Saturday, February 28, 2009

The letter.


You look down and see an old envelope, with a yellow rose of Texas stamp on it that cost $.32 cents. The envelope has a little splash of gold glitter on it, like it's been stored in a junk drawer somewhere. As you flip it over, you see the flap hasn't been sealed. Inside is a self-sticking mailing label - so old that the glue is a deep antique gold color and has become useless. On the front is an address - your address from years upon years and moves upon moves ago. The handwriting is distinctive... but feels oddly childlike to you. Oddly large letters, mostly capitals... and yet you'd swear you write your own N's just like that.

You put the label back in the envelope and remove the letter hiding behind it. One piece of paper, removed from a legal-sized pad. Folded 6 times longways, and once down the middle. It's dated clearly on the top right... 2/15/98, Sun. You start to read...

Hi [Your Name],
This is your long lost DAD, a... father a.... or whatever you want to call me; Hey watch it, you know what the Bible says about that. Watch your tongue, oh well! OOPS!
I certainly am looking forward to meeting you. I've always loved you and sensed a longing for all the things I missed ^experiencing & seeing as you've grown up. I just recently acquired a photo of you when you were 13, it looks like a school picture. My my you have gotten big. The other or last picture I had of you was of a snaggle-toothed 4 yr. old. A tiny little thing!
Thanks to ^Aunt Cindy I also got some pictures of summer 96 when that you and [your mother's name] came to the Ganty House. Thank God for small favors! Also Brooke & Cindy, and Ashley's feet are in the photo too!
It appears to me that [your mother's name] has done a good job of raising you and that God has had his hand on you too; or maybe their in unison. Anyway you look like a million to me and my hopes for you span the universe. That's just the way us daddies think! You were a delight as a child and I'll bet you always will be.

A true friend forever,
Daddy [Your father's name]!
You feel... nothing as you read the words. And that spurs a rush of relief. As you refold the letter some other emotions begin to trickle down. A little bit of grief over the fact that he never understood you, and clearly did not want to - no matter what he thought he wanted. A little bit of thankfulness surfaces - that he stayed out of your life when you would have let him in. A bit of wonder for if the drugs forced him into what seems to you like an oddly surface and childlike response to what you wrote... but in all honesty deep down the main idea running through the back of your mind while you read was: BULLSHIT. Every line felt like one a salesman would tell you as he tried to convince you that his snake oil was different - it would finally do what you had been promised all the others would do. You begin to refold the letter, placing it back behind the label, in the glittery envelope with a stamp that will never be used. As you walk into the room where you keep your important papers and mementos in a filing cabinet, you ponder just where to put this one. You don't want to put it with the cards you get - you like to look at those when you have a bad week. As you open the file drawer you decide to just put it in a blank folder in the back behind the other memento folders. Once that's done, you head back into the rest of your little apartment - back to your life.

***
When I was 14, I wrote my father a very deeply thought out letter, that I drafted over and over. I labored over it longer and with more thought and care than I have any paper I've written up until my thesis. It did begin with me saying I felt that the title Daddy needed to be earned. He spat on that idea twice in this letter. I knew that might hurt his feelings... but I can't say I cared then or do now. I was only interested in getting to know someone who would accept the truth of my life without him, and choose to overcome it or start fresh. This man took all of my mother's money and all of their things in the divorce (he was quite the charmer from everything I hear... silver-tongued, charismatic, etc.), he even went back and took the money given to the funeral home so my baby brother would have a headstone. I understand that was an addiction thing... but I honestly don't care. He chose to try a drug known to be that addictive - heroin. He was clearly dumber than I am. He never paid child support - not once in my entire life. I have lived in someone's garage before, suffered verbal and emotional abuse at the hands of family members we've been forced to live with (not talking about my mother - she's a different story and she never abandoned me). There were times we only had donated food to eat, and donated clothes to wear, and donated roofs over our heads, but we had them and we had one another. I had a stress related ulcer in the 3rd grade. He made sure the one thing he did have when he killed himself (which I strongly believe is the coward's way out... it's much harder to live than to die) - a house my mother paid for - went to his mother and my aunt. I didn't want it - but it was sneakily done to make sure his only living child would get nothing from him.

I know that he got photos of me, I saw them when I was in the Ganty House. So... he also lied... or he was such a ruin of a person from the years of hard living and substance abuse that he didn't even know. From the sounds of things he was really only clean when he was in prison - though I can't be sure of that. My only real information source about him are his mother and sister... and his mother regularly crafts her reality out of smoke and mirrors (she blamed my father not being in my life on my mother... there's not a thimble of truth in that). My aunt I just don't know well enough to know.... but she went along with the stories my grandmother told the two times I spent any time with her.... and well, I'm not one who likes to deal with that. If my life taught me one thing - it's that trust must be earned. Liars don't tend to do very well at that one - no matter how well meaning the lie is... I have no desire to embrace a false reality and won't put up with one just to humor them either.

I don't blame him for anything negative that has happened in my life, and I am extremely grateful for the experiences that I have had (now that they're in the past)... but once upon a time there was a creative imaginative little girl who truly believed she was lovable. Who never had a shadow of a doubt about it - and he killed her... he killed her every time she tried to come back to life. He ruined my belief that anyone can provide me with security, that anyone will ever actually love me above others - like I would like to do for someone else someday. Combine him with my mother - and I am not sure I can ever believe in relying on someone else. It's sad in a lot of ways.

