the victim, that this person take responsibility for what they did.  I think anyone who has ever felt wronged, however slightly can understand where she is coming from.  And her anguish, along with her desire to express this to the system that failed her in so many ways, is just really really brave.  In my recent attempts to explain myself to someone, I gave up, just gave up completely on ever being understood.  But this makes me realize that I don’t necessarily have to give up on being understood, just that I can choose a more receptive audience.  For this girl, her audience was the public, and that’s okay (and even braver).

I’d like to imagine that there is a place, where all of us who wanted to disappear underneath the weight of our bodies being betrayed – little boys and little girls and little trans, grown men and women and trans (because it doesn’t just happen to females) – can be safe.  It would be shimmering, in candlelight, soft and cloud-filled, a place that is us.  We’ve become foggy halos around streetlights and the smoky air before a thunderstorm, we have no bodies and are seamless with nature and each other and because we’re boundless, we’re unafraid of who will hurt us next.

When she ended her letter with this: ‘And finally, to girls everywhere, I am with you. On nights when you feel alone, I am with you. When people doubt you or dismiss you, I am with you. I fought everyday for you. So never stop fighting, I believe you. As the author Anne Lamott once wrote, “Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining.” Although I can’t save every boat, I hope that by speaking today, you absorbed a small amount of light, a small knowing that you can’t be silenced, a small satisfaction that justice was served, a small assurance that we are getting somewhere, and a big, big knowing that you are important, unquestionably, you are untouchable, you are beautiful, you are to be valued, respected, undeniably, every minute of every day, you are powerful and nobody can take that away from you. To girls everywhere, I am with you. Thank you.’  I could feel myself in this imaginary place, and I could feel her there too.  

That’s where we can go to heal.  That’s where we can go for some understanding.

[nevergonnafallfor-blog]

You’re on a break, remember

It is a weeknight, and you meet a boy at a bar.  You guys laugh and he gets you all worked up on politics and after a rousing debate he calls you a genius and kisses your cheek.  So of course you take him home, you shouldn’t drink without having dinner anyway, and he has an easy charm about him although you don’t know if you can trust the charming ones anymore.

So you guys go home and you kiss, and he pulls his dick out and you say, “really?” and he says “no expectations,” and you look pointedly at the dick in his hands and look at him again and repeat, “really?”

And so he pins you to the bed as you both giggle and his kisses are explosive with passion, and you keep grasping onto his face.  He grabs a fistful of your hair and pulls your head back so you can look up at him and he tells you you’re beautiful.  And you think, of course you’d think that.  You don’t like me at all.

There is a strange undercurrent of violence beneath everything, maybe it’s always been there and you’re just noticing it more these days.

He stares into your eyes as he cums, and you wonder what he can see there, is there anything of me you’re even looking at?  Are you thinking about someone else?  Am I even here?

You kiss after he cums, he holds you close and asks if he can smoke a cigarette.  You guys cuddle for a bit longer before you send him out onto the fire escape.  He asks if you want to get dinner, or more drinks, or if you have some of the food you keep mentioning you like to cook, and you smoke a joint and don’t answer for a long while, until you finally say “don’t you have to go soon?”  and he just looks at you before looking away to finish his cigarette.

And you go to the bathroom, and when you come back he’s rifling through your books, and games.  “you’re so smart,” he keeps saying, and you just kiss him some more.  When he finally leaves he asks if he can see you again, and you shrug and say “sure, let me know when you’re around.”

It’s easy to forget, you’re taking a break remember?  But you liked the look of his broken nose and his silvery hair, and the way it felt to be held and listened to by someone who wanted very badly to kiss you.  And yes, use you too, but does it even matter anymore?

