"There's gotta be something better than this..." ~ Sweet Charity

Why, didn’t every 7th grader want to become a botanist and live in a tree to be away from people? 

I am at the radically awful and hopeful place of beginning to work on relationships, and my relationship to relationships. 

Coincidentally or not, the last time I started this kind of work, I was into the deep and dredging and combing-over-my-sad-history-of-self-abandonment-and-isolation part when I was struck with a bout of Leukemia, and had to stop.

Now that I’m through a round of work on my relationship to money, scarcity, “under-being,” under-earning, me and my mentor agreed that we could work on the other side of the “romance and finance” coin.

Color me thrilled. 

In fact, I am looking forward to it, … sort of. Not the work itself, but the results of it. 

I am not meant to continue my early patterns of self-insulation through isolation or self-abandonment/-destruction. Or, rather, I’m not content to. What I’m meant to do is really only up to me, isn’t it? And a few strokes of fate, I imagine. (hello, cancer.)

But, whatever role I can have in loosening the noose of “Trust No One,” I am signing up for it. 

I do feel that I am in a better place to begin this time than I was about 2 years ago. I’m working with someone who knows me well, who’s walked this path with and before me, and whom I trust and love.

Even though our particular histories are dissimilar, their endings and the feelings they’ve evoked in us became the same. 

She’s told me that my feeling of imminence, urgency & impatience with myself and "the world" will fade: I am a 33 year old healthy smart beautiful woman. Why the fuck have I never been in a relationship that’s lasted over 6 months, and only two of them at that? Why have I been unintentionally celibate for years on end or find myself particularly attracted to taken men? My “hot” years are fading; I want to take advantage of them!

And yet. I seem to land in the same place each time I try to throw myself into the ring, or try to avoid it. And so, it’s time to try something else. Something I know will work, because it works for thousands of other people who walk a path of recovery. 

I’m not stoked. But I am. 

It’s sad stuff to riffle through. There is a Trail of Tears that’s led me here. But I feel ready for this. No, not eager to riffle; yes, eager to heal, move on, move forward. Let whoever I’m supposed to be, or whoever I’m hiding, to integrate. 

Does this look like a bright shiny pot of gold(en haired children) at the other end? Likely not. 

I finished the work on money, and I’m still in the thick of the results of patterns that brought me here. But I imagine they’ll shift over time. 

So, too, I imagine with the love and relationship stuff. I won’t buy a wedding dress at the end of it. But perhaps I’ll buy date one. 

(p.s. this missive is in no way a passive request for dating invitations. but thanks.)  ;) 

I want to tell you everything.

I want to tell you how gently he kissed my forehead, and how warm his body felt as I shifted in the night. I want to tell you how natural and serene it felt to twine my fingers into his and lean my body against him as we waited for the stoplight to change. I want to tell you it was a good thing his roommates weren’t home most of the time we were, and about quietly resting my foot on top of his knee while he told me a story over the sunlit kitchen table.

I want to tell you everything. But, it’s not only my story. And this one is still being written, still has a few more “Choose Your Own Adventure” plot twists available, and the ending of it could be sooner or farther than we know.

So, I’ll try my best not to tell you that it was only when I was finally unpacking my suitcase in Oakland that the tears that had surged and abated in airports across America finally fell. Or the relief I felt stepping into the open air of the BART platform and looking around at the hodge-podge of people I’ve grown so familiar with. I’ll try not to tell you about the dull and persistent ache of withdrawal.

He’d said, “escaping the world” once when we were planning this.

I’m sure all vacations have their hangovers. The return to grim reality, and also to familiarity. The return to my own coffee pot and car and a toothbrush that doesn’t fold in half. There’s a relief and a longing. Like finishing a delicious meal and finally placing down your fork, overfull, yet wishing you could savor it all again.

You remember the small moments. The ones where you took a deep, satiated breath. The angles of the New England homes you drove past on ancient winding roads, and the spray of the Atlantic, blue today, over the rocks. You remember playing with his pinkie finger while you waited for your pregnant waitress, looking, still self-consciously, out the window by your table, since it was only day 2 and you felt new and strange and uncertain.

You try to remember everything. To etch it into consciousness, since it will certainly fade, the exact tightness of his arms around you while you lay naked against him; the exact way his chest hair curled while you fiddled with it musingly; the exact timbre of his echoing laughter under the short kitchen ceiling.

I’d told you before I left that I imagined being held delicately and protectively and surely by him, and that for once, I wasn’t frightened of it. Well, friends, it was true. And though we’ve taken fantasy and pulled it into the realm of reality, with all its attendant Yeses and Finallys and Contentedness, … we also both took the courageous move to explore the exact shape of reality’s rough edges and Almosts and Not Quites.

And should it be once again with the man this time was spent with, and should it be another person completely: I am buoyed to know that I can rest in the arms of a man, with no thought of escape.

Changing Underpants

“It’s like he really likes me & I’m not running from it,” is what I wrote in my journal this morning.

In fact, on Wednesday, I’ll be heading toward it, at 500 miles per hour.

I have my heels dug firmly into the ground below the plane that will carry me there, and I have compassion for the terror and fear that insists I stay in my cozy isolation.

It reminded me of a story I’d written in college (A Perverse Act of Gentility), although now, many of the details have changed. Most importantly, the part where I’m actually attracted to him, and that he’s never fallen into the deathly “friend zone.”

But, the final sentence of that story, about having humiliation and disgust for someone who “held me like an angel” -- that’s what sparked the memory this morning. That I anticipate being held in the same way by the Boston Cupcake, but I that anticipate feeling in polar opposite to how I did then. In fact, that I already do.

