Hello libido.

Oh, how I've missed you.

I know I've shunned you for the past month. It's not that I don't care for you deeply. The truth is, I've been afraid of you. I know you have a mind of your own and you can be relentless and unstoppable. So I've done a little dance, played a little hustle to distract you.

But you're back.

I was on a very long fucking bus ride, made excruciatingly longer by the snow. Long drives always give way to sexual fantasies for me. And I was in a hotel room alone for three days. Maybe it was the illicitness of hotels - transactions and secret fucking. I'd write and then masturbate, bringing myself to the point just before orgasm. Then I'd stop, write some more and masturbate again, keeping myself perpetually wanton.

On the bus, I'd undress every man, press myself into him and feel how he'd fuck me. And how I'd fuck him. Then I'd comb through my infinite library of group fucking scenes: me and oh so many men. I was wet and frenzied.

In the middle of my reverie I receive a text from an old lover:

"Tell me about Agent Provocateur." I want new lingerie. I think he should buy it for me.
"You'd come with me and I'd model pieces for you, straddling your lap as I come out of the fitting room. The shop girls in their tight pink mini dresses fondle me as they adjust my straps. I'd meet you back at my place, wearing my new ensemble. You'd come in and I'd pin you against the wall, then down on the floor, grinding against your cock, my very wet pussy staining your pants."
"Come on, I don't believe the girls fondling you part." He's not much of a sport here.
"They do 'private fittings'. Then I'd climb onto the table, spreading my legs and masturbate for you. "
"What's gotten into you?"

It's what's come back into me.


Image: source unknown

Timing is everything

Knowing when to leap. Knowing when to leave.

There's always a moment, in the beginning of getting to know someone, when I'm faced with diving in. I can feel myself perched, hesitating, knowing that I either have to take the risk and jump, or I stay back. It's not a moment that offers itself again, so it's foolish to think my decision in that moment doesn't matter. It matters a lot. In that moment, everything can change.

I seem to stay in relationships longer than when I know it's time to go. Not because I'm in love with the person anymore - I usually know I'm not. I am in love with the idea of joining my life with someone and creating something together. It's sad to think of letting go of all the effort that brought us that far and starting again. So I end up working toward an ideal, an illusion really.

I've seen it a few times now. There's always a huge cost on both ends for not taking advantage of the portal that presents itself and using its momentum to fly off into another world.

It's all about trust. Trusting that I can leap when it feels right and my intuition tells me to. That something, somewhere, will catch me.

Stages

I remember a friend whose Dad's passed away when she was in her early twenties. She'd done a lot of work around grief and she'd told me about Elizabeth Kubler Ross, and her ideas on the stages of grieving. Anger was one of them.

I felt angry the past couple of days. Fuck you kind of angry. I wanted the rest of my stuff back and was determined to get it. I didn't want to see him even - I was going to suggest he leave it on his porch. He was becoming an asshole in my head. I was thinking of some of the things he said to me in the last, painful moments of our demise and I felt wrongly accused and unseen.

From what I know about anger, it can be productive in that it can let us know when a boundary has been stepped over. It can be motivating - when I played soccer and I'd be tripped or body-checked, that would be the incentive I'd need to score a goal. When used in a healthy way, it can be fuel.

Or it can create false justification. It can be toxic. I could feel myself slipping into that place and that was the cue I needed to step out of it again. My anger shifted into action. And empowerment. And with that, back came my sex drive. Suddenly, in the knowing that I was going over there to pick up my stuff, I was imagining his cock, how wet my pussy would be the moment I saw him. I could feel his thighs with my hands and my mouth. Feel him on top of me. It was huge and overwhelming.

*sigh* I'm side-stepping that. I'm glad to see my sex drive is connected to this feeling of pushing forward, movement and growth. I'll be directing it elsewhere.

I went back to check out the other stages of grieving. According to Kubler Ross, they can happen in any order, and people don't necessarily experience all of them:

Denial: feeling in shock, unconscious refusal to accept the facts
Anger: why is this happening to me? Another shroud to deflect pain.
Bargaining: I promise I'll be a better person if...
Depression: withdrawal from life. I don't care anymore.
Acceptance: I can't fight it, I might as well prepare for it.

