How to Not Lose Your Car in Twelve Easy Steps:

Six years ago today, I woke up, or came to is more like, in a room in my shared apartment in the Sunset District on San Francisco. In my room was everything I’d brought with me to San Francisco, so, two suitcases, and a pillow. When I’d moved into the room, I didn’t even have a bed.

In the other rooms in the house, lived the “angriest pot head I’ve ever met” (though I concede, I could be more than a bit techy myself), and another lanky UCSF student who liked to talk about LOST.

That morning, I got myself together, and went out to drive downtown to a job interview I’d gotten through a temp agency. I’d been in San Francisco two weeks to the very day.

Outside, I realized I had no idea where I’d parked my car. The day before, my only SF friend’s boyfriend’s band was playing at the Park Chalet out by Ocean Beach, and I’d gone, for the first time in my memory, with the intention that I was not going to drink that day. But, we all know a Bloody Mary is a breakfast drink… and so, several pitchers and hours later, I come to in the middle of a conversation with a dude I don’t know.

The band was gone. The sun was setting. And my friend was no where to be seen. I excused myself from this stranger, and called my friend to ask where they were, and she told me I’d said to leave me there. I asked where they were, she said the Marina. So, I stumble to my car, … and realize I have no idea where “The Marina” is. So I ask a passing couple if they do. And the first thing they ask is, Are you sure you’re okay to drive? Sure… No problem.

Once in my car, I realize I need gas, so I decide to do that first, and then, by Divine intervention realize I’m too drunk to go out, and drive back to my apartment and pass out.

Therefore, the next morning, as I stand squinting in the rising light, I have zero recollection of where my car is, and I begin to walk in increasingly large circles of blocks looking for it. I call the police – Have you towed it? I call the tow lot – Is it there? No. After nearly a half-hour of increasedly frantic walking, I turn the corner on my way back to my apartment, and there it is. Parked nice and neat just around the corner from my house.

I apparently was not sure if I was parked “nice and neat,” however, as scrawled across my dashboard is a note that reads, “PLEASE DON’T TOW MY CAR. THANK YOU.” And my phone number.

That was the last morning I woke up hungover.

For six years, I have not washed beer grime out of my clothing. I have not managed my drinking with a steady pace of water or advil or corona to polka dot the vodka. I have not puked in six years. I haven’t peed while leaning against the side of a building. I haven’t woken up next to a stranger. I haven’t slept with taken men.

I don’t have “UDI”s – a college-invented term: Unidentified Drunken Injuries. You know, those bruises you really don’t know how you got. I don’t have names saved in my phone as “Pinky Guy,” “Bar Nana,” or “Scary Scott.” For six years, I’ve known where I am when I wake up.

And here’s where I am when I wake up today. Strikingly similarly, I am heading into downtown San Francisco today to apply for a job. I’m following up in person on an application to a gallery job I applied for last week. I’ll be going through the rest of that building with my resume as well, and be leafleting for my workshop next Saturday.

This morning, I wake up in my own apartment. My very own studio. With furniture. A cat – my monument to a crumbling resistance to commitment and love. Car stolen, I have a bus pass and many logged BART hours. I have a bicycle, and a coffee maker, and magnetic poetry on my refrigerator.

My life is imminently different than it was six years ago. Yet, there are some details that I want to label as “the same” – single, unemployed, financially insecure. But these are just similarities, not clones. The difference between how I will show up to the job search today is that it began with Morning Pages, meditation, and a blog to you, friends who I’ve met over these last six years – people who actually, sometimes, maybe, sorta, like me! From here, I’ll go hang out with some of you folks for an hour, and remind myself of the miracle it is that I get to walk through all this. All this human emotion and life-strewn eventfulness.

My life is eventful – but not chaotic. My life path is vague – but not hopeless. Most of all, my heart is warming – and my soul doesn’t house that painfully threadbare echo-chamber anymore.