[nevergonnafallfor-blog]

The Somnambulist’s Lament

There is a path

Between us… it is soft with shadow

Strung between brassy lights

That twinkle like stars

Sometimes we’re on it, heading towards each other

For now, I rest in the shade

Of a hill that rises behind my shoulders, I sleep

With my head on a rock, (it’s a pillow, you see)

And I dream of the cities between the paths,

Of your steps coming closer, or pausing

Or veering further away

In my dreams I can only hear the sound

But remain unable to catch you

Or your face, coming

Around the bend

I wake with tears on my cheeks

And blossoms from the nearby tree

Spill over my body

To cocoon me while I sleep

One day the transformation will be complete

In the narrow pathways where we will meet

You will wonder at how I’ve changed

And I’ll wonder if it is really you this time

Or someone else wearing your skin, your smile, 

Your hopes like a mask,

But underneath that façade, they’re hiding

Like me

Until then, (that time which might not come)

I will rest in the shade, let spilled petals cover my skin

Like fish scales, an exoskeleton

Armored, for when it’s time to leave,

With bitter berries, picked to poison my own sleep

So I can no longer be betrayed

By my own dreams

[nevergonnafallfor-blog]

Fear of fantasy

One thing I’ve been learning is how much fantasizing has been an important part of healing and being happy for me, but how fantasy can become a serious deterrent.  Especially when you’re faced with reality, but you let your fantasy become some sort of beacon of what your reality could become.

I especially realized it, when writing the last post about Tinder Ginger’s kid, how one part of me absolutely knew I would never meet him, and another part of me got seduced by the fantasy that Tinder Ginger and I were partaking in.  A fantasy that had no basis in reality.

Lately, I’ve been good about not dating anyone new... okay fine!  I caved once!!!  But after a wild make out session in a park, I left and didn’t text again because I’m learning true abundance was never about the number of boys that will want you.  True abundance is more and more about being truly discerning, about what matters to me.  And living that way.  One of the things that’s always upset me about exes is that they would say one thing but act as if the opposite were true.  I do that too, we all do, but I do that with dating a lot.  I go on and on about finding someone true and good, but I play the same games, dating other people on the sly, being sneaky and weird.  It’s time to own up to it, and realize that my actions are also making me unhappy.  Me and my exes would spout a lot of nonsense about what we wanted, but we didn’t follow through with our actions.  And now I’m letting my actions be my guide.

As much as I’m tryna embrace some solitude, Mr. Ex and I are still talking.  We are making plans for new trips, and he’s invited himself to stay with me in Brooklyn for a while.  I occilate between being all warm and then being standoffish, because I don’t want to fall for the fantasy.  And with Mr. Ex, there is so much that’s great about him, but I’m still not sure just how much we get each other, and I am trying extra hard this time around to not make up things about him, like I did with almost every other guy I dated.  I’m thinking we’ll need to have a discussion about these things soon, but I’d like to get more clarity around what I want before we do.

I would like to think I’m learning and getting better.  When the Underdog proved himself to be a poor contender for a mature and safe space to discover love, I didn’t chase after him, wanting to change him. I gave him the benefit of the doubt and one more date, and then when he proved himself to be a fuckboy, I shook him loose.  Sure, there was some back and forth about if ghosting was the best method, and sure, it took a full month and then some to ghost him for good (sheesh, I’m jinxing myself, he’s going to text me again today, isn’t he)? (No, but really, this was a problem, I would be deadset on ghosting him, but then he’d send several texts in a row, the last being cute pics of dogs, and I’d HAVE TO RESPOND, and then start the whole ghost process ALL OVER AGAIN, but it finally.... maybe WORKED)!

But once I stopped caring for him, and wanting validation from him, I felt like I’d finally treated that terrified, hurt child in me well.  I was like I hear you, I hear you, you’ve been hurt over and over again, but let’s not chase those same old hurts because it’s what you’re used to.  It’s much better to be alone than to not matter.  I would tell myself that before, but acting on it has made me really believe it.  It honestly is better and nice and comforting to be alone!  Especially, when the other option is to be shown – in a million ways – how little you matter to someone you are starting to care about.

My new years resolution of writing more is finally starting to come to fruition.  Partly because I want to take my rich, imaginative inner life, and use it in service of my goals, instead of... you know... not. 