The number of years I’ve spent avoiding true connection is vast. I’ve written extensively here about hiding from, running from, being suspicious of love, but if you’re new to reading me, trust me: Intimacy … 

Well, here’s the vicious Catch-22 I’ve found myself in for as many years:

I am terrified of being loved; and it is also the absolute thing I hope most to be. It is where I know healing, change, elevation, joy, enlightenment, growth, revelation, and alchemy will occur. 

So, there is something different this time (no matter what the “outcome”) with the Cupcake: I am actually heading toward it. I’m not listening (wholly) to the fear. And, I feel different. “Even in my underpants, I feel different,” to quote Elizabeth Gilbert.

But, less in my underwear (though, yes...), and more in my chest cavity, in my guts, I feel different. At the same time that I have this electric fence around my whole body, I have a magnet within it too. And one is fading.

I want to be loved more than I want to hide, and I can feel the shift. I can feel tectonic plates, long-ago formed in the tundra and tumult of my creation, beginning to ease. A slight release in the tightness of my guts, and mostly, an excitement. Not just the titillation and anticipation of getting to spend time with someone I really like, but also, the opening of a door that for so long hung a sign that said, Do Not Enter: Radioactive Waste.

Years ago, I wrote a poem about a dusty “Back in Five Minutes” sign on the massive-shipping container that is my heart. About brushing the caked dirt off it, but not needing to open it then, just being content to know that it’s there, “secure, intact, existent.”

I think some of what is occurring is that I am finally opening up that shipping container, and taking a look inside. That I’m allowing the door to be open for a few minutes at a time. That I’m allowing myself to dream about what it would be like to unpack it all, to discard the fallacies, and engage and indulge in the luxuries.

Moreover, I’m letting myself do more than just dream about it, and I think that’s where the true change is occurring. I am heading over a continent, through years of flirtation, through a lifetime of resistance, toward possibility. There is a willingness to step into the unknown that hasn’t been there before, and after the willingness is actual action. Call it cancer, call it recovery, call it straight-up flouting of boredom and stagnancy.

I still am terrified, I know that. But I also feel different. In my ribcage and in my underpants, I feel different. 

The Whatifs

Last month, I contacted my psychic to ask about this upcoming trip to visit the Boston Cupcake (as he shall henceforth be known).

I can get an emailed reading from her, and despite your and my own doubts, I get pretty accurate and insightful results from her, via email or by phone. I mean, I’ve met her and all – but this isn’t about her. It’s about him. And me.

I’d panicked a little after we’d confirmed that I was going to fly out, over the continent, to spend 4 days in his bed, arms, town, space. As Shel Silverstein elegantly put it:

Last night, while I lay thinking here,

Some Whatifs crawled inside my ear

And pranced and partied all night long

And sang their same old Whatif song:

Whatif it’s awkward?

Whatif I can’t sleep?

Whatif I don’t come?

Whatif we ruin our friendship?

Whatif it’s good, but that’s the end of it?

Whatif it sucks in person, and we never text-flirt again?

Whatif we do like each other?

Whatif we fall in love?

Whatif I'm too bruised to fall in love?

Whatif I have to move?

Whatif I move and it doesn’t work out?
Whatif we get married and have kids, and everything works out amazingly?
Whatif we get married and have kids, and struggle for money?

Whatif I have to leave the Bay Area?
Whatif I can't afford to leave the Bay Area?
Whatif there’s no women’s spiritual community?
Whatif I never see my friends here again?
Whatif I hate the winter there?

Whatif he doesn’t like the way I laugh?

Whatif I don’t like the way he chews?

Whatif …

What if.

Va voy.

So, a few days before the deadline to purchase my flight, I emailed my psychic to try to divine some answers. What are the implications of this trip? Is this a good match? Is this a good thing, even if it’s not a match? What Is Going To Happen To Me???

Well, here’s what happened: She got sick, and emailed me that she’d have to postpone my reading until the following week. Or, she could just PayPal me back the funds and cancel the reading.

So, I thought about it. What was I really trying to get from her and her answers, anyway? Assurance, Confirmation, Certainty.

Ah, yes. Certainty. If you can tell me with certainty that the risk I’m about to take has the outcome that I want, then I’ll take it. If you cannot tell me with certainty that it will be alright, then I am terrified to risk it.

So, I went to her blog, to re-acquaint myself with her, to see if I could divine my own answer, since I knew I was trying to get something that no one else could really offer me. That life can never offer me.

And her most recent post was basically, if I remember correctly, about taking chances. About putting your best effort forward, and letting go; about allowing ourselves to try, and to know that whatever the outcome, we’re cosmically safe.

Arghh…. Right. I am safe, loved, assured, no matter what any outcome; but it is my responsibility to try.

If nothing changes, nothing changes.

So, I emailed her back, and told her her blog helped me realize that it was up to me to take this risk, to try without certainty to allow adventure, intimacy, attraction, vulnerability into my life. That I would take the refund from her, and go on this trip, and let all these unknowable chips fall where they may.

Because, it all flows from what I was just saying yesterday, about throwing my hat in the ring at work, professionally putting myself out there, just for the esteem of it, not knowing if it’ll “go my way,” but getting the benefits of trying anyway.

It’s all about what I’d quoted earlier this week, “You gotta get in it, cuz it’s a day-by-day gig.”

If nothing changes, nothing changes.

I won’t know til I try. I won’t have certainty even when I am in it. None of us do, even with cohabitation, a ring, children, none of us know if this will "work out," or if we'll end up signing divorce papers, bankruptcy papers, restraining orders.

But, what I know for certain is that I really am looking forward to this trip, to spending this time with someone I admire, fancy, and enjoy. I really am so very happy that I am taking a risk, stepping into the wide unknown, opening my arms and falling into his, come what may. 

Bus Stop Boy

Well now.

So, I guess I should tell you about Bus Stop Boy, now that I’ve finally broken down and updated one of the people I have in my life whose main relationship with me is about helping me work on relationships.