I still get to practice. I’ve absolutely loved engaging in a thrilling, alluring, morally ambiguous "Drink with Two Legs" distraction this past few days – it’s been wonderful to feel something other than uncomfortable. But in the end, my conscience (and my exuberantly caring friend) reminded me yesterday that I’m living in a way so that I don’t have to feel bad about myself or my behavior anymore. So that I don’t have to clean anything up later, if I can help it (unless it’s dishes). I’ve watched myself walk to the edge of decency, and reel myself absolutely kicking and screaming back from the temptation to throw myself in.

See, my life is full of people who remind me that there is a better way. That this is only a beginning, and that I can hang on to the love that I’ve built within myself. That it's safe to do so.

I thank you, Danger-Will-Robinson lure, for your welcome and passionate resurrection of a part of me that has long been dormant. And I thank YOU, reader, friend, lovers, G-d, for helping me to learn there’s nothing wrong with my Vixen, as long as she doesn’t slice away at my self-esteem.

So, here's to six years of learning the easy way, the hard way. To six years of sitting in rooms with people who are learning the same. To six years of showing up on every inch of the spectrum from megalithic tantrum to blissfully serene. And to just one more day of this unusually verdant path. 

Movie Magic

In an effort to vary what’s become to me a rather one-note blog lately, I’ve decided to lie.

I recently earned a decent wage from my spirituality & creativity workshops, and am supplementing my income with sales of my art work. Further, I am feeling so rejuvenated and supported by these avenues of income and service, that I have enough energy and creativity left over to practice with my new band – We play our first show this weekend.

There … did that work?

Well, in some circles, one might call that a “vision,” or dream. A goal, per se. And in those circles, Visions are highly regarded as lighthouses for us in the dark nights of the soul. So, I’ll take what I can get. It may feel like pretend, like fantasy, as I cannot see how to get from A to Z, but I don’t have to. Those are places that resonate with me to my core. If we add in that I’m a member of a local theater company, and we just ended our sold-out run, I think I’d hit nirvana.

I don’t believe I’ve mentioned this here, though I’ve used this metaphor before.

It’s like in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Yep. That’s right. I’m going there.

When Indy, as we affectionately call him, is on his way through the cave to get to the Holy Grail, he comes to a ravine. There is no way to cross this. As it appears, Indy stands on one side, clinging to a statue of a Lion, and about 15 or 20 feet away, is the other side of the ravine, and the path to the Grail.

There is no way. He cannot “jump” it, it’s egregiously deep and sharp and craggy. And so, he recites the clue, as if the words somehow will give him wings.

“A leap of faith from the lion’s mouth.” A leap of faith. This is nuts. A leap of faith. But there’s nothing down there. A leap of faith. Fuck It.

He takes one step forward from the safety of the rock... and is held, solid and firm. The camera pans out from his angle, and we see that hidden, blended into the ravine walls, is a firm, stone bridge. Had he not stepped out from where he was, he wouldn’t have the vision to see that he was firmly taken care of the whole time. That there wasn’t a moment at which he was unsafe. He just needed to take that first step out from perceived safety to perceived risk.

Metaphors like this keep me going.

I’m a visual person, and a child of the 80s, so throw in a "Goonies never say die," and I’m ready to pack my rucksack, hitch up my courage, and step forward.

Despite my crawing about it here, it’s been suggested that I let other people know about the state of my affairs, if only to take my isolation out of it. Funnily, a woman whom I’m not fond of yesterday instructed me to “Figure It Out.” I could have slapped her. (Funnier still, it's already been strongly suggested that I choose another woman for these monthly meetings I have with my financial folks - which I haven't done yet... point taken?)

But, it all reminds me of another phrase, “You can’t save your face and your ass at the same time.”

I suppose belly-aching is different than sharing. Different from being open. I’d like to submit that I’ve done a little of both, and what I recognize is that I do have some blinders on. I do stand like Indy with a limited view of things.