I went to a writing group last week, and am joining a new one tomorrow.  Yesterday, I went on a writing tear and started a short story about that disturbing Nola dream I had.  I guess that means you’ll know how the story will end. But writing it made me feel more clear and good with the world than anything has for a long long time.  I had almost completely forgotten that I could make myself feel like that.   But still... I’m finding a way to be more reliable to myself.  It’s slow, torturous work, and it’s totally worth it.

[nevergonnafallfor-blog]

god bless the child

In the course of healing, there has been one thing that has been, thus far, too painful to speak of freely.  Painful in a way that’s hard to explain, because it’s so infinitely precious and imagined.

I am talking about Tinder Ginger’s son, I’m talking about letting go of that particular piece of him.  A piece of him I never met or got to be a part of, but a piece of him that he loved to share with me in other ways, stories, and pictures, and sound bytes until I began to dream of the two of them and myself, the three of us together.

But it was not to be that way.  I remember him playing me recordings of the two of them playing the piano.  How, one time, the sound of his girlfriends voice singing floated out over the sound of their fingers hitting keys and making music, and how even beautifully, clumsy music, was somehow the sound of a door slamming shut, of the window shutting me out.  How unflinching he was about separating me from his life with that sharp blade he wielded.  How cold I felt after that proof.

I watched Lemonade and felt for Beyonce, but I also felt for the sidechick.  What if she had been told she was finally loved, what if she didn’t know he had a whole family without her, what if she thought she was entering into a fair and balanced relationship only later to find out that she was just meant as a distraction?  What if he gave the sidechick a paltry choice to be the main one, and she couldn’t say yes because she couldn't imagine it, because there were children involved?

The hardest thing, is letting go of the dream of meeting his son and being a part of their life together, of all of us being some sort of family.  You know, the kind of thing one can start imagining and wishing for once it’s clear that they are falling in love.  Then there is the feeling that I’m a perpetual new moon for that child.  Distant and immovable and always dark, (he’ll never know) that this fixed planet brims over with love for him.  I read myself the books I had gotten for him, weeping the whole time, sad he won’t get to read this, hoping he’ll find it some other way.  I never had the chance... to be a part of his life, or to give the books to Tinder Ginger before the end, and isn’t it strange, that letting go of the child I never met is becoming harder than the letting go of the father whose broken-ness I invited into my life?  Or maybe that’s not so strange after all.  Letting go of a dream is impossible because it’s insubstantial and it clings, like the smell of smoke, to everything it touches with it’s remembrance.

This is the last part that I still struggle with, but this is the part that I can't quite explain to anyone.  How could anyone ever understand the particulars of this pain?  It lays in my heart of hearts, and I hope is starting to scar over.  I will stay invisible, I will stay away, I will still wish him the best constantly.  That small part of this love affair, might stay with me always.  And I hope one day, it will just be a lot less painful.

I had to say it, it’s the one part of everything I’ve been too scared and heartsick to talk about because it hurts too much.  He was innocent, and in loving him without knowing if we would ever meet, so was I.  This love can’t be quashed because it’s not quite real, so it's become a resilient little canary singing in a mineshaft, wondering why it's not dead yet.  It never wanted to die anyway.

*** For context: Yesterday, a 6 yr old girl was in our office all day with her mother, one of my coworkers.  And she skipped around, and drew subversively funny pictures that made me belly laugh, and made us all starry-eyed with her wonder and precociousness, her tinkling little voice, and it made me realize that I was shoving this very specific aspect of my loss under a rug, but that it would blow out of me like a volcano if I didn’t start releasing some of it somehow.

[nevergonnafallfor-blog]

New Orleans, Day 3

Our last day in New Orleans is prittimuch my favorite.  There is a St. Patrick’s day parade happening, both in the French Quarter, and right in our neighborhood by the Irish Channel area.  Mr. Ex and I walk slowly down to Magazine St. and get brunch.  The food at this place is ridiculously delicious, fried oysters with beet remoulade and arepas and a quinoa salad with blackened shrimp (what? don’t judge, I’ve been eating like crap since I got here, I needed a salad).  We get cocktails, even though it’s not even noon yet, and we people watch, looking out on the street as people set up lawn chairs to watch the parade.