The final part of all this is that my aunt got my mother's e-mail hoping to get my e-mail from her later. But she hasn't used it. I told my mom if she asked to talk to me, I'd be happy to talk to her. I'm not trying to make them work to get to know me... I'm just looking for proof that they're not using me to make themselves feel better. That entire family seems to be all talk. My aunt has reached out twice... but even when she does it always feels like they want something. They wanted me to come to the funeral... why? To remind me that they have a fantasy of my life? To give me the blanket my father had on his lap when he shot himself in the chest, what was the purpose of that? To parade me in front of all his friends and family who never knew me? To make me wander the house I was born into, where my room still looked the same and my mother's handwriting was still on the walls in the laundry room.... why?? What was the point?

THIS is why children are so important to me. I've been the eternally unwanted. That sounds so dramatic, but it's pretty true. I kept looking for a good male figure as I grew up... I don't know if that was instinct, reaction to my mom's sometimes abusive ways, or what. I wish I had found one.
- The man my mother was with that raised me (he had a huge impact on me and was always the man who was my mental father)... eventually left her, but not me for a while... but then he also left me, because his new girlfriend didn't like me.
- After that she eventually married my stepfather. He and I hated one another.... openly. He openly disliked me. Very pleasant 5 years of my life there. His 3 kids moved in, I got to share my mother and my home with them, and the man hated me. I gave as good as I got.... but he was a nasty loud fighter. When he and my mother would fight I would sneak out or hide. I can't say he did anything good for my ideas of men.
- My grandfather verbally and emotionally abused me when we lived with him to the point that it was years before we could talk again. I watched him physically assault my mother. He took everything we had including our current home, and he made sure we lost everything we had in storage when he left too- bye bye childhood. That was the 2nd time I had to give away my pet because we lost our home too - because of him.
- I've had not 1 but 2 pastors turn on me. I trusted my youth pastors, I was a girl in trouble looking for guidance who was too serious for her peers. One ended up being a wonderful figure in my life for a while.... then he began to embezzle money.... and things got weird both with me and in the church. The other did much the same thing. He used me as a poster child to bring people into the church, tried to convince me my 'gift' was hands-on healing (I was a praise singer) and then when one of the older boys tried to molest me at a function and I told him about it - he told me to stop being so welcoming of attention.
- There are lesser incidents, many actually, but yeah. It's all a pattern. A bit of a sad messy history. And all through it there were moments where I saw real dads around me, and wanted, but it's just not something I'll ever have.

Reading this letter made me feel so much better in a way though - I didn't short him by not trying harder. In fact, I probably saved myself from just being more disappointed and crushed than I ever was before.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Double ewe tee eff.

My mother didn't bother to send me the letter until Saturday - and then she sent it regular mail. How nice. So I'll just continue waiting....

Isn't it nice when people in your life remind you that what matters to you doesn't make much difference to them? /sarcasm

(I'm not as bitter as this reads, I've known for years how I am not a high priority for her... she is, then her boyfriend, then me. At least I'm in the top 3 right? This does play into why I'm not super interested in having my own children though - if I ever do even adopt or foster I want to be sure I can give them as much of myself as they deserve. I mean, I matter to her... but it's in a distant way. She takes care of me some monetarily - now anyway - and does what she thinks she should - but all I really ever wanted was love, consideration, and emotional support. Those are the hardest things for me to get, and always have been.)

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Reinforcements.


I called them in this week, and I cannot tell you just how much it means to me that I have them to call in. My life has become infinitely better as the caliber of my friends has improved. I think that's a really unsurprising but important thing to notice.

Life itself reminded what is really important and what is just noise. My place in my graduate program was threatened this week - because I was not standing up for myself with my adviser and committee enough. It was a very scary thing that had me in a near panic for a few days. However, at this point I think it will all be ok. I'll be poorer this summer than I have been in a long time, and I really have to be forceful in pressuring for people to get my thesis done with me, but it will all turn out alright in the end. It was touch and go for a few days... and it was an incredible reminder of what my #1 concern is right now. Me and this dream of a degree. As soon as I get out of here I can concentrate on others again and the other passions I have, but this degree has got to be first.

Cami helped me out by telling me to calm the drama and just pull a professional shut out of Officechick E. IF she forces me to deal with her, do it verbally and at the office like I would with any coworker, nothing more. Anything more will feed her need to have something dramatic to drop from the sky. :) The chicken little analogy helps too because it makes me smile and relax anytime she comes in and the world is around her ears. So when I hit a stress point I just took myself out of her range this week - and it helped.

Through all of this my BFF was a text message, IM, and phone call away. She's been in my department, so she was invaluable as a tool for advice with specific people and situations. She kept me even so I could functionally deal with things. She reminded me that I am better than this - what is happening to me is a product of outside forces, unforeseeable circumstances, and my own dislike of making waves. Well, it's time to make more of them.

SP helped give me the drive to do the wave making, and reminded me that I prefer to have all my blood, sweat, and tears out in private. In this case that is not helping my situation. My professors need to see me bleeding, sweating, and crying. At first I kind of wanted to kill him, but then the sense started getting through. Most of all when I needed someone he was here and he shut up when I needed him to and just held me. Which at that point was what I needed most.