Over the summer, I began to see Bus Stop Boy, as you might imagine… at the bus stop. I was temping in the city, and was sometimes taking this bus, sometimes that. I’d just begun to pay attention to how I interact with men, trying to focus less on if they’re noticing me or not, how I’m interpreting or internalizing that information. And Bus Stop Boy was one of these people. I was aware of him, and he was aware of me. There was nothing more or less than that, but a definite vibe. Not even flirty, just aware.

One morning, a few months ago, I had come from meeting with the aforementioned woman the previous day, highly aware now of how I was walking in the world, and I saw him at the bus stop. Suddenly, I had no idea how to behave. I didn’t want to be all coy, I didn’t know how to just stand there. I felt a wave of panic wash over me, and as some of you may remember, I had to leave work as soon as I got there and come home and crawl into a fetal position. Everyone on BART was standing too close. Whatever it was that my being aware of who and how you were reacting to me – it had acted as a buffer somehow between us. And suddenly, seeing Bus Stop Boy, … it was like seeing the Matrix. Suddenly I could see that everywhere I looked and every move that I made, I was hyper aware of it, and I was aware if you were aware of it. I felt stripped of some defense mechanism – I felt utterly exposed, and completely unsure of how to act.

A rather large reaction to simply seeing a dude at the bus stop. But, that’s what happened. It took me days to get back to feeling right. And, in fact, I stopped taking the bus, and opted to take carpool with a friend of mine during the rest of my temp gig.

I’m still aware of how others react to me, and, duh, that’s going to continue to happen. People interact. However, I am trying to pay less attention to if “he,” whoever “he” is, saw me. Noticed. If you’re noticing how I’m holding myself or not. I’m trying to keep myself to myself when I’m out and about. Not closing myself off, but simply focusing more on me, and what I’m doing, not on you.

This said, things have progressed.

I ran into Bus Stop Boy when I was on the bus going into the city for an interview about a month or more ago. I was aware, he was aware. We both went for the one seat that was open, and he let me have it. When getting off the bus, I got off in front of him, and turned around and thanked him for the seat, held out my hand, and said I’m Molly, by the way. He took my hand, said his name, said he hadn’t seen me on the bus for a while. I replied I hadn’t been on the bus for a while, we both smiled, said see you around.

In reporting this later to my friend, I talked about “getting a hit” off it. I was nervous about this job interview, and I knew I could get a little hit from talking to this guy. Sure, there’s the normality of introducing yourself to someone you see nearly daily just for the sake of that, and I could file this under that, but I know my underlying reasoning – I wanted to feel better, and talking to an attractive guy who seems to think I’m attractive too is a reliable way to do that. (I was about to write it’s a “good way” to do that, but, this is where I run into trouble.) I felt more spring in my step on my way to my interview, now that I had gotten that burst of acknowledgment from this stranger.

A little while later, I am on my way to another interview, and I see him on the street in plain clothes with a girl, walking a small dog. Girlfriend, I think, and keep walking. Well, I say to myself, there’s that taken off the table. He’s got a girlfriend.

A little while later, about 3 weeks ago, I’m on my way home finally for the evening, having had an awful day at work – feeling my feelings of despair around administrative work, around having worked so hard for months to get something so menial, I’d come home from work bawling on the phone with a friend, before I went back out to meet up with some folks for an hour. Suffice it to say that I was drained of all emotional guile. Of all resistance. Of all pretense.

Funny, then, that I should walk into Peet’s coffee, and there he is. Bus Stop Boy at 8pm on a Wednesday evening. My eye make-up long cried off. My incognito hat. Glasses. This is not the look of a temptress. He’s on line ahead of me, and so I say hello. We chat a bit; we’ve both started new jobs. We small talk, laugh a bit. I say see you around.

And now, suddenly, we are seeing each other around a lot. I next run into him unexpectedly on the shuttle from BART – again on a day when I'd sat at the bus stop from work in near-tears. Waiting – FORTY FIVE MINUTES – for a bus from Berkeley. Taking me nearly two hours to get home from ONE TOWN AWAY.

And there he is. The second time in a row when I'd felt depleted, and, perhaps, open. 

It hasn't eluded me that these unusual times that I've seen him are at times when I could most use a nod from the universe, some semblance of, Molly - you're not a worthless, aimless, trundling-along broke spinster. It has not escaped me that during my new days of data entry, receptionist calls, arguments with xerox machines, I'd begun to think of that morning's conversation with Bus Stop Boy, and it takes me out of my vile existence. It reminds me that I am more than my job. It reminds me that I am something more than that. Simply by recalling the smile of a near stranger, my chest feels less constricted - I feel less trapped. Is this "meaningful"? Is a nudge from "THE UNIVERSE"? Is it just a coincidence? Is it simply pointing out to me the pleasure I take in fantasy rather than reality?

I moved my bags, and he sat down next to me. After some chit chat, I said, I think I saw you with your girlfriend walking your dog a few weeks ago (she says leadingly). He got a sudden look, and said, “Ex...” That was their goodbye. She came to visit for two weeks. She’s been living in D.C. for the past year, looking for work there and here, and she got a job there, and, as he told to me, he wasn’t ready to move back East.

He seemed pretty bummed. Secretly, I thought two things. One: emotionally unavailable. Two: Single. ...

So, finally, friends, here’s the kicker. What I admitted to my girl friend earlier today: I have invited him to come with me to a party my friend is having this Saturday. “As friends,” I said. But as I spoke to my friend earlier today, … I have no interest, really, in being this guy’s friend. Nor do I know that I want to be in a relationship with him. I barely know anything about him. Do I want to get to know him better? Yes. Am I dating right now? No. Is he? I should hope not! Long-term relationship break-up does not really equal available for a new one any time soon.

So, what to do? Well, my friend and I spoke earlier about some “bottom lines” I could set around this. The only thing I could come up with, which she suggested, was not hanging out one-on-one.

