Don't Fuck 'Em

You can tell by the lack of posts that the confusion that consumed me is waning. Thank god. You still have to go through that shit, even at my age.

I am staring down a new life, a life that has freedom written all over it. A life that has a sigh of relief on its shoulders. A life that could potentially be lonely.

It also has the potential of being really rather quite beautiful.

I was away for a week on work trip, a trip that surrounded me in people and more than a few (well, no, exactly a few) gentleman suiters. One of which, the most attractive to me, was 29 (turing 30 in a few days, so, there's that).

He has a girlfriend back in his home, so obviously he's a bit of a player. I'm sure his advances towards me were not his first, but he was very attracted to me. He loved my energy, my smile, blah blah blah.

He totally wanted to do things to me that, in the end, I may or may not have enjoyed. I will never know.

I let him kiss me though, let him kiss me good night on our last night there. But what if I had done more, what if we had had a night of either passionate or awkward sex? Would he have still looked me up on Facebook?

I think these young boys' attention is flattering, but I think the lesson here is, don't fuck 'em. Everything that is fun and exciting about it turns to shit when you do. The friendship, if there was one, is gone.

At least, that's what my lesson taught me.

Also, I don't understand the Hook Up. I just don't get it. What's actually in it for me? A night of weird sex with someone who knows nothing about me or my body - what works and what doesn't? How much time do you have to spend telling them, "No, not like that. Slow down. Faster. Don't flick your tongue like that... "?

And then after that, it's just a little weird and someone goes home. Clearly, I'm missing something here.

I like the people though, I like it when I'm friends with these younger attracted people. They're fun and alive, and I dig that about them. Fucking ruins that. For them, the quest is over, they move on. When for me, I actually enjoyed the camaraderie.

So that's that, it's decided. There will be no passionate sex in my immediate future. Ugh.

ps: Thanks Ryan - you're a real pal.

The Perennial Garden

In his defence? I'm not sure why I would want to defend him, but... here we go:

He didn't see who he had, he was attracted to what he saw, but didn't understand enough to appreciate the entirety of what he was attracted to. The very heart of Me.

I have mean streak of vulnerability and truth that connects to some level of sensuality that just draws them in - some people are not evolved enough to see that this sexuality I exude comes from the truth that I long to feel.

The love, the essence of the journey I wear on my skin like perfume. They want to touch it, fuck it, love it, and experience it, but they are not always willing to be touched by it. 

They want to experience it from the shoulders up, they don't want me to infect their simple reality with any measure of depth. They just wanted a piece of the action.

And I was built to be an open book, sometimes hurt by the words, or lack thereof, that I allowed someone to write in the margins while they toured the badlands.

Words that, unfortunately, echo the actions of the man who was the first to use me and spit his selfishness and disregard on the spot in me that struggles to remain bright. Which, incidentally, is the very reason I seek the truth of connection to the level at which I do.

I am an adult woman who is experiencing, once again, being fucked by someone who, overall, doesn't give a shit about the flower he just picked and threw away.

I mean, at least press that shit like it was something you appreciated as once being alive. Right?

I gave him way too much credit. He's much too young to be thoughtful gardner.

If I Believed Me

It's just that I'm not usually this wrong about people and things. Which is to say, he must have feelings for me. I really want him to have feelings for me, ones that run at least a little deeper.

I'm just not usually this wrong.

Maybe there could have been something that still existed and maybe I ruined it by not being "strong enough" and being able to just turn it off. Maybe I came off needy in the end and anything he was attracted to waned.

Maybe.

But it just doesn't feel like that deep down.

The inner truth that feels strong in me is that there was something. Not nothing.

I go over past thought obsessions and attractions, ones I've gotten hung up-ish on. Did they not like me? Where they just not that into me? Or was it reciprocated?

None of those were ever physically actualized, but there was interest on both parts. Ugh, I don't know what would have become of J, he too was very young. I don't know that my interest would have lasted, but because he never got what he was looking for - that attraction will still exist.

To be fair, it wouldn't have gone anywhere. This felt like it would or could have lasted in the distant way I was hoping for. It seemed perfect. Not a relationship, but two people who cared enough about each other and took some solace and joy out of the time that was shared.

I should turn off the thoughts. I shouldn't revisit the fun in my mind, it's self inflicted frustration.

Maybe it would just be nice to know that he revisits them too, that he would like more of them as well.

Is this the way it will be now? Is this just the world of casual sex and I will be even easier to dismiss because I'm older?

That's a tough pill to swallow.

I Am No Longer his Number Three

I've found a new home, and once I accepted I freaked the fuck out. It's been a roller coaster of "this is going to be great" to "what the fuck am I doing?"

This morning, this moment, feels okay.

My friend, who was a part of what precipitated all this, is just that, a friend. A broken work friendship that is skewed and off balance and that I can't help but push for something a little more authentic between us. I've embarrassed myself by trying to talk to him about it - to release some of the pressure that I feel in all this unknowing.

I mean, all I asked was that he appreciate that what happened ended up having more significance in my life as a whole, and that, perhaps, as a friend, he could have a bit more empathy that I am way off kilter in this all. Perhaps he could be a little less of a friend from the shoulders up and perhaps have a little heart, too.