And this place.... it was here for me to get all of my tangled distracting thoughts and emotions out of the way - when this happened I was as mentally clean as I could have been. The letter still hasn't arrived from my father - I'm starting to wonder why and what my mother did with it. I still have a week until I know what the deal is medically - and now I have a $400 bill to sort out as well. Thankfully, I worked through those things here in this blog and in my mind and no longer need concern myself with them until the waiting is over (even when it is, I know my priorities and will stick by them). I'm almost done with an incredible draft of my thesis, if I do say so myself, which I will forcefully require to get feedback on tomorrow. I should be proposed within the month and have no trouble defending by August (the unofficial things-will-be-ok-if-you-get-this-done-by-this-date deadline). Funny how life has a way of reminding us of 'our' priorities.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

The Mistress of Diversion.


I've let E back into my life just a little bit, and I realized today that it's because I have total control over him and I. For every action there's a reaction. That's me. That's what all these long, rambling, overfull, over-sharing blogs have been about this week. I am overthinking what I can/cannot do in the only situations I have any control over at the moment. The blathering is to keep me from thinking about all the waiting and uncertainty that plagues my existence this week. I'm about to go edit and clean up those posts a bit - if you read them, wow, I hope they didn't annoy you as much as they're annoying me right now.

I'm feeling extremely STUCK and I can't get into my work. Hence the daily visits around here, and the purging of just about anything that's bugging me. Waiting does not suit me. Waiting for results. Waiting for a letter from my father who abandoned me - from beyond the grave. Waiting to find out what in the hell I am doing for Spring Break - and deciding I definitely will not be able to see Sasha like she and I had dreamed about recently once upon some IM's (damn it all to motherfucking hell). Waiting to feel like having sex again, since I got some gorgeous sexy things for myself with a gift card, finally got them in the mail, and wham haven't felt like wearing them... Waiting for my boyfriend to leave for 3+ weeks to go on an amazing adventure I'm jealous of -to work on tiger conservation in India (which I am more passionate about than he is)-, haha, right when I just might be willing to lean on someone. Granted I probably only feel like I'd be ready to because I know he won't be here for me to lean on.

In some ways, I miss being a bottler. I feel like it would be so comfortable to be in complete control of every minute of my feelings... For most of my life I was like many others and I took everything and smashed it up small and bottled it. Then for good measure I threw it behind an internal cellar door and locked it all up tight with several locks. I was nicknamed the Ice Queen in high school. I was a virtual unknown to most people who knew me for a lot of my life, by my choice. It was safer....

Then I painted for the first time (college). I also had my first serious relationship developing. I learned that maybe someday someone will actually really love me, for me, unconditionally (besides the kitties of course). Somewhere in my 2 years getting my art degree I broke the habit of bottling. I still do it some, but not nearly so much. It feels healthier to me (I am in NO WAY condemning those who do so, whatever works for everyone is fine with me), and while it can be inconvenient to feel things on a regular basis.... I usually revel in the honesty. I like emotions. I sort of think my rebounds after my breakup with A (my first real boyfriend) had a lot more to do with exploring allowing myself to feel deeply than anything else, my sexuality emerging was just a part of that. I think I only want to be a bottler again today because I'm feeling forced into numbness against my own choice. I do think it speaks to the improved state my life is in (funny how that happened once it was primarily in my control not my mother's) that now I can afford to feel 90% of the time.

Today I need to do some schoolwork, but I think I'm going to take a mental health day from it. I'm going to paint some furniture, work on a canvas I've been pondering working on for a long time, watch some really dumb movies, and eventually go bowling. I'm only going to do the one assignment that is due tomorrow. I'm also going to clean the house and use that time to think. All in all, that should be a prescription for some mental balance.

Why is it so hard to be nice....


to yourself?? It's so ridiculous sometimes just how mean our internal voices can be. I have no idea what it's like to be in a man's head, but I live in a woman's.... and the voices are brutal. Fucking brutal.

Sometimes it's words my mother said about being polite, my grandmother about being appropriate and never talking about feelings or anything else unseemly (like having an original thought), but the worst ones are definitely from me. I'm very hard on myself, always have been. Those who believe in astrology would say it's my Virgo showing - the trademark crazy perfectionism streak. Or if you're more into Chinese Astrology it would be more about my Water Dog personality - which is also prone to being very critical and judgmental. I take in every judgment I hear and even those I just imagine and internalize them. It's horrible. Can you imagine what that does to your self esteem? Confidence is so important, and so damned sexy. It's become increasingly important to me as I've gotten older to learn to only accept the blame I deserve and to learn how to protect my confidence - even from myself.

How do you do that??