She asked me at the end of our meeting how I felt. I said Stubborn. (She laughed.) I said, Disappointed. The addict part of me wants those hits. Those doses of feeling something other than overwhelmed with money or lack thereof. With feeling lost as to my life’s direction or purpose. With feeling lonely, mainly.

As I begin to get some “recovery” or sense of what is healthy behavior around relationships, I realize that the majority of my recent women friends are actively engaged in behavior that I just don’t identify with anymore. I just don’t have anything to say to my friend who’s texting an unavailable dude daily. Or who just bought sex toys for a threesome. Or who is in and out of her relationship with the phases of the moon. Which means, and has meant for me, that several close friendships I’ve had are being let go of -- are fading.

Further to the "lonely" part, as I said to my friend this morning, I haven’t been dating for a year. I haven’t had sex in a year. I am only human. And there’s only so much I can take.

She said she gets it. She felt the same when she was going through this work. The truth is that I’m doing inventory on my relationship past, and I don’t want to be involved with anyone while I’m going through this emotionally raw stuff. I don't (really) want to use someone else to band-aid the work that I'm doing. The truth is also that I’ve finally gotten paid, and much of my financial crisis is averted, so I finally have the chance to feel a little less stressed out.

Yes, there is only so much I can take. Luckily, I feel a modicum more freedom right now, yes, due to money, what-the-fuck-ever to people who say it won’t make you happy – sorry, food in my fridge makes me fucking happy, assholes. But that release from imminent worry creates a little more ease. That little more ease means I won't have to reach out to false idols for solace, false idols like the green-fade-to-brown eyes of the Bus Stop Boy.

I can do things to help me bolster and support myself, now that I’m not as "man the battleships!" Things which will provide more sustainable relief and support – I can reconnect with friends who aren’t stuck in unhealthy patterns. I can finally feel the room to write and paint again. 

Do I still absolutely want to just rest my head on his shoulder and relax to the marrow of every organ in my body? YES.

Sex Type Thing: Poems.

Can you fix me from inside the slickness?

Will callouses and scabs be rent off by our friction?

Will the explosion of your cum inside me tremble into the core of every cell

and paint them newly red?

No?

Then get the fuck off me.

* * *

my foot cramps in the closed position monkeys

must still be able to make but i can’t

my hip bone pops in its socket and i’m

unsure whether that’s into or out of it

the lightest swing of my body against the mattress

mimics an old playset and i’m suspended

* * *

everything switches off, except your breath

against my hip bone

* * *

everyone i know has an o.c.d. mom

and an absent father

will this fix it?

does it need to be fixed?

how the fuck do you do that?

* * *

i want her to stop claiming “broken,”

as if it’s a setting on the dishwasher

and when its turned all culpability and

engagement in the world is paused

indefinitely

* * *

the tiniest fibers of hair

freshly shaved this morning

no matter how new the razor

they vibrate like frankenstein’s

monster and map
everything:

my skin against yours

us in this town

the triangles of string that

connect where i’ve been

connect other lovers

not comparing, enhancing this one

touch

how his tongue felt against the densely

moisture

tentative

or

sloppy

the lightest grazing and

sickly sudden entrance

of manicured or not

fingertips

strapping my attention

chaining it to the bed.

* * *

how does this alchemy work?

it hasn’t so far.

lead returns to lead as

i bolt the door behind you

the moment gimped

by an awkward exchange of

see yous

what tangle the sheets are in,

still warm,

i climb back into them as if

i could coax them into being

you

and you were something else

* * *

i only ever imagine the weight of you

when i’m alone with myself at night

i can find folds that you can’t

and pace myself as you won’t

but alone, i can never press myself into the

evaporating softness

            or grip the muscles of your back

as if you were my life preserver

6.9.12.

"Love as Burrito" or "This, or Something Better"

Grateful to my friends who gave me feedback, I texted the okJew yesterday morning that I was a fan of getting to know someone before getting physical (I couldn’t help but hear Olivia Newton-John as I typed it), and if that was something he was interested in, then I’d love to continue getting to know him, and if not, no hard feelings. He texted back to say that, in fact, he was looking for something else, and didn’t know how that fit in with me or not.

So, I got to sit with that. Tall, attractive, well-built Jew? What’s not to like? Oh, unavailable. And, I did sit, I questioned, I turned inward for a few minutes to test that option, and ultimately, gratefully, I said I was looking for something less tenuous, and good luck.

Then …

I sat and stared at a wall of books.

I was shocked, honestly, at how “air out of a balloon” I felt, without all that funny noise it makes. It made me realize that I still do have some work to do. I identified very clearly the feeling of a crash after a high. I could almost smell the cigarette smog and late 90s radio.

Hm. Love as Drug. Huey Lewis has a song about it. And, duh, it’s not “love” as in Love. It was intrigue. Oh, Intrigue!! – when’s the next text, what do I wear, how flirty do I be, funny do I be, do I invite him in, scheduling plans, etc…etc…etc… Something to think about, and then the plug was pulled yesterday mid morning, and I sat deflated and comatose for a few minutes on and off till lunchtime.

When I went and bought a burrito. My friend texted me to say that it’s normal to feel feelings, and we get to let them pass. I said my feelings now feel like a burrito in my belly ~ Real feelings TBA. And that much was true. How much easier it is to feel full, or to buy something to feel better – not better, to just feel different. My burrito accomplished both of those. Better to eat, feel full (and mildly grossed out that I ate a pound of tofu and salsa flesh), and to get the thrill that I spent money on lunch when I had a perfectly decent one in the fridge at work.

Cuz, what do I feel when I’m not caught up in the nonsense? Fear. I feel fear about money and work and job applications and directionlessness. Who the hell wants to feel that?? No one. But, better to feel those feelings, and thereby get into action around them, than to stuff them with something else, and continue avoiding the elephant in my psyche.