Soon after, it starts, and we go walking down the street, I get some beads thrown at me and when men dressed as leprechauns walk up and down the street, handing over plastic flowers for a kiss on the cheek, Mr. Ex suddenly grips my hand, stopping one of the men from approaching me, (so he blows me a kiss instead).

We stop by at another bar and get another drink.

Then we get bored with the parade and decide to take the streetcar all around to different parts of the city and walk around.  We explore everywhere, taking the streetcar to different neighborhoods, finding weird little parks with historical statues and modern sculptures, and going to more bars, our bellies full of alcohol and little else.  All day, Mr. Ex is being clingier than ever.  Holding hands, putting his arm around my waist, pulling up extra close on his bar stool, and I bask in it, knowing it’s meaningless, knowing it’ll be over so soon.

We’re also finally really comfortable with each other.  Which means, for Mr. Ex that he’s being open about how he doesn’t trust anything, and I mean ANYTHING.  For example, we go to a restaurant that says “established in 1902” then Mr. Ex is all, “Yeah, IF that’s true.”

I’m all confused like, “Why wouldn’t that be true?  What?!?!?”  He does this about EVERY historical fact we learn about.  Also, he’s letting himself be a little meaner to me, nothing big, just making fun of me more often.

And for me, it means I start being kind of a bitch to him.  My irritability is out in full force.  Mostly it would be while I was trying to show him something, he would just be like I don’t see it, and then I would talk slowly and loudly to him like he was dumb.  He mostly laughed it off, but I felt all guilty about it later.

We stop by a place to pick up some sandwiches and take them back to our place.  We hadn’t eaten since brunch, and it’s starting to get dark out when we finally get home with sandwiches in hand.

We go inside, we snuggle and have sex.  He walks away as soon as we’re done and I’m laying in bed, like WHAT THE FUCK, until he calls me over from the living room, wanting to snuggle on the couch and watch 30 Rock on Netflix.  We do that for a while, and smoke outside.  We start to have sex again, but I realize I haven’t eaten all day, and he’s probably too drunk to be very effective, not for lack of trying.  I actually stop him, and quickly put a shirt on and eat half of one of the sandwiches while we snuggle and watch 30 Rock.  He keeps refusing to eat, in a hell-bent stubborn way (the more I insist he eat something, the more he resists eating).  I keep saying I want to go out to one more place, since it’s our last night.  He’s against the idea, but as soon as I mention going without him, he gets ready and we leave.

His clinginess continues, and we go to the restaurant we went to on our first night.  He pulls his barstool so close, and we just sit there near each other, looking at each other, not saying much.

We go home and have sex.  We’re snuggling, and I fall asleep and wake up to realize he’s not in bed with me and I cry out for him.  He comes in from the living room holding the sandwich bag.

“You’re finally eating?” I ask.

“Yeah, you ok?” he asks back.

“Yeah, I want you to come to bed and snuggle me.” I say.

He comes up and kisses my cheek, “I’ll only be a few more minutes, don’t want to get food on their bed.”

I go back to sleep and wake up and call out for him again, he’s standing at the edge of bed undressing, “I’m right here,” he laughs.  I get the feeling that he likes when I call out for him, I get the feeling that I like when he responds.  He finally gets in bed with me and we snuggle and hold tight all night.

I wake up super early, our flights are only 15 minutes apart, and we plan on splitting a cab to the airport.  I finish the load of laundry I started the night before, and get in the shower before waking him.

When I’m done, he gets in the shower, we’re both quiet, getting through the routine, cleaning up after ourselves, hiding the leftover weed since he didn’t feel like bringing it back on the plane.

He calls for the cab, and then I straddle him and kiss his cheek and we lay there curled against each other for a long time, him stroking my face.

In the cab, again, we’re silent, holding hands tightly in the backseat.

At the airport the line for TSA seems pretty long.  I tell him I’m going to check my bag just so I have one less thing to worry about.  He stays with me, insisting we stick together for this last leg of the journey.  I guess I was testing him, to see if he’d just be like, kthxbye.