I haven't studied her work enough to know where sobbing uncontrollably fits into that. Maybe it's in acceptance. All the other stages feel like delaying the inevitable. Really crying it out seems to me the most truthful acknowledgment of what's happening.

(I'm summarizing from my experience and a few sources: this, this and this)

I also found this from Dr. Roberta Temes in the book, "Living With An Empty Chair - a guide through grief." Three types of behaviour seen in the grief-stricken:

Numbness (mechanical functioning and social insulation)
Disorganization (intensely painful feelings of loss)
Reorganization (re-entry into a more 'normal' social life.)

She speaks to the pain as a form of dismantling - pulling everything apart so that it can be put back together again. I think I'm actually pulling together well. I'm productive, energized, and still somewhat heavy. I have some restless anxiety that I think is more about me needing to channel myself elsewhere. What I'm missing right now are social outlets. So much of my time was spent with him, so much of my inner life I shared with him that I'm feeling like a tap that's been stopped up and needs to be released. The pressure is building up. Creating social situations has typically not been my forte. I'm not much of a small talker, but sometimes I surprise myself and I can jump right in and really enjoy myself. Or, I just direct the conversation toward sex and suddenly I have a lot to say.

Spoon me

I was thinking about what I wrote in my last post, about me knowing I ought to leave and not leaving. There's something crazymaking about woulda/coulda/shoulda and I don't think it's healthy for me to dwell there. I had an insight, I overrode it. I am where I am. It's best if I just step forward from here.

I'm craving touch. I want to be held, spooned, encased in tenderness and warmth. I want the comfort of someone's breath next to me, inhaling his scent, the reassuring rise and fall of another body. Waking up in the night entwined. I'm slowly accepting this empty bed, but I'm still a bit shocked.

I miss having something/someone immediate to love. I guess this is where people get dogs.

Image source: unknown

Written on the body

The past few days I've been feeling more emotionally settled. I question that a bit though. I don't want to numb myself and push forward too quickly. I believe in the power and importance of healing and going through whatever I need to to get there.

He (Mark) called me the other night. I've been starting to feel hopeful about the future, feeling myself disentangle and accept the idea of a life without him. I was getting ready for bed, lying with my laptop and writing. My oh-so-pretty new iphone tinkled and I saw his number. I wasn't expecting to hear from him, not for a while. He was in an anxious place. I think he could sense me moving away from him, and cutting the threads that bind us. I'm not in a place yet where I can be a support for him so I felt myself barricading against, feeling the need to quickly patch together my undone-ness while we spoke. The conversation was hollow. I got off the phone, noticing the anxiety simmering in me from hearing his voice, seeing his number come up on my phone. I spent the night a bit restless, wondering if he was going to show up. I think he would respect my space enough not to, but he still has my keys. I once welcomed him crawling into bed with me at 2am because he just couldn't sleep without me. Now I want my keys back. And my pounds of organic frozen strawberries I have stored in his freezer. I'd really love it if he tossed in his chili recipe too. But I don't want to ask for too much.

***

Yesterday I saw someone who does neural therapy. It's a type of injection that is performed at certain nerve junctures and into scar tissue. The concept behind it is fascinating: that a scar carries an electric charge five times that of normal skin and can create an area of 'interference'. Nerve and muscle function can be compromised and random pains can pop up in the body. By temporarily numbing the area with an anaesthetic and a mix of homeopathics, the nerve resets itself back to its original state. Scar tissue is also encouraged to resolve. Rather, dissolve. Any emotional trauma that's since ossified in the scar will be released.

I've had an issue with sciatica for months now. An issue which started when I first knew this relationship wouldn't carry on, but I buried that information. My body hadn't.

Six months ago I was at a workshop. I was sharing with someone about my relationship and she asked me a question that totally caught me off guard. It was about Mark and in that instant I knew we didn't have a future together. I broke down and couldn't stop crying (the workshop was nearly over). I knew it was the truth but I so didn't want it to be. I stayed, redoubling my efforts to revive things. There were moments when we'd surge and then we'd fall flat again. Our flat was never awful, but I was still tolerating.

I could feel when the needle went in, and it's definitely uncomfortable in a dull sort of way. Then I felt a rush of emotion come up in me. I cried, and since it's expected, the woman who injected me just stroked my forehead and encouraged me to stay with it. I did, letting myself breathe and sob and eventually it dissipated.