When it gets to the point where I'm leaving mental bruises on myself from the internal flagellation I wake up to the futility of it all. I've started using the following tactics to fight it....
  • Asking myself if my best friend came to me with the same situation how I would respond to her, and reminding myself that I deserve no less from myself. I am only human.
  • I've also started labeling those voices in my mind.... there's the one who hates my body (let's call her Alessandra), the one who always feels stupid and like she has to prove her intelligence (Allison) , the selfish one (Brandi), and a few others in there.... While it made me feel a little crazy at first, it helped to note these voices and identify them as NOT ME. Not who I choose to be. I'm the tolerant, accepting, realistically hopeful one. Not all those other bitches. Some people take this further and journal what those voices say and it helps them realize how often they tear themselves down.
  • Forcing myself to note something positive when I prod myself with the sharp-edged negative thoughts.
It helps. It all helps. It's part of that stable ground I've rebuilt for myself when it all threatened to turn to sand on me. The silliest thing that undermines it all is this: I worry that I'll be too forgiving and accepting of myself and become delusional and self-indulgent.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

The Sky is Falling!


Have you ever met a Chicken Little? Do you even know what I'm talking about? When I was a little girl, I was a voracious reader. I knew how to read by the time I was 3, and was reading upside down to my class in Kindergarten just to keep me occupied. My teachers said it was the only time I wasn't a handful. They wanted to skip me straight to third grade... I was just too far ahead to be engaged in class, but I was so physically small... and already had loner tendencies (I related to adults, not children) with my social group - so my mother wouldn't allow it. I hated reading books on my level, but every once in a while one would get to me. One story that did was the story of Chicken Little. (I swear all of this will come together eventually.) There's a pretty good entry on Wikipedia about this story too, I read it as one of the fables. Here's an excerpt from the wiki:

There are many versions of the story, but the basic premise is that a chicken eats lunch one day, and believes the sky is falling down because an acorn falls on her head. She decides to tell the King, and on her journey meets other animals who join her in the quest. In most retellings, the animals all have rhyming names such as Henny Penny, Cocky Lockey and Goosey Loosey. Finally, they come across Foxy Loxy, a fox who offers the chicken and her friends his help.

After this point, there are many endings. In the most famous one, Foxy Loxy eats the chicken's friends, but the last one, usually Cocky Lockey, survives long enough to warn the chicken and she escapes. Other endings include Foxy eating them all; the characters being saved by a squirrel or an owl and getting to speak to the King; the characters being saved by the King's hunting dogs; even one version in which the sky actually falls and kills Foxy Loxy.

Depending on the version, the moral changes. In the "happy ending" version, the moral is not to be a "Chicken", but to have courage. In other versions the moral is usually interpreted to mean "do not believe everything you are told". In the latter case, it could well be a cautionary political tale: The Chicken jumps to a conclusion and whips the populace into mass hysteria, which the unscrupulous fox uses to manipulate them for his own benefit, some times as supper.

In my office there is a girl who you've read me complaining about much too many times before. Officechick E, who should have always been referred to as Chicken Little. Her sky is ALWAYS falling, and she constantly wishes to get all of those around her to believe along with her and join in her hysteria. The self centeredness is palpable when she enters a room. She's someone who reminds me anytime she's around that she's just waiting for her turn to speak 95% of her life. (And makes me revow to not be like that! In this way, it's nice having her around.)

I've vented to others when I need to, written some e-mails I never intended to send to ward off any sniping I might have done, explained to Favorite Officemate what the deal was and cleaned up any ugliness with a minimum of fuss and bother. My feathers haven't appeared ruffled once. However, while I think superficially this resembles taking the high road.... I'm just allowing it to draw out because it gives me somewhere else to look and something I technically control (because it's unfinished business) and I'm using the situation to distract myself from much more important things in my life. I'm also in violation of my own resolution to Be True. I will address this with her, tomorrow, in a casual friendly way - face to face. That's the real high road in this situation - the moral of courage.

For the love of Francis.


Oh Francis.... he's been my best friend for years now - and closer to me than anyone else. Somewhere around 3 or 4 years... but I'm not sure he is anymore and that's why there's been no word of him for a long time on here. Our friendship has had it's issues, some of which I caused, some caused by circumstances, and some caused just by the combustible nature he and I have when together. I miss him a lot right now. I'm putting this out there partially for me, but also because I keep hearing others struggling with this same issue and I want to be sure I work through it as best I can. How do you know to let go? Should you? When is a friendship more harmful than helpful?

Once upon a time Francis and I slept together after watching each other get beaten down and broken up with by others, we tried the relationship sort of thing, and nearly destroyed our friendship in the process. But we recovered, or I thought we had. Maybe it's not the sort of thing you can come back from.... I was trying so hard to work through my own issues with his and my relationship so I made some space. I took some time and distance - thinking all the while that if he really needed me he'd let me know, but... apparently I messed that up to. I made it seem like I wanted space even from his needing me, which I didn't. There are months where my mouth tastes of foot even when I didn't say a word, I swear. The worst part was that I think he figured it out by coming here, I'm not really sure. Still, it felt bad. I didn't realize he'd been avoiding telling me that he did need me.... it was too late by then. He e-mailed me asking me to tell him why... so I finally did. I wrote out every concern, worry, and fear of what our friendship might be doing to the both of us. He reacted, responded, and did the same with me. All of a sudden the distance between us no longer felt murky and possibly treacherous. I don't understand why I have to relearn the same stupid lessons over and over again: If you value someone, be honest with them, even if it hurts. Why had we stopped doing that?

We went back and forth e-mailing for a little while....

