Welcome back!

I’ve had a hard month.  Without going into too much detail, Michael said the following statements to me all in the course of a single day:

“I love you more today than I ever have.”

“If I were making choices based on who makes me happiest or who I love more, I would stay with you.”

“I believe you may be the greatest love of my life and I don’t think I’ll ever get over you.”

“I cannot be with you anymore.”

The last one seems like a bit of a contradiction and it was. I thrashed around in supreme pain for a few weeks. I was bitter, angry, and crying at the drop of the hat. Each beautiful memory felt like being punched in the stomach. Each interaction with him represented the pain of being re-rejected over and over again.

Just when I found some peace and was putting things back together, he hit a snag and reached out to me for the emotional support that his partner wasn’t providing him. No phone call has ever made me feel more used and degraded than this one did.

I’ve slowly worked my way back from that. I’m working back to forgiving him again, wanting to find a place to be kind to him. My love remains unconditional but my ability to care, nurture, and support is seriously strained. The reality is that Michael chose to leave me in order to put all of his effort into another relationship. He made the choice purely on his own and against the wishes of his parter, but it was still his choice to make. As that other relationship continues to flounder, I don’t know if he harbors any regrets. It isn’t for me to know.

***

But, the point of the post isn’t what happened. It is what is happening.

Yesterday I celebrated the holiday with many of my dearest friends. We grilled out, drank fantastic amounts of beer, played board games, and churned our own ice cream.

As it got late (and tipsy), I declared that I could go for a swim. Noah (who has remained a dear friend) got behind this idea wholeheartedly and we quickly organized a late-night march down to the river.

When we arrived near the water it was still and black. Most of my friends were too hesitant to scramble down the steep bank in the dark but Noah forged ahead and I managed to follow. We slipped out of our clothes and into the water. It was perfect. Not too cold and smelling green. We floated out past the rocks and stared up at the moon and an abandoned train trestle and listened to firecrackers exploding in the distance.

We just leaned against a downed tree trunk and lived in that lovely warm, wet, firecrackers moment. We talked about the moon and the train trestle and turtles. I realized that I felt fundamentally right in that water. The world was in place and my sorrow had subsided. Instead of feeling incomplete and broken, I actually had some peace. One of my best friends was near my side and there to observe my independence and tranquility. I felt beautiful, happy, and safe.

I wrote this weeks ago. And now I’ve lost the person that it is about. He has given up on trying to find a place for me in his future. And I’m grieving.

you told me that it was the best day of your life. i could see that in your eyes all day. the chronology fails me, the events are already slipping away. i just remember how it felt. the uncontrollable smiles. the calm, peaceful serenity of it. i remember memorizing your face over and over again. and i remember the music. singing snippets of lyrics to you. knowing that every love song ever written was about us. because we were loving each other not as the center of our individual universes but as the center of the entire universe. so, how could a musician write about any love other than ours? what could be more pure or intense or real? these are the ridiculous narcissistic thoughts that clouded my thoughts and utterances. this is why i looked in your eyes and earnestly said that one of the upsides of being codependent was sharing just as much in the other’s joy as in the sadness. i suggested at one point that we had spent the day doing nothing. you were firm and insistent that this wasn’t nothing. i see now that it was the biggest something i have ever done. but just like the way i love you, i can’t put a label on it.

***

We sang together. Our voices cracking under the stress of the moment. The fear weaves through the melody. But there is a commitment in that lyric. By the end of the song, all I could do was whisper the words. But I kept at it. The final lines didn’t choke me up so much because of the weight of the ones that had come before. That was bearable. What was unbearable was seeing the end of the song and knowing that this moment was about to end. I nearly panicked. I wanted to stop time. Perhaps if I could stop the song from ending, I could stop you from sliding away from me.

***

We stood naked together, smelling of sweat and tears and a day of anguish. You pulled me to you in the water and whispered dreams of a future in my ear. A home and cats and growing old together. Growing together. You wish for it. For a moment, I don’t hear the conflict in your voice anymore. You sound resolved. But it flits away quickly. It gets loaded down with caveats, maybes, and what-ifs. I’ve stepped closer to this dream but only for an instant. It is a dream that is more yours than mine. It sounds lovely, it sounds satisfying, but mostly it sounds like a way to have you near my always.

***

you asked me something unfair. to make love to you like it would keep you alive. i knew that is how i did it every time but i was still afraid that i could fail. and if i failed would it mean that you would die? so i plead for your life and made a million promises that would be impossible to keep if you would just stay on the earth.

***

I want to be strong for you. I want to be strong in your eyes. I want you to see the woman that, at the age of 9, picked the outfit her mother would be buried in. I want you to see the 18-year-old that moved across the country by herself to embark on a new education and a new life. You are so strong and I feel dwarfed by it on most days.

***

I remember holding you. Scooping you up in my arms like you were a child. Looking down on you and seeing your frailty and vulnerability and marveling at the strength that lived within it. I remember my shock at realizing that my body knew what to do at those moments. Even with no idea what to say, you fit in the space of my lap, I was built to shelter you and protect you in those moments. The same as you can provide me casual but total safety by welcoming me to rest my head on your chest. It occurred to me that my only purpose on earth in that moment, my only reason to take another breath, was to love you and keep loving you and being loved by you. Intensely. So you could feel it through the pain. And I believe that you could if only in small moments.

***

You told me that it was the best day of your life.  I know that you might be approaching one of the worst. I feel so powerless to crack through that pain. I’m resisting the urge to believe that being unable to help is a reflection on the intensity or tenacity of our love. I pray for the chance to grow with you.