There’s another okJew who I’ve been talking to – and I’m not entirely sure that I want to pursue it at the moment. I met up with some of my new “relationship/emotional intimacy” folks last night after work, which was a very good use of my time. I’m so glad I’ve chosen to fall in with them – and they were talking about dating, and showing up, and boundaries, and desires, and how to be honest. These are things I want. I want to have desires – I have no … desire… to be celibate, or nunnish. I am a hot-blooded woman with hot-blooded needs, and a great big bag of tools that don’t work.

That said, I obviously do have more tools than I used to (burrito coma aside) – because I did let this dude know what I was available for, and he said he was glad we got that worked out early – and it’s true. I know plenty of times when I’ve let my “fear of looking needy” keep me from speaking up about my discomfort at the level of murk in a relationship or sexytime companionship. Once, it took me almost a month, and when I finally broached the subject with the dude, he said he wasn’t available or looking for more. So, I said, great, and was glad to know, and left his house feeling better and confident in my ability to state my needs, and let go of the results.

Sure, I didn’t “get what I want” in that situation – who doesn’t want the person to say, of course, I’d love to continue to get to know you and see if there’s something substantial that can come from this. But … as my “sugar crash” yesterday proved to me, there’s more work to be done. It’s not at all fair to place that amount of expectation on anyone – because they’re not really being asked to be themselves, they’re being asked to fill something in me, or distract something in me, or fix something in me. And, that, my dears, is an inside job.

When I said a few days ago, that if relationships are Miracle-Gro for your character defects, then surely they are/must be for your spiritual growth – this is why. My defect here being the desire to run away from the reality of my professional and financial situation – and when someone says they can’t be that for me, I’m left simply with my situation all over again, like the ugly step-sister you lock in the attic. Still here.

So what do I do? Well, firstly, I meet up with folks and I ask for help. Done, and will continue to do. Secondly, I continue to work on the job front. I was invited to go camping this weekend, and had accepted, as I love to camp, and getting out of dodge sounded so very nice. But last night, as I was compiling job listings into an email draft so I could take a look at them in my spare moments at work… it occurred to me that perhaps going camping was not the best use of my time at the moment.

This temp job will likely end in the next week or two, and after that is a blank horizon. It’s time for me to assist in coloring it in.

Lastly, I offer myself kudos. I made my intentions known, quickly. I listened honestly to what another person was telling me about their intentions. Which I didn’t take personally at all (a thought, I recognize, is also huge progress, but seems so “of course” now). I can try to treat myself kindly with how I treat my body and not go food coma on myself.

I showed up. I got in the ring. I made out. And, I can be confident that what’s available for me is “This, or something better.”

Progress, Not Perfection.

So, I did not sleep with my okJew on the second date. We did however come back to my place, and have a rather heated make-out session.

It was lovely. But. I feel today no better. I realize today that even though we didn’t sleep together, which was something I didn’t want to do, knowing him so briefly, that I still feel a sense of sadness around it. And in writing some about it, I realize that it’s sad because I still don’t fully believe in my own inherent worth – that I’m more than my body.

Even when we were making out, however fun it was – and it was, and I’m sure that if we ever do have sex, there will be no problem in that regard – but I felt not fully present. I felt a little disconnected – and, really, I was. I was disconnected from the emotions that can come when you are making out with someone you know, like, and maybe even more than like. I was only acting from one part of myself, not all of me.

And, knowing that, I notice the desire to pack “Beauty” back up behind her glass terarrium, and say, see, you can’t be trusted. But really, it’s not her fault. I didn’t have to come back to my place – it could have been a short date. I didn’t have to have the extended make-out session – I could have ended it earlier. But, I did. And this is where “progress, not perfection” comes in. Because I really could beat myself up here, and retreat back into isolation, and a position of “See, you really don’t know how to hold intimacy and sexuality, so you better pack it in.”

Yes, I could do that, but I don’t think that’s the point here. The point is that I realize that heavy teenage-like petting is a little more than I want to do on a second date. I realize that I still want to feel known more than that, and have more of a connection before getting so physical. I have so much f’ing evidence of how much sex before emotional intimacy is the cart before the horse, and so, yes, I can beat myself up for not having learned that “well enough,” or I can be glad that I didn’t have sex when I didn’t really want to, and be glad that I let him know it was time to go, and didn’t interpret his erection as an obligation, as I wrote yesterday. (But, … Whoo-ee! … anyway…) ;)

So, there’s that. Of course, I begin to go all the way to, now I better let him know what I’m looking for before there’s a third date, and another round of, okay thanks, bye! That I need to explain what I’m available for, and to ask if that’s what he’s available for.

Some of this sounds valid, some of it sounds unnecessary. I tend to be an oversharer. I don’t think I need to do that, or at least, I don’t need to do that today. I won’t see him again, likely, for another week or so, as he’s busy during the week, and I’m camping this weekend, so I have time to let some of this dust settle and ask some women, and see what happens.

We did have a good date, overall. In fact, it was a great date. But I feel overshadowed by my remorse.

Again, it comes back to choice. I can choose to see this as a failure, and head down to self-flagellation, and I’ll never get it, and how come you don’t get that you’re worth it – that makes you so not worth it. (A lovely circle of reasoning, that one.) Or. Or I can choose to see this as an opportunity, as I spoke so much of yesterday. An opportunity to notice my growth and change, and also to be happy (or at least contented) that I do notice how I’m feeling, and how I was feeling last night. I wasn’t feeling present, and that I wasn’t feeling present is a good thing. That I noticed it. Noticing it is the first step, I think. Then I can work on doing something about it.

I’ve written a lot of poetry about not feeling present during sex. Now, I know that that can extend to making out if I’m not properly known by someone, and they’re not known by me. This person is nearly an entirely unknown entity – of course I don’t feel intimate.