As we get close to the TSA machine on the line, one of the airport security officers starts laughing and pointing to the pink lip gloss on Mr. Ex’s cheek, leftover from our cuddle session on the couch.  I half-heartedly wipe it off, then whisper, Ilana Glazer style, “You better keep that on your face for-fucking-ever” much to the amusement of the TSA security officer.

After we’re checked in, we find out our gates are pretty far from each other, and my flight has already started boarding.

“Uh, do you wanna get breakfast?” he asks.

“No, I should go and get on my plane.” I say, and he nods and just stands there looking at me, his big backpack at his feet.  We hug each other and kiss for a long time.

“I gotta go! I’ll talk to you soon.” I say, re-marking his cheek with my pink lipgloss with one last kiss.  I rush off to my gate, and just before I walk in, I turn around to see if he’s still standing there, I think he is.  It’s too far to tell.

I sit on the plane, I think about all that we just went through, how my feelings for Mr. Ex keep sneaking up on me, when I least expect them.

Our first week back he texts me a picture he had taken of us, sipping coffee at the cafe on our first day.

“I love this picture of us!  We look so cute!” I text him back.

“Agree on both counts.” he responds.

[nevergonnafallfor-blog]

Lady loves

Last week I had some lady dates with some new ladies in my life. 

One, is a coworker who also happens to live in my neighborhood, so I introduced her to the neighborhood bar where I take all the boys (and ladies apparently).

The next day, as we stepped into the work elevator together, she informed me that we had a 6-hour first date, and that it was great.

After that, I hung out with a friend whose husband I happen to be good friends with from college.  She’s been in our group of friends since they got together, but we’d never really spent time alone.  I find her and her husband to be a spiral of negativity sometimes when we’re all together, they just always find a LOT of stuff to complain about.  They are also incredibly self-aware, smart, socially conscious and enlightened people, so I get the things they get negative about, and don’t hold it against them (too much).

But, me and her hung out alone, and we talked a lot about our evolving attitudes towards love.  I know she’s in an open marriage, since her husband has brought it up to me before, but she confided in me about the situation from her perspective.  She was a virgin before she met her husband, and she was molested when she was 12 by a trusted older brother of a best friend (I used to have a crush on him! she exclaimed, indignantly).  And I opened up to her about the boogeyman, and how I trusted him.

We both talked for a long time, and afterwards on the subway ride home couldn’t stop hugging each other.  This led to another revelation, that I can’t date in a way that is at odds with my personal beliefs.  And my personal beliefs are that all girls are my sisters, and we need to be there for each other, and we can never ever let any man/woman/trans significant other make us compete for their affections.  

The other thing I realized is that I’ve been sharing about the boogeyman a lot, considering that I used to have these kind of confessional discussions with girls a lot.  The one where they tell you the thing they think is wrong with them, the thing that will keep them from love, and it’s usually some abusive story.  And never before did I also open up about my thing.

And recently, I’ve been opening up about my weird sex thing [read: being molested] a lot.  With boys.  And in some superficial way I feel a nice release right after, I would think, you really know now, I’m letting you know a part of me that touches on every other part of me so you can start to really see me.

But, I need to be more selective.  

Sharing with this friend was an actual release, an actual burden being let go of.  She listened intently, offered comfort, her own story.  More than that, she started to understand, innately, the people I’ve dated and why.  The way they hurt me, and then the real way they hurt me.  She began to understand why everything was changing for me, and changing in this moment.  Just like I understood why her husband became her everything to her when they first got married, and how she still needs to work on separating herself and being full-fledged.  On her own.  And how the prospect of having sex with someone you don’t know, and may not even like, is prittimuch the scariest thing for us, because we’re a hairs breadth away from feeling violated.  Especially after what we’ve been through.  And how brave it is to even keep trying.  

It was that shared understanding, the understanding of, I see where you’ve been, and how that shapes who you are, and where you’re going.  I see that but it’s not EVERYTHING.  It’s just a small part, like your brown eyes, and mood swings, this palpable hurt child who doesn’t know who to trust, she’s always behind the curtains, pulling on some strings.  And when you show people that she’s there, and they don’t even try to get it, she feels doubly betrayed.