What surprised me most about all of that was the misconceptions and concerns on both sides that we didn't share with one another when they came up. Two people who know one another so well, who talk to one another so much, and yet we still didn't say some of the most important things we were feeling. Some of that stemmed from not wanting to hurt the other by telling them they hurt us - but a lot of it stemmed from fear and self-interest. Fear of losing what we had or changing it. Self-interest and pride that got in the way of allowing the friendship to change and grow as needed - because we both have.

Playing off of a cliche - the reason, season, lifetime friend idea: I wanted him to be a lifetime friend, not a season friend. BFF is a lifetime friend. SP is likely a reason and a season. I heard from Francis just the other day in text message, though he's no longer my Facebook friend and is no longer showing up on my chat list. Somehow on the day I went in and found out I needed biopsies (and had them done, owwwww) he felt he should text me. I'm glad he did, and he did again today. He told me he felt we have a place to start from when we can again (life gets in the way so often).... if we can again, but only time will tell if he feels it's worth pursuing and trying or not. I led us to this place, and here we are. In friendship stasis. A lot has changed since we wrote these things to one another too... so quickly. So strange to move through life without him.

Monday, February 16, 2009

Being your own primary partner....

So.... yeah. I've been thinking way too much lately. I've had some issues with Officechick E again - but she's constantly in total crisis mode lately (She's such a natural drama queen, I'm beginning to think part of our not being friends was that I was always telling her to calm down and talking her down from the ledge. I think she likes being on the ledge.) I've had some on campus concerns with team members, my thesis adviser, etc., the politics of my graduate life have felt complex of later in general.

Operating out of insanity....

"Some times I think we're born into something, and it can be dysfunctional as hell, and without logic or reason, and because it is all we know, we consider it the epicenter of normalcy. We do what we have to do, initially, to survive inside of it, and that becomes a pattern of behavior that's, to put it frankly, fuckin' insane. Then we're operating out of insanity, and so that's just what we do. It's all we know. Insanity." - Bunny from TheBunnyBlog.com.

Sunday, February 15, 2009

In the waiting line...

So... life is interesting. Today, February 15th, my mother happened to be in the city I was born in with her SO. He had never seen any of the places there which were important parts of her life, they had never had the time, so they decided to take a little tour of her past. Her past, and as it turns out, my past too.

As they neared the house where I was raised for the first 3 years of my life, where my brother died... they noticed a little old woman in the yard. She looked at them and waved, it was my grandmother. So they debated, and chose to stop. My aunt was inside. I remember seeing my aunt a total of three times in my life, my grandmother I only remember seeing twice. (I don't remember anything from my time in that house.)

My grandmother is experiencing some dementia now at 85, but she was adamant about how much she had been praying for this and how she knew it would be today. (She's a woman who believes very strongly in particular versions of events, in all honesty I wish my imagination or conviction or delusion - whatever it is - could be that strong, she lives in a charmed world where everything is as it was meant to be and only as it was meant to be.) They looked at old photos throughout the house that will never go to me but my mother feels should have - which my father also died in and now it seems my grandmother likely will too. My grandmother talked of me incessantly, and finally insisted my mother do her a favor. She led her to a table and told a final story: she said when I was just 3 years old she took me to a garage sale looking for a nightstand. I insisted that THIS was the right nightstand for her, she had to get it and keep it and put secrets in it. This nightstand (I have no idea what it looks like) has a removable top, but apparently you'd never notice just looking at it. My grandmother removed the top, and gave my mother a letter. A letter to me, from my father, written on February 15th, 1998. They couldn't understand what my grandmother had to say about it, she broke down and became incoherent at this point. Something about my father being somewhere when he wrote it, likely prison. It was unclear whether he gave it to her to send to me, or wrote it and hid it away himself rather than sending it. It only took me moments to place that date - shortly after I wrote him a painstaking letter I labored over for hours, thought about for weeks, etc. asking to meet him... when I would remember him. He sent me a birthday present that year, a bible... with a card suitable for a small child. I was 14 going on 40, like always. I remember how hurt I was that he didn't send me a letter in response... and I chose not to reach out again in any way.

My grandmother made them fit that table into the Corvette they take their road trips in (my mother is not wealthy, but her SO is doing just fine for himself), and my mother is mailing the letter to me tomorrow. I didn't ask her to read it to me. I just don't know what to think until I get it. My aunt got my mother's e-mail. My mother and her SO finished off the trip by finally buying my brother a marker when they visited the cemetery - something I was going to do for her 50th birthday this coming year - but I am so glad she finally got to do (my father went and canceled the marker purchase to get the money back after my brother's funeral many years ago - and he's gone unmarked in Babyland 5 *shudder* ever since). I don't really believe in graves in any way, I think they're very unenvironmentally friendly and unpleasant... but it means something to her. As The Militant Ginger said in an incredible post on tolerance: "Tolerance is the subtle art of not getting up off your arse to meddle in somebody else's business.... Maybe you should leave them to do whatever they want to do and confine your opinions to how you live your life." That's where I'm trying to get with every part of my life, and I certainly am there when it comes to this issue with my mother and her son's gravestone. All that matters is that it's important to her....

Being abandoned by your parent is the sort of thing no one can understand unless they have been through it or something very similiar... which sounds cliche but I promise it isn't. I have found that I have this affinity for those who have experienced similar things, we're drawn to one another like moths to the flame, while there always seems to be some undefinable quality that the rest of the population (the un-abandoned) possess that forever keeps a gap between us, no matter how close we become. It's one of the things that hold SP and I apart, and brings me so close to my BFF.