So, I can choose to take this as information for next time – whether that’s with this person, or someone down the line. I can choose to allow myself a little bit of affirmation over keeping my pants on. I can choose to acknowledge that I’ve come a long way to be so present with myself to notice these even slightly off-kilter parts of me.

Forgive the reference… but, in the final Twilight book (spoiler alert?), the main character, Bella, throws an invisible defensive bubble out around herself and her family during the cumulative battle. Imagine it almost like a Bio-Dome, to mix pop-culture metaphors. In the book, Bella can feel as one of the opponents pokes into the various places of her bubble, looking for a weak spot – testing the defenses, and seeing how strong it is. I feel very similarly about this work with dating/physicality. I feel that my bubble is being poked and prodded, and I’m getting to see where I still have spots of weakness, or places that can be firmed up.

I am sad that I don’t yet feel that I’m worth more than my body, or that I could be wanted or acknowledged or “seen” for more than my physical self. But, this is simply a place of “weakness,” a place where I could use more care and strength and affirmation, and behavior that will support the idea that I am more than that. So, I am glad for the opportunity. I’ve been shown where there’s work to do – and if that’s not what relationships are for, then I’ve got the wrong game. 

Opportunity Knocks

So, first, some news – Remember the “SOLD” blog when I asked all y’all to pray for my childhood home to sell so my dad and his fiancé could move to Florida and retire? Well, 10 days after that blog, the house sold :)!! Thank you ALL for your prayers and kind wishes! I’m really happy for them, even though my dad is still shocked he didn’t get the price he wanted… Oh dad, you can’t win em all.

Next on the horizon, date # 2 happens tonight (this is the first 2nd date I've had in almost 2 years), and lord have mercy, I’m trying to ground myself in every way possible. Stop tripping out. Remember that I’m worthy of love and am able to give and receive love in an appropriate way. Stop trying to script or plan. It’s not about “him.” I mean, it’s not about wanting this person or not. It’s so much more about how do I show up and stand in the experience of something new, trying something new. To stand with integrity, and self-esteem, and awareness, and that fair and balanced view thing that keeps coming up.

I don’t need a person to validate or complete me. I need to be able to allow myself to stand without armor. I had a pretty funky meditation/shamanic journey this morning. Unexpected, but right on track. About my ability to receive love, and the melting of my resistance toward it. Overbearing or absent were the ways that I learned love could show itself. Overwhelm or rejection. I’ve carried out that pattern with my own partners, and with myself as well. I’ve believed, and have stated in the past, that my fear is that my needs are too great – that my needs are like a barely held back tidal wave, and that to let them go, even in the slightest, to let them out, would be an invitation for drowning – particularly, drowning someone else. So, better to keep the dam contained.

It all comes back to what is the evidence for that today? Is there evidence of that today? And again, back to, I’ve never let myself try, or others try, so really, I don’t know. Again, I could be more capable of a thousand things, but having stopped and shunted them all, I’d never know.

I am grateful for this “obstacle to practice on,” as is written in a lot of the work I do with a woman one-on-one in the city. But I said recently to someone else, that I think I’m going to begin using the word “opportunity” rather than “obstacle.”

For a while, when I began writing that phrase with my friend, it tasted so bitter and awful in my mouth – obstacles, fuck obstacles, I don’t need no steenkin obstacles. I was pissed. How many more f’ing obstacles did I need in my life, I asked her. And she told me that it wasn’t up to me. It wasn’t really my choice. These were being presented to me, whether I wanted them or not, and it was my choice on how I chose to use them for practice.

She was right. What do I know about my path? I want to get from A to Z, but the “path” needs me to stop at H, J, and O on the way to garner skills and friends and love and esteem. So, I wrote it. Thank you, G-d, for this obstacle to practice on.

But, be it the “law of attraction”ish believing part of me, or simply a framing shift, I don't want to see or write them as obstacles anymore. They’re not. They are opportunities.

These are opportunities for me to choose – Turn Left, toward freedom and serenity, or Turn Right, to well-worn misery. These are all mental paths, psychological paths really. And in my phone right now, on my cover screen, I set the display to read, “Turn Left.” It’s a reminder to me that in every given moment (what a phrase! “given moment,” these moments are given, even gifts, if I can see it), at any time, I can remember that I have a choice. I have the choice to obsess about tonight or not. I have the choice to believe in my inherent worthiness or not. These are all choices. And my choices are reflected back to me in real time.

I’d like to choose to not obsess, to remember that I am talented and worthy, and don’t have to sleep with people I don’t know well, and that my house can still be off limits even though I said I was cleaning it to make it “guest appropriate.” I was told that I am the czar of my own experience, and further, my own body. That I don’t owe anyone anything. Repeat. I don’t owe anyone anything. A date is not a promise. A date is not a sexual invitation. It is an invitation to get to know someone better. To vet each other for each subsequent date. A friend once told me that a first date is just an interview for a second one. And so on they go. That’s all.

So many years of believing I was promising something I didn’t want to deliver, or was obligated to do because he was hard. Not my problem. Sure, don’t be a tease on purpose, but he’ll live. An erection is not an obligation. 

This is an opportunity for me to hear that and feel that in a way that I haven’t. For me to try to see that I have assets beyond my physical self. And for me to allow those assets to be shared and seen. Dating can start so physically, and that part is critically important, but physical attraction is a dime a dozen, really. (I mean it’s not exactly that easy, as I’ve realized that too) – but sex itself is a dime a dozen. I don’t want that. – as in hell yes, I want to get laid, like every other hot blooded person on this planet, but I don’t want only that, and my experience has taught me for sure that when I go to that part too quickly, I undermine myself every time, and I quash any ability for me to learn that I am worthy for more than my looks and my pussy.