And if sharing with other folks my honest truth, without being maudlin or Debbie Downer, can help me to take the next leap into the unknown, then alright.

Camera Pans Right.

Lights up on microphone. 

The 11th Hour

So, to get to the important info first, of course. The internet-met coffee date was a bust. Not an ounce of chemistry on my end, so, after about a half hour of waiting on the slowest coffee drinker in the world, I declined the invitation to go to eat or to the park, and went on my way.

I’m glad I felt comfortable enough to do that, despite the CREST FALLEN face when I replied, Actually I think I’m going to go. That man is not a poker player.

But, on my way I went. I caught a bus up to see a girl friend of mine, and we had a sojourn to Ocean Beach. It was more than lovely.

Regarding the title of this blog however, I feel like I’m here again. I’ve said in the past that usually what happens around money and jobs is that “something comes through” in the 11^th hour. This has always been true, and despite my dire, apocalyptic belly-aching about the sodium-laden brick, I haven’t eaten any Top Ramen in the last several years.

Part of what I’ve recognized though is that I come to a point at some time during my “what am I going to do next”ness where I “go rag-doll on G-d,” as my friend puts it. You know when you’re in a grocery store, and a parent is holding hands with a child, and the child is cranky or tired and doesn’t want to go or walk anymore, and the kid just goes limp. And has to be dragged by the parent a few steps.

Yeah, that’s going ragdoll on G-d. It’s like, I’m not sure what the fuck to do, so I’ll just let you pull me. That feeds back into the whole “lack of self-esteem around jobs” though when I throw up my hands, and just wait for the 11^th hour – when I know inevitably something will have to happen. I really haven’t been dropped, ever.

But, I’m not comfortable doing that anymore. It makes me feel young, and childish, and like a recipient, rather than an active participant in my own life.

So, I guess I’m at the point of finding some sort of balance between trying to “figure it out” and throwing up my hands in frustration and impertinent surrender. “Alright, Universe, Fate, G-d, whatever you are, you obviously have some better idea about my life than I do, so HERE. Go ahead. It’s all yours. Fuck it.”

The former makes me crazy, and the latter lacks integrity & a fair balanced view.

So, what’s the middle way?

…*crickets*…

Perhaps it starts with the recognition that I don’t want to do either. I am still taking action. Applying to jobs, looking at websites around the country, trying not to be too limited, but not too focused, because I really still have no f’ing idea where or when or why. It IS the 11^th hour. June approaches, and my bank account approaches zero.

So, how, in what sense-memory tells me is the "same place," do I stand on my two feet, and let myself be guided rather than dragged? How do I stand with integrity and surrender?

Well, yesterday I did make a phone date with a girl friend bassist for this afternoon. I also did ask my theater instructor for an informational interview coffee date. And, I did show up to that date yesterday, not knowing what would happen, but being willing to try something new - and hideously uncomfortable (somehow, "we met on the internet" doesn't make a great retelling...)

And, to be honest, I still have the hope that in the 11^th hour, there will be a miracle – because there always is – but I don’t want to stand around waiting for it. I want to meet it. That feels more “adult,” or humble, or something. More of value.

But, what do I know, I just work here.

Here’s to the middle way – letting go, but walking forward – it may be into the dark, but my eyes will adjust. 

Pulling a Carmen: 2

When I began this blog-a-day back in November of last year, my first post was called “Pulling a Carmen,” as I'd been reading and was encouraged by her own blog-a-day postings. In the time since, sometimes I just find it hugely funny how parallel my path is to my fellow blogger and friend.

For recent example:

• I also just starting going back on to the internet dating scene. In fact, I have a coffee date today with someone I met on JDate

• I too have said fuck it, and asked out a dude yesterday. Unfortunately, turns out he’s married, but it felt really good to do so.

• Several of the books that are lining my desk and bedside table are travel books about Europe, underlining my intention to take a real freaking vacation some time this century.