I'm so lost in thoughts about this letter, so curious what it will reveal, all I've ever wanted is an explanation. I forgave my father years upon years ago for everything, what's the point in not? I went through my anger phase, I still occasionally go through my sad phase (I don't watch movies involving parental relationships much to avoid invoking one), but all in all it's a-ok with me. I can see I'll be writing more about this later... like when I get that letter I feel like I'm going to need to reprocess my entire life experience with my father. I guess we'll find out soon enough.

****
In other news, I will know the results of some biopsies I had done last week on March 2nd - I'll be finding out if I just have precancer or actual cancer... and then what we can do about which one it is.

I feel like I'm in a holding pattern in many areas of my life right now. For some reason it's made me very introspective. /sarcasm

So for those of you who were here because this was a sexy blog, haha, good luck with that. I never started this to be in a class of sex bloggers, I just happen to get along with them and find them interesting. I also just usually happen to be very sexual (and like being artsy and naked), but this blog is more about all the private sides of me - not just that. There's going to be a lot less sex until I get the ok to land, and a lot more of the pure me working through my own private nonsense.

Friday, February 13, 2009

Singles Awareness Day! (a.k.a. Valentine's Day)


Have I told you lately how much I love A Softer World? Probably not, but you may have noticed anyway.

I'm spending today in another city, with my BFF. It's horrible not to be spending it with the other loves of my life - my cats - but I'll just lie to them and tell them it's the actual holiday on Monday. Shhh!! I hope everyone can really enjoy today in any way they choose - alone, in a group, with a loved one of any kind, or just with your pets. I dislike how a day has so much potential to breed angst, but all holidays have that potential in all honesty. I do like how people who are truly in love and of a naturally romantic bent use it as an excuse to show each other again how they feel. So while I personally choose not to participate (I did get the boyfriend rechargable batteries and a recharger - because he needed them -, some caffeine additives to try out since he can't get soda on the international trip he's going on soon and he's afraid caffeine withdrawal is going to ruin it for him, and a heart of reese's miniatures. All of which will be waiting with a handwritten note next to the cats' brush and pooper scooper when he arrives to take care of them while I'm gone this weekend. See - the commitmentphobe can play the romantic too!) all that much, I just hope you all use the day as an excuse to make yourselves happy!

(Honestly, I prefer the Maxim alternative holiday on the 15th: Steak and BJ Day. Feel free to adopt it!)

-----
I must say, before I left on Christmas break I was listening to a song by Brandi Carlisle called "The Heartache Can Wait" to convince myself NOT to leave my relationship right before the holidays - for both of our sakes. Lately I've been listening to "Be Ok" by Ingrid Michaelson - more for grad school and personal non-relationship issues - and Jay Brannan because his voice is incredible and Sasha tipped me off to him. I came back from Wisconsin unsure if I had just pretended things were ok well enough that our relationship looked pretty again - I'm quite good at that. I did that my entire life growing up in my mother's house. It seems though that my feet are finally on some kind of solid ground with my relationship, I'm not sure how they got there.

Perhaps it was the tears that fell silently down my face, maybe this time he saw how much it hurt me to fight for us, that it hurt too much, that I was giving up.
Perhaps he finally heard me, or I finally said the right words. What a myth the right words are!

Whatever it was, it worked. My SP has finally begun to listen and really hear me. He still doesn't always say the right thing, but now that is tempered by his listening to what I say in response. What an amazing difference it makes, it sounds so stupid and simple - but it changes EVERYTHING. It's all I really need in this world. To be heard, loved, touched, and for someone to even attempt to understand me. To want to help every once in a while - even though it's unlikely I'll let them. So now here we stand, together and happily so. I'm not worried about tomorrow, in fact we've joked about how neither of us cares about that right now. We've basically agreed to it. We'll jump that hurdle when it comes, and I'm quite sure we'll both decide to remain friends and go our separate ways. But I don't care - in fact, that makes me happy. So does the idea that he might want more - and that I don't according to what I know so far. I feel so content with him right now. It certainly took much too long to hit a stride (2 years), but this is what I always saw the potential for. I just can't do the FWB thing in this town, though it would have been my preference. So this mutually respectful relationship where two commitmentphobes come together for sex on tap works for me.

I don't want sex as much right now - thanks to health stuff and school focus. That works well for him, and he's been very amenable to doing it more when I do want to. He's listening with more than just his ears. He's also finally opening up a bit about what he likes, doesn't like, etc. Now, we're finally good for each other 90% of the time like I just knew we could be. Isn't that wonderful? It feels pretty wonderful, I must say.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

HPV & Cervical Cancer

I've been having pelvics and pap smears since I was 14. At 14 I had my first in order to get my birth control prescription. Then I began to have yearly exams at 18, and I never miss one. No matter the fact that for me they are physically painful - it's the healthy safe thing to do. I always get screened for STI's as well. Just to be safe. I've been physically intimate with 6 men and 2 women in my lifetime. I have been told this is in no way a high number (and I'm including oral in that count, though not kissing on the mouth - go read Essen' Em for some incredible thought-provoking posts on what 'sex' can be defined as).