This is a discovery process too, because sharing it with uncaring boys was brave at the time, a LOOK AT ME, EVEN IF YOU DON’T CARE YOU CAN’T UNSEE THIS, but now I know that I need to share that part of myself with a person who will try and understand.  

I realized this week that I need to stop hating the process so much.  The process of trying to be a better writer, or trying to move up in my career, or even the process of trying to find a love that uplifts me more than it degrades me.  Of course it’s painful, but that pain is hopefully that cocoon around me, the one that said I would never be enough or loved just as I am, shattering and breaking. Maybe one day it’ll stop being so painful, and it’ll just be.  

But maybe it’s that pain that makes the absence of pain feel so so sweet?

[bookmania]

He loved her, of course, but better than that, he chose her, day after day. Choice: that was the thing.

Sherman Alexie, The Toughest Indian in the World (via bookmania)

[nevergonnafallfor-blog]

New Orleans, Part 2

I  get us an Uber, pretty much the only thing Mr. Ex would let me pay for during the entire trip, and we head off to the French Quarter for Café Dumond’s famous chickory coffee and beignets, but we get there and see a huge line in the dripping rain and we set off for Café Royal Beignet instead.  This part of the city is packed with tourists, even in the rain, and we go walking through the streets and squares, dipping under the galleries (which are balconies that extend over the entire sidewalk, so... you know... building umbrellas) and the balconies when we could, getting lost in details of buildings and wrought iron work.We find the Café, which is bright and cheerful even in the gray weather, with buttery yellow walls painted with kitschy café scenes.  There is a line here too, but much more manageable, and when we get up and order breakfast and coffee and beignet’s they give us a number to put on our table so our food can find us.  We notice the seats are mostly taken, but there’s a table of 6 with 2 disjointed groups on it, and we join them.  They leave soon after, but we are joined by 2 women who are traveling from Canada, and then a British girl who is a performer (singer, dancer, actor) on a cruise ship.  I know because we spend 2 hours talking with all 3 of them, hearing about strange other places they’ve traveled to, and adventures we’ve been on as well.  

Maybe it’s projection but when Mr. Ex reveals he lives in Denver, and I live in New York, I sense an unspoken curiosity in the females.  What’s your deal? asks their expressions, but they keep their mouths shut and that’s the important part.We also take some selfies, and Alex looks at one he takes of the two of us for a long moment and then looks at me and smiles in the sweetest way.

We leave the café and wander around to find tours. I’m all agog over wanting to take a haunted history tour, and we stop by somewhere to get big plastic ponchos so we can deal with the rain a little better.  We get giant hurricane cups and walk around, Mr. Ex takes some sips but can’t stop talking about how disgusting it tastes,  (it does, it tastes just like Hawaiian punch with alcohol in it).  We wander and find a place that does the haunted history tours, we sign up for an evening tour and walk around a bunch more going into bars with live musicians and trying not to drink too much because it’s still pretty early.  

At one point we realize we have 3+ hours to kill before our tour, and though we’re putting on good faces, I’m starting to feel miserable and wet from being rained on so constantly.“Hey, wanna go home and chill a little before our tour?” I ask, and he nods eagerly, which is when I realize he must be miserable too.“Let’s go back and watch a movie!” he says, and I giggle because I can’t believe we came to New Orleans to Netflix and chill, but also because it sounds so good right then.

We catch a cab and head back to our Airbnb, and I immediately get out of our wet clothes, put them in the dryer with Mr. Ex’s, and get into my pajamas (a long gray shirt) and snuggle up next to him while he picks out a movie.  He picks Angel Heart, which is so spooky and about New Orleans voodoo and awesome.  We get through most of it, spooning on the couch, and he’s getting more and more antsy, and halfway through the movie I get a call from my parents that I take and he says he needs to go to the convenience store and he’ll be right back, so we pause the movie.

When he gets back I’m half-asleep on the couch,

“Look what I got.” He says tossing the bag next to me, I open it up to see water bottles, kind bars, and condoms. 