• And, I also rented a camera and video camera from the school’s A/V department to begin taking pictures again. 

Sometimes I feel awkward about our exceedingly similar trajectories, as if I’m copying her, but the reality is that independently, we come to these things, and then come here to write about them. It’s really funny, and also somewhat comforting to know that there is someone who is traveling a similar path toward “To thine own self be true.”

On that note, I went to see my friend’s band play in the city last night, and then headed with my girlfriends to go out dancing in Oakland. Prior to both these… we went to the Dharma Punx meditation – nothing says spiritually fit like meditating for 40 minutes before downing coffee with an add-shot. ;)

But to relate it to the ‘self be true’ part – each of these are places where I want to feel more connection. I hadn’t been to see live music in MUCH too long. It’s on my current list of “Serenity Moths” on my refrigerator (a list of things that aren’t cataclysmic, but slowly and subterraneaously eat away at my serenity and foundation). Yes, “Absence of live music” is on there, and so should be “dancing.” I’m a white girl. I have no ambition or goal to be anything but a mildly flailing Elaine Benice, but … i love it. The absence of self, the absence of self criticism or posturing or need to be anywhere or anything else. Lost in the music.

The band brought something else up for me. Like the “dropping” of the whole acting bent at the beginning of this year, what I’ve dropped more often than anything is the “being in a band” idea.

As you may know, I have 2 guitars, a bass, and a small USB plug in keyboard. Each as dust-covered as the next. The bass amp sits as a monument to abandoned dreams in my apartment.

Last night, watching my friend’s band, I remembered that this is something I want to do. In fact, I’d emailed one of the guitarist’s wife about 6 or more months ago to talk to her about her own process of getting toward singing in a band - embracing her inner teenage rock chick. If I had my … well, if I had my own back, I guess, I’d play bass, and I’d sing. Talk about vulnerability.

This week, I stood practically naked in front of an audience and spoke my poem into a microphone in a moderately full theater. That isn’t nearly as frightening to me as standing in front of an audience, singing, or playing.

The truth is that for several years, I’ve been gathering information about the whole bass playing thing. But, no, I haven’t been playing. A few years ago, I asked a guy I knew for bass advice, and he sent me a long list of places to start (which I didn't pursue). About a year later, I contacted this other guy about bass lessons (which I didn't pursue). … And the guy I asked out yesterday is also a bass player. Apparently, I have a thing.

Every few years, I’ll troll craigslist, and I’ll answer a few ads for singers. I even recorded myself a little on my computer’s Garageband to send as a sample. I got a “not a good fit, but thanks anyway” from one, and no reply from another. And, hey, I don’t blame em. When I’m terrified, it comes through. I don’t know. I’ve written here about it kind of frequently – and dismissed it and been “embarrassed” by it just as often.

However, once again, the thing that occurred to me last night as I watched my friend’s band was another case of “I want to do that” … followed by “I can do that.” There is no one stopping me, obviously except for myself and my fears, and that critic that says “Not good enough” and chops me off at the knees before I start.

One thing I’m working on releasing at the moment, a pattern and belief and behavior that is just not fucking serving me anymore, is my need or habit to stay small.

When I was living in South Korea, my friend nicknamed me “Ballsy Mollsy.” I had the absolute chutzpah and hubris to ask anyone anything, go anywhere, and do pretty much whatever I felt like doing in the hedonistic way most drunks do.

However, there is a quality of that Ballsy woman who still I am, somewhere, and who I want to resurrect or reveal or uncover or let loose – or even just let into the light a little tiny bit.

I find it’s happening in some ways. And I know to have compassion for myself as I try to aim in this direction which has been a Siren song for me (uh, no pun intended) for … oh, 15 years.

But compassion for slow progress, and acceptance of stagnation are two different things. And I’d really like to move forward from here.

So, for your reading pleasure, here’s a poem composed about a year ago. Reading aloud is encouraged.  As is recalling the line "So let it be written, so let it be done." Cheers. m.