Well, this time my pap came back abnormal. So I had another one done. That one came back showing high risk cells. So I went to get a colposcopy this morning (The CDC's website on HPV and cervical cancer is excellent if you're curious about it). It was uncomfortable, but not painful.... until she had to biopsy two sections. I handled it like a champ - my normal method of getting through medical procedures is to remember it's not their fault, stay relaxed, bite my hand and imagine being in the ocean... but I'm definitely feeling freaked now. I won't know what the real deal is for 2 more weeks, she was hesitant to say much at all to me.

Here's what I do know:
  • They thought my wearing a dress and knee high socks was brilliant, since it meant I didn't have to strip for them and stayed warm. :)
  • I have really low blood pressure, like usual.
  • I 'should' be low risk according to the half of family medical history I know of, the fact that I've never smoked, and haven't had lots of sexual partners (though I wasn't sure wtf that meant).
  • BUT - One of the areas she sampled was out of range of a Pap smear, so it coud have been there for a very long time, and the cells there worried her the most.
  • She was concerned enough she wouldn't classify the cell types for me at this time.
  • She told me when I come back it'll be to discuss the results and what they mean for our treatment options - which means I need some kind of treatment, we just don't yet know how serious these cells are.
  • I am a bleeder, so now I get to hurt and bleed for a couple of days which is a constant reminder that I may not be ok but that it'll be two weeks until I know
So, I can't imagine I'm going to want to post anything sexual, I certainly don't want to today. I'm not freaking out, but I am consciously redirecting my thoughts to keep from doing so sometimes.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

The Bi Problem.


Ok... so I noticed something this week that came out of those dark halls I woke up in one night late a few weeks ago. I think I realized this deep down before that... but I never consciously noticed the connection until now.

My admittance of and being bisexual has caused a lot of problems in my life. What I don't get is why in many instances, because it doesn't change how I am in my relationships. Anyway, on to the list...
1) My first boyfriend, who I thought was it for me forever, couldn't handle it at all. It was a large part of our breakup, though certainly not all of it. It sucked.
2) My desire to have 3somes and my second boyfriend's acceptance of this in words but not fact really messed up our relationship too. It emasculated him. I turned into a jealous lovelorn shrew over his and Q's relationship (she was my first woman and them wanting to be together without me involved when he and I were living together and serious about things was... painful to say the least, they eventually had sex behind my back). She will hate me forever for the stupid things I both said and did. He might too. Not that either of them is worth heartache, but still. This was the darkest personal chapter of my life so far due to how I acted.
3) I have had several men angry at me because Q and SS slept with me rather than them. In fact, I've lost friends over it. I feel like the group of friends we were all connected with believed me to be morally corrupt due to my sexual proclivities. (They sure condemned me without evidence fast enough and now I retain a whopping 2 out of 20 of them as friends - those 2 barely talk to me.)
4) When one girl discovered my sexuality here at school, the commentary on possibly sleeping with me never ended until she left 2 years later. In fact, she told her boyfriend and it got weirder than weird. He hounded me to seduce her whenever he was in town. Gross. She also turned out to be fairly open with others about MY sexuality. That led to further odd moments and weirdness with people in our department, people we would meet, and parties I attended. I have wondered what could have been different these past 2.5 years had she not caught me drooling over a gorgeous blonde one night.
5) My bisexuality caused a lot of my attitude with my department to shift to 'nothing' on the all or nothing involvement scale. Part of that was from when I overheard a condemnation of our cohort's token gay guy. I just can't approve of people speaking in their graduate office about how someone's going to hell for his preferences and then giggling about it in a group - "at least he's nice", they said. No thanks. Plus my sexuality eventually became known to most if not all of them, yeah, underline the no thanks and add an exclamation point. I don't need people like that in my life beyond a professional level.
6) With a budding friend her man found out I was bi and immediately wanted to talk to me about how to get his girl to have a 3some. I attempted to persuade him out of it. She decided to hate me anyway, because I talked to her boyfriend too much (um, he talked to me, but ok) and because I even talked about sex in a hypothetical way with him. My boyfriend also spazzed about this incident, because I talked about sex with another guy. Does no one understand I didn't bring it up, I never would have slept with him (hello - I'M IN A MONOGAMOUS RELATIONSHIP), and while I didn't mind the conversation it was purely hypothetical... I was honestly just trying to help.
7) This also influenced my 'break-up' with Officechick E, I am sure of it. She considered a 3some with her and her now-fiance, but decided she'd be too jealous. Nevermind the fact that I wouldn't have done it, she didn't even ask that question. That wasn't the big deal - but #4 & 6 were good friends of hers, and they + her boy's opinion of me after he vented about her to me = no more friendship.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm flattered when couples want to sleep with me - I choose to take it as a compliment on my attractiveness. I also am happy when someone either figures it out (that means they're open to people having alternate sexualities, yay!) and accepts it, or is told by me and does the same (hooray tolerance!). These times afford me such wonderful opportunities to tell people about it as well, if they want to know. It allows me to explain that sexuality is not a choice (which I of course firmly believe) and to talk about sexuality issues sometimes - all of which are very nice things I heartily enjoy.