“Oooh, water bottles, great idea!” I say looking slyly up at him while taking out the box of condoms.  He starts laughing and then we’re finally having sex.  It’s all rough and tumble and quick, afterwards he holds me for a moment and I’m saying “we should get going” so we quickly get ready and get an uber to go back into the French quarter.

Once we’re back, we stand on a long line for the Haunted History tour.  The line gets broken up into 3 groups, and I see a tour guide who looks like a gothic Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean, and I grab Mr. Ex and whisper that I NEED THAT MAN TO BE OUR TOUR GUIDE.  So we spend the next 20 minutes maneuvering around the line until we’re sure we’ll get him as our guide.  We walk through the city and this is when I start to get used to it: The pervasive sureness that Mr. Ex is by my side.  Any time I get scared, worried, want someone to talk to or exchange meaningful looks with, I just turn to my right or to my left, and no matter how much I’m charging off to see everything, I can sense each time that Mr. Ex will be back by my side.  It’s heady, it’s unlike anything I’ve ever felt before.  And I do go charging off with the group, without the group, and each time I sense him hurrying to keep up, or just keeping an eye on me to see where I end up so that he can position himself in that usually empty spot beside me.

After the tour, we get dinner and this is our first meal since we had beignets and croissants in the morning.  We sit and order a ton of food and booze, and then we go back to our home for the weekend.  Once home, we make out and snuggle on the couch, he tries to get us to spoon again, I insist my butt is too big again, and we finish the movie.  It’s really freaky, you guys, like the worst thing to watch after a haunted history tour in a city bright with light and teeming with shadows.  Once it ends, we go to bed and have sex again, a little slower, a little more time spent marveling at each other.  And then we smoke and go to sleep. (oh yeah, he smuggled weed from Denver, FOR ME).

In the middle of the night, I wake up in Mr. Ex’s arms, facing him, and it seems to me that he is just staring at me and I gasp and scream a little.  The movie was unsettling, and I’m half in and out of dreams.  I shout his name, half asking for him, half warning him away, then turn away from him, and feel him rubbing my back and belly, pulling me closer, mumbling words in his half-asleep state, comforting me.

We wake up and have sex, I turn over, burying my face in the pillow feeling his hands as they grip me.  I shower and read my book and make the bed while Mr. Ex showers.  Today, our last full day in this city, I stretch out next to him on the couch while he does work, reading my book, my leg resting on his thigh, feeling way more patient then yesterday morning, until he looks up and says, “Okay, what are we doing today?”

[nevergonnafallfor-blog]

New Orleans Pt 1

I get to New Orleans, I let myself cry over Tinder Ginger on the car ride, and then I stop crying as I get swept away in the new-ness of New Orleans.

I get out at the address of our Airbnb, and see the familiar red door from pictures, and excitedly step out with my rolling suitcase and handbag, and ring the doorbell.  Mr. Ex and I had been texting each other about my arrival time and he had assured me he was waiting for me to arrive.  And then I wait.  And wait.  It’s dark, and deserted and I get more and more nervous, I text him his name in all caps with exclamations after ringing the bell a few more times.  Finally, he opens the door and I’m already annoyed and exclaimed “That took FOREVER!” as he said, “Sorry I was in the bathroom.”

We stand there for a minute looking at each other, I hadn’t seen him since January 2015, when he came to visit NYC.

“It’s nice to see you,” he says and hugs me, and we hold each other for a long moment before I take off to look through the rest of the apartment.

It’s shotgun style so the front door opens into a living room, entranceway leads to the bedroom, and from another entranceway leads to the kitchen, which leads to hall that has a laundry room with a bathroom going off of it, and a back door that leads to the backyard.

I run through, and exclaim over the washing machine (I’m gonna have clean clothes when I get back from vacation!! I scream while Mr. Ex watches and chuckles), and all the other parts.  We go back to the living room and sit on the couch, he moves closer to me, and I put my head on his shoulder and we catch up for a minute.

“I’m hungry.” I say.