Band Practice

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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. 

"I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life"

When I was growing up, when my family went on long car rides, my dad had instituted a rule. My brother and I could only ask the question “Are we there yet?” three times, combined. Not three for him, three for me. Not phrased differently to bypass the rule. Three times. Are we there yet.

I’m sort of glad the Universe doesn’t have a rule like that, although I suppose it sort of does. For the number of times that I’ve asked what’s next, the answer remains as vague as the Magic 8 ball’s “Reply Hazy – Ask Again Later.” Apparently 3 seconds later is not later enough, and you get, “Cannot Predict Now.”

But, it’s sort of comforting in some ways I suppose. A friend said to me recently that we don’t know what’s next because it reminds us we’re not G-d. I also heard that G-d loves us just enough to not let us know what’ll happen next. The perpetual “SURPRISE!” type Higher Power. But, really, I think that if I ever knew really what was to happen next, I’d spend a lot of time manipulating to my way of thinking – if I’m meant to go in direction A, then I’ll start to pack for that direction, not knowing that perhaps I’m supposed to go to A, but with a byway in L, Q, and H in order to learn what I need by the time I get to A.

I was out with a group of us school poet folk last night at dinner after our performance poetry … performance. Which went highly well, I’d say. Pretty full theater, no technical problems, and, me, in my makeshift nudesuit – because really, when the else time would I have the opportunity to do that??

So, we’re out at dinner, and the women who are finishing their first year are asking about my experience there, if I took cross-courses at Berkeley, if I’ll stay in the Bay Area, and what’s next. And they’re just curious. I say that I really took school sort of as a walk – I looked into taking a GTU cross-course, but didn’t. But, I took painting, and singing, and acting. I mean, it is a liberal arts college (though you may not guess that from the highly funded business school it now hosts). I did take the school experience as a bit of a walk. It wasn’t academically rigorous. I think I took one class that had a lot of reading on theory and criticism. I took one that had moderate reading like that. And the rest, well, they were pretty much, write poetry, read poetry, discuss poetry. Period. It was sort of awesome.

I suppose I feel a little chagrined at not having taken more advantage of the opportunity, but then on the other hand, I think I also took great advantage in ways that weren’t as “rigorous.” I did just find out yesterday that you could rent the most awesome a/v tech equipment for up to two days – even lighting and high tech cameras and video cameras – so I’m a little bummed I didn’t take advantage of that – cuz it sounds AWESOME. I guess I do have a few days left! Maybe I’ll be a filmmaker for a few days, as I continue to send out tendrils into the work world.

I have one more class to complete. I have a class time on Thursday for Acting Fundamentals, and then our class performance next Wednesday. It’s just a scene, each of us students paired with someone and doing a scene assigned by the professor. But, I feel really comfortable there. I forget. I mean, after that flurry of activity in December and January around headshots and auditions and monologues, I let it all go to focus on school, which was appropriate, but now that I have a little more breathing room, I hear it. Like I hear the painting studio.

Stress and creativity aren’t quite compatible I suppose. But, in any case, being on stage last night (though I wish I’d reread my piece before I got onstage, as it was quite distracting to know I was/appeared naked!), and practicing my scene with my class partner, I mean, I just feel like I know this. There’s an incredible amount to learn, but I know about blocking, and staging. I helped the two of us create movement in the scene, to listen to the text and let it inform us. I also tried to not be bossy ;) as this was a joint effort. But I felt in my element.

I have an invitation to have coffee with an acting friend of mine – something that’s been pushed down the pages of the calendar like a shuffle board disc, and I intend to ask my acting teacher to coffee for an “informational interview” type conversation. But as I continue to look for work, to find out where and how I’m supposed to earn, and embody the question “what can I give” rather than “what can I get,” and let go of the Am I There Yet, I can also take FULL advantage of what I have in front of me – advocates, peers, and a wicked a/v department. 

Somewhere New.