Still - do you see between these stories the underlying assumption all of these people made about me? That somehow my being a bisexual means I'll sleep with anyone, just about anytime. They always seem to assume it's their decision whether I will sleep with them or not, even when the decision is about them and their partner. All I have to say to that is: WHAT THE FUCK? Since when did my sexual orientation mean I don't have morals? Values? Standards? Rules for myself?? Seriously. When I am in a committed monogamous relationship it means the exact same thing as when any of them are. I just don't get it.

So the real question is: Is it them making these assumptions? Or me projecting something? Does my commitmentphobia make me come across in a way I don't mean to?

I wish that's what it was, but I doubt it.

To Teach or Not To Teach: That is the Question!

I got a huge warm fuzzy from my 310 class this past week. I took over a portion of the lab my TA professor normally teaches while he attended another function - and when I came in the following week before he arrived - they all told me as a group how nice my portion of the lab was and that they'd heard such good things from the other lab section that I teach exclusively. Isn't that wonderful? :)

So here's the issues at hand in this decision....
- If I want to teach that's great but you don't really get paid to teach when you're a professor. You get paid to do research and for other things, not the teaching and advising. Those are just expected duties that you do as part of the job, but don't really get rewarded for.
- I love teaching, I hate bad teachers and know I make a good one.... but I am not sure I am capable enough at good research to achieve tenure as a professor. You WANT tenure, it's the ultimate goal of being a professor.
- It's less money salary-wise both at the outset and over time... but it's much more flexibility in every other area of your life. Choice in projects, classes, school you work at, wardrobe, schedule, etc. That's a definite trade-off. Plus I love learning, and staying in a school = getting paid to learn the rest of my life.
-

Monday, February 9, 2009

My Sexmap!



Today's a day of cute little posts like this, hehe. I'll post with substance soon!


Wordle

I love words. Here's a wordle for January's posts in retrospect, :).

Wordle: January

Saturday, February 7, 2009

Waking up.

I wrote this on january 24th... and didn't post it because I wanted to find a better headspace about this.... and I may have, finally. I wanted to post it now to get it out and to work through it further, and so my rebuttal to these feelings will stand out in appropriate contrast once I get it nailed down.

Sometimes I wake up feeling lost in the realms I walked the night before, as if they're superimposed over the real world. For me those dark halls between wakings last night were places of pain, of darkness, of regret... places from a time past. I still seek resolution from unfinished business. Dealing with one of my friendships (Frances) that has spanned that time and this newer time in my life is part of what has brought it all back to the forefront. So has Facebook, oh good old Facebook. Knowing that one of my remaining friends is taking a trip to Providence - and that trip that I took 4 years or so ago to Providence was ... well... providential. Not in a good way though. My first serious boyfriend (7 years) is now married. My first female experience (who I was so infatuated with it didn't even make sense) is also now married. It's odd how you find these things out, and how they feel like they shouldn't matter, and yet the knowledge seems to play peek-a-boo at the most random moments.

I mean... everyone goes through their own private hells. I thought when I was younger that it must have been my childhood which would always stand out as my hell. My father's drug addiction and brother's death left an initial stain, my mother's rages, the repeated abandonment and betrayal and verbal/emotional abuse from all parental figures in my life, the almost sexual abuse from within my church and the subsequent dismissal of it by my pastor leading to my subsequent break with Christianity -which had previously been my lifeline-, deaths of friends, my own self-imposed isolation due to trust issues, but.... no.

What ended up being my own true hell was when I had to learn who I had been denying I was for years. When I recognized my sexuality for what it was and realized who I assumed would be the love of my life couldn't accept that part of me was the first hint of the brokenness to come. I shattered us. Walked away. That was the easy part.

Before that the only real thing I regret is saying something horribly unfeeling to my family after a member of it passed away in a horrible accident. I learned then that while I may choose to laugh to relieve pain, others don't always want to do that and it's not the right thing to share sometimes.

Then I had my first sexual fling with a guy, my first experience with a woman, and fell for someone new. After that is where I really have my first deep regrets.

After that though... there's a list. A painful list I don't think I can ever atone for. A list I never saw myself having. It's funny that I woke up this morning feeling those old, deep wounds aching as if they were just inflicted last week. So I came here...to my reader and then to my blog. And in my reader I found some wisdom.
I.. I can't say sorry... Because I know sorry isn't enough...
But I can say thank you.
Thank you for showing me who I really am.
Thank you for showing me that light in my life.
I'm ready to change now. For the better.
Thank you.
- Paraphrased from Sunny on So How Was Your Day?
That's all there is from those times for me to do, and I have. I have changed so much since then. I know things now about myself and know what to watch out for to make sure I never become that insane, unhappy, jealous person I remember (with horror) being. Sure, circumstances helped to push me to be that way, but I can't believe I didn't find some other alternative to the things I did and ways I acted. It's not like I want those friendships or my old relationship back, because I don't believe they were good for me at all, or that I was good for them... but I also don't want to be a stain on anyone's life. I don't want to be that ugly memory, and if I am for me I can't even imagine what I am for others. My biggest hope is that by now, years later, I just don't matter at all anymore. That time will wear my memory away for them, but not for me. Not for me. I have to remember to make sure I am NEVER like that again.

There are still things I could work on... but I don't always know how. What I console myself with is that I try, and for now I guess that has to be enough.