“Me too, let’s go and see if we can find a place to get some food,” he replies.

We consult our host, and then our phones and find out that we’re close to Magazine St., a main road with lots of restaurants.  We walk down and find a busy, trendy bar/eatery.  From the outside it just looks like a Victorian house, but we see waiters bringing food to the tables out on the front porch.  We walk inside and it’s pretty packed, waitresses smile at us and walk by without a word.  We go to the bar and an elderly couple and I hit it off, as well as a man with his coworker who start to talk to Mr. Ex.  I finally walk up to one of the smiling waitresses and ask if we can be seated.  There is a wall with a plush booth against it, and there are tables pushed up to the booths and chairs on the opposite side of the table.  Lots of couples are cozied up on the booth/same side of the table.  When we get seated, I sit at the booth and Mr. Ex on the chair opposite me.  But as we look through our menus, he comes and sits next to me and we get all snuggly and order our food and drinks.

This is surprising to me, Mr. Ex used to make me feel like he was maybe embarrassed to be seen with me, and also we have not seen each other in so long, it’s almost surprising the ease with which we fall into this.  I look around to see if anyone is giving us weird looks, and at most people give us knowing smiles.  

We spend most of dinner talking about my new job.  He asks a million questions, and we talk ideas, and I love this.  I also explain to Mr. Ex how the new job really helped and still helps with reviving a damaged sense of self-worth.  Like a jobby version of How Stella Got Her Groove Back, this job made me imagine what it would be like if I was finally being treated as I always thought I should be treated.  Like anyone else, and not like a less-than version.

I explained that as an immigrant, and outsider, I somehow agreed that the bad way I was being treated was okay and allowed, I allowed it, but then this job started to open my eyes to that.

And he’s nodding, and squeezing my hand when I’m telling him this, and it’s one of the few times I feel like Mr. Ex gets me.  He’s also an immigrant, though he looks like any other white boy, he doesn’t have quite the same sense of entitlement.  He moved here from the Ukraine when he was 6 or 7.  There are aspects of his personality, that seem to be true and decent in a way I haven’t encountered in anyone else.  

We walk home afterwards, holding hands.  When we get back inside, Mr. Ex sits down and makes his first move, kissing me then staring deep into my eyes, his pupils are huge.

I get up on his lap and he holds my face in his hands, rubbing his fingertips along my cheekbones, my jaw, my lips, and we kiss and talk to each other softly, catching up some more.

“Did you bring condoms?” I ask rocking back and forth slowly against his erections.

“No,” he says.

“Why NOT?!?” I yell.

“I… don’t know what’s going to happen… wait, why didn’t YOU bring condoms?”

“I don’t know what’s gonna happen either!”

We giggle he insists on us laying on the couch together to snuggle, and we sort of move around until we find a spot that works (my butt's too big for this, I insist at one point, but Mr. Ex patiently maneuvers me into place against him) and talk and giggle some more.   We doze for a bit, go into the bedroom where I tease him for a bit and then we get ready for bed, snuggle up and go to sleep.

The thunderstorm happens, my weird dream happens, and I wake up and write it in my dream journal that I randomly ended up bringing with me.  And I definitely think, OMG MR. EX is gonna KILL ME – that’s what my dream must have been about.

But then I get into bed where he is sleeping, and I jump up and down and kiss his face and say “GET UP! GET UP! GET UP! I WANNA GO EXPLORE!”

And as he dawdles, I shower and look up haunted history tours, and cemetery tours and maps on his computer and my phone.  And as he showers I make our bed, and then he comes out to the computer to do some work before we leave, and just as I’m about to leave and be like, PEACE OUT BITCH! He looks up at me impatiently fiddling and reading a book, and says, “Okay, let’s go.”

[nevergonnafallfor-blog]

It's hard to date when you're fat, but not for the reasons you might think.

"As a fat woman, I just want what anyone else wants: to be seen, to be loved, to be supported for who I am."

“Because a lack of harm isn’t love.”

feeling this article so hard right now.  i don’t want to let anyone into my ramshackle nest of self-care and love for them to burn it down.  just not right now.