Last night

after you hung up

I wrote you a poem

hoping it might change your heart.

This morning I tell myself:

Get serious, man.

Someone once compared

writing a poem

and hoping it will

change the world

to dropping rose petals

down a deep well

waiting for the splash.

The last few months have been a rough time in my life. I started this blog as a sex blog and it has meandered through so much more than the bodily machinations associated with the sexual act. Recently, I’ve been grappling with incredibly difficult relationship issues among the people I love. I’ve been afraid to say much about any of it for fear of burning bridges and hurting the people I love and am working so hard to cling to.

At the same time, it has seemed disengenious to segment my sexuality out from my loving relationships and chatter idly about funny news stories, sex toys, or jerk-off fantasies. I’m hoping to find the courage soon to break my silence through some vignettes of particularly poignant moments that have transpired in the last few months. It might not be particularly sexy (unless you get off on emotional masochism) but I’ll be as honest as a can.

So, bear with me as this blog transitions into something that is, at once, a protest song and a love letter to the fears, insecurities, and joys in my life.

At Frolicon I got the chance to attend a discussion on domestic violence and abuse in the BDSM community. This is a poignant topic for me personally and I learned some things about emotional and verbal abuse along the way. I’m coming to realize first hand that words can truly wound in ways that are unfathomable. Emotional abuse victims often suffer depression and post traumatic stress disorder. Here are some resources related to the topic of you or someone you love is in an abusive situation:

Warning Signs of Emotional Abuse

Verbal Abuse Assessment

Examples of Abusive Behavior

A study proving that emotional abuse can be even more harmful than physical violence

My Google reader has been on 1000+ for weeks now as I deal with relationship drama ad nauseum and other parts of life (good and bad) getting in the way of blogging. But I have some progress and news to report.

• The gorgeous and sexy Thursday wrote this really pretty water sex post and dedicated it to me. Swoon.


• I avoided a total fangirl moment and played it cool when Jayme Waxman asked to interview me for a piece on phone sex at YourTango.


• Apparently, I am one of the best sex toy reviewers of 2008. I do know that my boyfriend loves listening to me snark on all the crap toys available in the average porn store.


• March 26th was the four year anniversary of this blog. I missed that fucker again. How frustrating. Maybe I’ll make it up to you with a new episode of Bedroom Radio. But, if you’ve never listened before, the old ones are new to you.


• Next week our entire quad is packing off to Frolicon. I’ve never attended before but I’m pretty excited. Turns out some people that I really admire and enjoy will be there: Lolita Wolf, Sharrin Spector, and Nina (my preferred leather pusher.) If you are going to be there and have been ignoring my queries on Twitter, please speak up!


• Sex 2.0 is coming up again next month and we’re 95% sure that we’re attending. Assuming nothing goes ridiculously wrong financially, I’m so excited to get to go again. I’m not sure if I’ll be leading a session or just actively participating but I can’t wait to see all of my friends again. Too many to mention here easily but if you look at my blogroll, it gives you a pretty good idea.

Today I see the people I love being ripped away from me. I see scenarios for losing the dreams I have let myself build over the past six months. I even see scenarios for losing the dreams that Jay and I have built over our three year relationship. People are taking sides, factions are forming, and the teams are all wrong.

In the past, Jay and I have told Michael and Ariel that if their primary relationship wasn’t strong and solid, that we couldn’t be with them. We’ve told them that we would all have to take a break while they worked things out to whatever conclusion they needed to reach. That system has never been engaged before, we’ve always been convinced to stick around. Sometimes we’ve helped, sometimes I think we’ve hurt things. I always feel like a bandaid.

This time around, I don’t think I can bear to pull the bandaid off. Michael and I are clinging to our relationship desperately. Jay and Ariel seem to be doing the same thing. For the first time today I felt like I might lose Jay if this all breaks. What is worse, he refuses to talk about it any further as of this moment. I’m looking down the track and I’m seeing the obstacles instead of the destinations.

It has become very clear to me that the people I write about here are real people that I have complex relationships with. Meanwhile, there is still some way in which I am a character. I’m pasted together with flippant comments on sex and dirty pictures and the occasional glimpse into my professional life via Twitter. But really, mostly I’m a self-constructed person. On the other hand, Jay and Michael and Ariel don’t have as much agency in their representations here. I try to tell my stories honestly and I try to make them beautiful and I try to see them as imperfect and very partial glimpses into my experience.

Lately, I’ve been hungering to show off the bad with the good. The petty feelings and fears and nasty fights. When this all started we were tripping through daisies and in many ways we still are. I thrill at memories of snuggling Jay in another couple’s bed and sliding Ariel’s hand up my thigh at the dinner table and shivering in an abandoned park with Michael while recreating his first kiss. But I also know that the other moments are what make those so beautiful. Jay calling me an insensitive bitch at 5am and Ariel clattering across my living room floor telling me in stark detail the ways I had hurt her and Michael coldly acusing me of devaluing his love.

There are times when the four of us tear ourselves apart and I think that we won’t make it. That something fundamental will break and we will drift, cut lose from our cores. There are other times when I think that we grow stronger each time we bleed out pain in this way. More honest, more real, more committed. That perhaps scar tissue is stronger than baby soft flesh and our battle scars are really growing pains. Hard fought and hard won. It knocks the idealism and fairy tale ending further out of my reach every time but I suspect that a dream more permanent may grow in its place.