The site she injected me at is also where I miscarried. I was pregnant seven months ago. Although in all practical terms, it was not the time for me to be having a baby, it felt really right to be pregnant. Maybe all women's bodies feel that way as some kind of biological predisposition. I felt alive, electric, radiant and beautifully feminine. In a world where all things are possible, and all paths are just parallel universes, I could envision it happening.

He couldn't.

After an agonizing weekend that highlighted other issues, we came to the place of agreeing we wouldn't have a baby. In the next few days I could no longer feel the buzzing in my abdomen or the slight cramping that indicates the uterus is growing larger. The tenderness in my breasts was less acute. I felt vacated.

A few days later I bled. The pain and cramping were excruciating. I went out to the forest to bury the embryo. I carried it with me for a few days until I could make it out to the woods. I would palpate it, this partially formed, almost-thing, trying to feel where it would have taken shape.

Since then, I've had a dull ache in my abdomen that's slowly spread into my leg and been bothering me ever since. The epicenter of that pain is wrapped up in those nerves and ganglion, tight and twisted and sad and disappointed. When the naturopath injected me there I burst into tears for a life that could have been. For the possibility of someone's hand on my stomach, curious and excited. And for me not leaving when I knew I ought to have.

When I look at the sign I hadn't heeded about a life that wasn't meant to be, and its subsequent albatross in my abdomen, I'm sad. For not listening to myself and honoring my wisdom. I also see how it's an art to heal a wound gracefully. To not keep picking at it (by being in touch with Mark) and succumbing to the urge to itch. The urge subsides and if I nurture the wound, it leaves its mark, but doesn't get in the way of things to come.

Internal feng shui

Nicolaa Tamindzic posted this image and quote on his tumblr the other day:

“Your soul is as disheveled as your apartment, and until you can clean it up a little you don’t want to invite anyone else inside.”— Jay McInerney, Bright Lights, Big City (quote via villagevegan)

I like this because one of the things that's given me forward momentum over the past week, is examining the state of my "home" and wondering where there's room for beautification. There's lots of room, of course. I'm scrubbing and mending and washing the debris I've let float in the ethers. It's uncomfortable to take honest stock, but I'd rather be growing than decaying.

And this:

"When love isn't in our lives, it's on its way; that is the nature of the universe. If you know that a special guest is coming at five o'clock, do you spend the day messing up the house? Of course not. You prepare. And that is what we should do for love." -- Marianne Williamson, Enchanted Love

The anxiety of falling out of love could only find repose... in love

The sadness I can deal with - I know if I let it run its course it will eventually dissipate and transform into something like joy. It's the anxiety that debilitates me. I've been wondering what's causing it and it seems to kick in when I question the rightness of splitting up. Thinking I could be making a mistake. It's not logical, given the overview of everything, but it's there. A mild panic that if I'm going through all this, there'd better be a good reason for it. There is.

The thing that's enabled me to rise above that is to focus on releasing him, with love. Knowing that he has something he needs to do. And I have things I need to do and it seems better if we do them on our own. If I try to block the love, I feel stuck. When I open to it, even though that love will slowly transform into divine love or detached love rather than loverly love, everything feels much better and my anxiety dissolves. It's basically letting go.

I can feel myself recasting my dreams in other directions. I'm lightening, though still easily triggered. I went for a hike today somewhere we used to go and came to a spot we stopped at once when we were first seeing each other. He put his arms around me; he had this incredible way of holding me gentle but firm. His limbs always wound around me, like twining vines. It made me feel safe. Encapsulated.


When I got to that spot, I cried. I cry when I see someone's words about love. Or when I see a photo with a man's hands on a woman's body - even the image of skin touching skin moves me. I've been hunched over in bathroom stalls between meetings, and alone in the forest in tears. Someone (thank you) wrote to me today: "the pain is intrinsic to healing." I agree.

*

On another note, I'm ovulating. I'm a jittery, sensitized huntress. I see myself scanning rooms, scanning men, looking for a match. My sexual compatibility locator is fairly accurate and I can feel it activating. I'm going to sit on this for now though. (I guess we'll see how long). The Taoists say that we can convert our sexual energy into creative energy, so that's what I'm focusing on. Looking at art porn all day, however, does nothing to diminish my urges.

Photos: unknown and Su Blackwell (book-cut sculpture)