I guess I just wanted him to be a friend enough that he check in, that he cared where I was at. But, he's 27. He may even feel bad and some what responsible and so is really keeping me at arms length. Or, he's 27 and is thinking, "ugh, I just wanted to have a good time, I don't want to deal with your shit..."

Either way, I'm pretty alone in this all and that is, I suppose, as it should be.

Some moments I'm really okay with that. Other moments, I second guess my actions and decision to leave a secure and comfortable relationship - wherein I was stalled, muted, frozen.

My brain says, was I though? Or was I just bored?

Only hindsight will be able to answer those questions. Remembering back though, the two years we first split up, I didn't feel that way. I didn't feel like I had made the wrong decision. I don't recall feeling overly lonely and bored. I remember feeling awkward at first, but after that, it just seemed peaceful.

I slept better and later, I was in my routine. I imagine the same thing will happen here.

I imagine and I hope.

I hope too that my friend will be okay with me. I hope that he talks to his brother and gets some insight as to how he might have some more grace and depth with me - his friend of which he has intimate knowledge.

He's young though, and my intuition tells me that he's shut himself off from parts of the world so as to avoid getting hurt, having lost his mother who he was very connected to, and now his father too.

It's that, or he really is Ted from Bridesmaids which would be a little bit more shocking...

Rage Lite

Maybe... just maybe when I finally find a place and move out of the matrimonial home, this will stop?

I am in limbo, stuck in some surreal gap of having left but not having actually left. It's killing me a little bit.

And the holidays, oh my god, my partner has been home everyday and never going too far from me, like a puppy that thinks he's found his owner and doesn't dare stray too far.

I had to tell him again that I am actually leaving. Things have been so normal that he thought maybe it was just a phase I went through and was over it now.

In our house, it is as if nothing has changed. We are the exact same people as we break up that we are when we are together. Doesn't that scream... something? I'm sure it does but I can't put my finger on it.

I believe, that in order to cope with the middle ground, I am obsessing about other possibilities of love, passion etc. It doesn't help that I had a fabulous taste of it just a short while ago.  I dream of that persons arms around me as we lay in the sweaty aftermath.

I'm trying to find centre, but it's not easy. At this point, it is probably safer to admit defeat and stop trying to fight feeling like a volcano that is ready to burst. I am going to explode.

If only I could cry.

Gasping Desire

I gotta get my head back on straight. I am lost in the ethereal, looking for love. Why? Why am I looking for love? Because I've finally admitted that I've not really had love for so long that I want to immediately fill that gap?

It's fucked up.

My friend and I are... still friends. Still connected (on my part at least - that I am aware of) by what feels (to me) like an invisible elastic band. At our work lunch, he orders shared appies for us, he waits for me, walks with me. In idle conversation he hints that he would not let me win. Mutual affection abounds, and I can't do a single fucking thing about it. He's playing a really very good game. Touché.

Then, as I do at times, I reach out to my first love, just to check in on him, say hi, that sort of thing. I eventually get a text back saying, it's not that he doesn't want to see me, but that what I don't know is that (after 25 years) he thinks of me every day and that that comes from true love.

What? Is he fucking with me? Why is he saying that? He can't possibly be telling the truth. At the very least, he is exaggerating. And if it's true, that can't be healthy.

Yet, I've always loved him, always professed that I always would - in a "very fond of my first love memories" kind of way. A first love that was, of course, wrought with dysfunction (cheater pants, booze, and youth).

But when I've seen him in the past, I've known instantly that I still love him - AND THAT IS FUCKED UP. Jesus.

It doesn't matter though, from what I know, he is seriously using (drugs) and there is no way in hell I would subject myself to that again. It's not even a thought. I've come way too far, I don't even have it in me to go backwards with a person who has not intellectually and emotionally evolved.

Except in that spot in my head where I like to entertain stupidity ( a popular past time these days).

I remember the last time I saw him and his amber eyes took me right back to a place where I had no idea why I loved him, but loved him wholly and completely all the same.

Every wistful word I said to my kids about my first love and how it just wasn't our time back then.

The times I've spent in the past revisiting the possibility of us meeting up again and finally being the right time for us both.

But, in a fantasy world.

So, here I am, lurching for the possibility of love and distraction. Where is it, where can I find it? I'm frantic with the replacement theory.

I think that I know that this is just a natural phase of leaving my marriage and realizing the time I have given to it - and perhaps being angry about that. I want something for me now. But, damn, it is uncomfortable, gasping desire is heavy burden.

The goal has been to reach my quiet solitude and get some work done. To make space for my work, not clutter my space with little men and a parade of unmet expectations.

Where the fuck did my grown up go?

Beautiful, Free, and Alive

I am ridiculous, I'm pinning all my built up frustrations with life in general on this one thing and I need to calm down.

Calm down and let go.

I am 44,  I am leaving my husband because there is nothing here for me. There may not be a whole lot on the other side, but there will be the hope of more. The dream of more.

I am lovely in my nature and, one day,  I want to share that with someone who is lovely and alive in theirs.

I want to build a nest that nurtures growth and creativity.  I want to focus and excel at my job.

I want to be beautiful, free, and alive.