So, here’s to an opportunity to try something different. To try to believe something different. And I am excited for tonight, and that’s all well and good, but I’m also going to pay attention to my own music stand, and Turn Left toward the tasks I have ahead of me right now.

Wish me luck. 

The Kotzker Rebbi

According to legend, and history, Menachem Mendel Morgenstern of Kotzk, Poland was an eccentric and influential rabbi, teaching and forming one of the early branches of Hasidism, creating a more austere sect of Judaism.

According to legend, and history, The Kotzker Rebbi, as he was known, locked himself in his room for the last 20 years of his life. He never left it. He received his food through a hole in the wall, and apparently opened the door of his home once a year, revealing himself and his new teachings/learnings to his disciples.

According to genetics, I am his great great great granddaughter. His grandson is my grandfather's father… I think. I have a family tree at home somewhere. Either he’s my grandfather’s grandfather, or my grandfather’s great grandfather. I haven't done the math. 

Point being, and why it occurs to me today, I have no idea – but the point being that I have some whacked out crazy, and powerful, Jews in my lineage, living in my blood and DNA.

I’ve always found this fascinating. Firstly, it sort of points to the understandability that mental illness runs in my family(!), and secondly, it just sort of makes sense that Judaism continues to be this thread in my life. I can’t sever it, ignore it, dismiss it – it is me.

When I began teaching at the Sunday School last year in Berkeley, I said that I felt it was both my duty and my privilege to do so. There is a line from some text that if any of us knows even one word of Hebrew he is bound to teach it to someone else.

Again, I don’t really know why this occurs to me today. I suppose as I begin to think about the direction my life is taking, or may take, or I want it to take, I begin to think about this thread. Part of my consideration in where I will move next, if I move, and eventually I will (whenever “eventually” is), is if there are Jews there. For example, I’ve been enamored of Asheville, North Carolina, ever since I heard of it through a friend of mine who lives there. Young, hip, mountainous, liberal, artsy, cultured … with one Jewish temple, of Conservative affiliation – aka, more religious than I am, or want to be.

I don’t want to be more religious, I simply want to have more connection to the community. More connection to those who share a history, random Yiddish words, and a very eye-rolly understanding of the complexities of a Jewish family.

So, Asheville may not be it. I have this crude crayon drawing I made after a group meditation about 6 or more months ago. It’s a couple, a man and a woman, holding hands, walking up a street to a t-intersection. At the head of this intersection is a house – with a wrap-around porch, huge trees, and a stream in the back, nested by a forest behind it. To the right of this couple on the main street is a building with a symbol for recovery on its façade. To the left of them, is a building with a Jewish star above the door.

This is my vision. This, I believe, is how I become the woman I want to be. Buoyed by my communities of faith, I’m able to stand in partnership with another human being, and take part in what the world has to offer.

I am grateful to have the quirky lineage that I have. It makes sense to me, and makes me smile. (On my other side, my dad’s side, I’m descended from Bohemians, literally.) Somehow I feel that I’m preparing to take up a mantle that belongs to me, which includes all of these histories and as well as all of the modern and current advantages I’ve inherited as a 20^th century woman with good health and education. And I’ll be curious when I find that crayon drawing in 20 or 30 years to see how close I’ve come. 

The Masculine Mystique

Firstly, I would like to quote an acquaintance of mine as they responded once to my tirade on SF’s chilly weather – “Then Move.” Touche, quite right. And I will, just not today.

Secondly, my morning pages were like something out of a schizo’s notebook this morning, and I’m rather heartened than alarmed by it.

As I began to, again, write that I could paint, a sentence which was followed immediately in my head by the thought, “Yeah, right,” … my morning pages turned on me, and began a near-two page rejoinder along the lines of Stop Fucking Saying Yeah Right, and GO DO IT! I channeled the very pissed off and frustrated voice/part inside me that is exceedingly tired of the self-defeating, Eeyore-like part of me that crosses all my interests with a “Yeah, but,” or a “How will I make any money?”

I was happy to see that this activated part was so adamant, and demanded that I Just Fucking Do It, rather than what I’ve been doing for a very long time, question, debate, lolly-gag, despair. This voice is the fuck despair voice. It is the voice, one might say, of my inner masculine.

I’m a little hesitant to draw the dividing line between feminine and masculine in this way; feminine as pondering and questioning; masculine as action and fortitude. But, it sort of feels like that to me, and it’s only my interpretation. There are plenty of other ways to categorize, or not, these disparate voices and parts of ourselves. But, for the sake of the argument, I’ll call it my masculine side.

And the truth is, it’s right. Whatever it is, or I call it. Because this is the point in the job search where I get frustrated and think, well, nothing will come of it anyway, so phooey, here’s another admin job. My internal beings of all sorts are having a coup. Nuh, Uh. Time’s up. Off the pity pot, lady. Get on it.

And further more, Yes, You Can. Furthermore,

to segue,

you/I have very recent experience in NOT behaving as you would have in the past. You very recently responded to a situation MUCH differently than factual evidence had it before. This means … you’re different. You’ve changed. You can do things now that you couldn’t before, and your mental register aligns with a much healthier set of behavior and thinking now.

The case in point, is that I was asked to go to the theater by a boy…man. There is nothing wrong with this person, except that a) I accepted the extra ticket thinking he has a girlfriend, so I thought it was a friend thing (I found out later he does not), and b) he is new to the not-drinking world.

Over the last 3 days, I have felt icky – like the princess and the pea. I know from my own experience that the first few months of not drinking and trying a whole new way of life – no, not first few months, first few years (or year, AT LEAST), are so incredibly formative, that I would be damned to throw a wrench into the wheel works of someone else’s critical development. I know people who have gotten involved, and it’s worked out marvelously, but I, surprisingly, was feeling way too uncomfortable about it.