For several months now, I’ve been working on a particular area of healing. For those of you who have read the “Savage Love,” then “Savage Beauty” blogs, you know that I’ve been working on healing my relationship with my sexuality, and my past behavior and experience in this area.

This is likely going to be a little heavy – for which I’m not thrilled, but I’m honest – so if that’s not what you want today, I’m sure Cyanide & Happiness will provide some levity today.

On my way back from the sweat lodge this Sunday, I was riding with my friend who was running the lodge. I told her that earlier this year, and late last year, each time I’d “go in” via meditation or shamanic journey work to ask what I need to do next to move forward, I was presented with the information that I needed to work on this stuff – sexual trauma and other murky stuff. I have been. Working with my therapist on EMDR for a little bit (though I’m not seeing her currently, due to finances), and in these other more alternative ways.

And most of all, through my thesis.

Basically what my thesis trails is a path through my sexual history. That story parallels my mental breakdown, and my parents’ divorce, but really, what is being excavated and brought into the light is all of that. The “highlights” or representative incidents.

Over ages 16 through 24 (a little earlier than 16, but that’s when it really took off with a very chicken-or-egg tag team with my drinking), is a napalm blanket of sorrow, shame, and dissociation. When riding in the car with my friend on Sunday, I said to her that I hadn’t “been in” to ask for a while if I’m “done” with this particular set of work or not, and wondered if maybe I was, but/and as I found out a little this morning, there are still some corners left to sweep.

I am grateful that I had the courage to put all of what I needed to onto paper in my thesis. But, I’m also aware that it goes much deeper and further than the stark, strobe-like glimpses that I give you, the reader. And this morning, in meditation, I began to psychicly clear out some of the cobwebs. (I just accidentally wrote “sobwebs,” which I suppose is pretty accurate for this morning.)

In fact, I did something pretty literal to sweeping out – in my mind’s eye, I walked through and into all those situations I remember, and unfortunately or not, I remember quite a lot quite vividly apparently -- more than I thought I did. I walked through these times and places, into these couplings and actions, and burned sage there. I carried this sage through all the circumstances I could remember, and asked them to be cleared of any energy which is no longer needed.

There are the few where there was kindness, and the kindness will remain, but there are the many that were out of a sense of obligation, or resignation, or force; or just wanting to feel better; or just wanting to feel anything other than what I felt. There are those that are truly tragic, and require some extra doses of compassion and witness, instead of repression.

I don’t know what may or not come of this work this morning. It was sort of “unbidden;” I didn’t have the intention as I closed my eyes for meditation this morning to do any of that – but I guess the Powers That Be had that intention for me, anyway.

One thing I asked for aloud in the prayer circle in Sunday’s sweat lodge during the final prayer round – the one where we get to pray for ourselves, out loud so others know what we need – I prayed for healing around physical intimacy. And that’s where the majority of my tears came on Sunday. My relationship with my body, my femininity, sexuality, sex, intimacy, being present in my body when being intimate – all of this needs healing. I’d still rather hide within my body – offer you it, but not what’s inside it; assume it’s really all you want from me anyway, so I might as well just give you only that out of spite – even if you in fact want more. But, hiding within myself doesn’t work anymore. Beating myself out of my body - or having someone do it for me - doesn’t work anymore. Not being present is painful now. And not voicing my physical needs to a partner is another way of hiding.

I don’t really know what to do about it yet. I know that I don’t do what I used to. But I feel like I’ve swung to the opposite side of the spectrum – from the vixen to Betty Crocker, as I’ve put it. But I know opening these doors, clearing these wounds, being willing to treat my flesh with care, and being willing to meet all of you with all of me are mile-markers of progress.

I’d like to be done with this work. I’d like to declare myself fit for duty. Maybe it’ll always be an ongoing process, maybe it’ll come to a place of plateau. I don’t know. But apparently I’m ready to clear the sobwebs, and arrive at somewhere new.