Sobriety, mine or someone else’s, was way more important to me than a fucking non-date date. No matter how long it’s been, how intriguing it is, how fun it could be. Not doing it.

So, through a series of phone calls to friends, and a confirmation that it’s the respectful thing for us both, yesterday, I texted the dude and said I’d rather stick to seeing him “around,” than go for coffee. That I felt “murky” around it.

You know what he said?

“Okay. No worries!”

???!!!

All my f’ing belly aching, and heming and hawing, and “Okay, No Worries”?? Wow, this honesty thing really f’ing works.

Through a series of circumstances, the timing was different than he thought, so I get to go see the play by myself and also get to have a clean, peer-like relationship with this dude. I don’t have to feel weird, or avoid, or future-trip about it. The play is the bonus prize – the actual prize is the relief of doing the right and honest thing for myself, and sticking to a new way of being.

I know from direct experience that I haven’t always responded that way to someone who was new to not drinking, and I experienced the fallout of that, however brief it was. I, apparently, have learned from my experience. And my internal alarm system is calibrated to this new way of being.

I say all this to say, that my masculine side has a point. All that writing this morning about Just Do It has a point. The point is that I’m not the person I used to be. I don’t have the same reactions I used to, and so I don’t have to follow the same actions I used to. This whole “new way of living” has made itself quite apparent in my life, and I can allow the boon of that to propel me forward.

I don’t have to be afraid anymore. Afraid there isn’t enough, or I’m not good enough, or I’ll never make it anyway, or that a creative life is a stupid one.

In fact, I don’t have these fears anymore, really. They’re just echoes. There’s nothing real to scare me. There’s no one stopping me, or chiding me, or making fun of me.

And if there ever is, I apparently have a massive bully to yell affirmations at them. 

Wet Concrete.

Today is the last day of work before the winter break. And although mine is polka-dotted with gorgeous adventures with wonderful women, what i’m really looking forward to is sleep! And cleaning my apartment.

There’s some kind of shift happening, or a solidification rather. I feel the cement getting stronger beneath my feet. As though I have poured the foundation, and it’s looked messy and strange – like getting a degree in poetry, putting together an art show, cleaning out my childhood home for sale, getting out of a relationship, beginning to audition for theater. I haven’t known what any of these pieces have meant as they’ve come up and I examine them and lay them down, like Indy choosing the right chalice at the end of Last Crusade, hmm, consider, lay aside. I’ve just been picking up these pieces with curiosity.

And now they’re all poured into the mold of my life’s foundation, and I can’t explain to you why, but there is a joy that is arising that feels so uniquely new and pervasive, that I know these are associated. With a stronger foundation to stand on, I’m freer to explore, create, test theories, fail, try. I’m no longer standing on quick-sand, undermining myself as soon as a notion crosses my mind or path.

I also know that there are likely a thousand more things that will go in this foundation, that it won’t ever be “complete,” but isn’t that the point of life? (She says with any idea like she knows what “the point” of life is!!)

But, I tell you, something is happening. Which is a good thing, because I can spin out into “I have no idea what’s happening/going to happen”-land really quickly.

For now, today is my last day of 2011 working at a job I enjoy. I’ve been asked to come back on January 3^rd when the office reopens, and it has been suggested to pay off my credit cards with this money I’ll earn, instead of ear-mark it for a car, … but we’ll see ;) My credit cards don’t have high balances (no one ever trusted me enough to give me too much credit! – including myself), but the interest rates are exorbitant, and one of my tasks is to call to ask for a lower rate. I’ve done this before, and they’ve said no. I’ve done this recently, and they’ve said no.

But the woman who suggested it said that this is one of those holes that needs to be closed up. Why pour water into a sieve? In order for me to hold abundance in my life, there are places where I need to be ready to receive it. So, this is one of those action places, a place where the foundation can become firmer. The woman also suggested a script for calling them, some key phrases and an attitude, that scare the crap out of me. Because they mean taking true accountability and responsibility for myself and my finances by letting someone else know that this is not okay. Paying almost 20% on a credit card, and not touching the principal is (apparently!) not okay. And I need to close these holes. I also will let go of the results, because they may still say no, but the action of taking action to care for myself and respect my own boundaries is the lesson, and the trial.

I get reflective around the turn of the year, and around my birthday. For all the floundering I sometimes believe I’m doing in my life, the truth is that progress is being made. It has not been the easiest year, and the hardships have variously set me to a variety of tasks and new things:

• the breakup caused me to lean on my girlfriends, and have the experience of getting through that “slammed by a mack truck”ness of early breakup;
• the breakup led to rebounding, which produced my best painting yet (in my opinion) – lol;
• the japan disaster prompted my friend to host an art show with donation to japan at which she asked me to read my poetry, for my first time in public outside of the school community;
• my bitterly harrowing lack of income over the summer caused me to get in with a community of people who work on financial security and abundance issues;
• later, working too much caused me to come up against boundaries of self-care and are helping me to say yes and no with integrity;
• packing up my childhood home for sale caused me to root out the sadness and grief that lived there, and here in my heart, and to begin to perspectivize ;) it with more serenity;
• having that wonky conversation with my mom over the summer caused me to take space to reassess how I am able to engage with her in ways that feel mutual, responsible, respectful, and loving to us both;
• being single caused me to pick up Calling in the One to help foster love and care within myself and help to radiate outward;
• my grandmother, my dad’s mom, is dying, and this is causing me to see my dad with more compassion than I have, perhaps, ever, and to listen to him as a person, not as “Dad” with all its attendant baggage and expectations.

So, there’s just some reflections which come immediately to mind. There are more. But as the saying goes something like, "out of every season of grief, when life seemed heavy or unjust, new lessons for life are learned and new resources of growth and courage are discovered." And for me, these seasons of grief were simply filtering out the junk in the pouring concrete.