Tag Archives: life

March 16, 2013

Shifting

By t.dot

To say that these past few weeks have been spent in self-reflection, denial and a deep depression would only be a kernel of the truth of the present state of my existence. Epiphanies have been abundant, but fleeting in their grasp of my happiness and life has seemed weak and helplessly unable to contain the magnitude of realization and emotion ripping through my consciousness.

Lost and alone in a darkness I’ve been told is of my own making by an unsympathetic and impatient observer, I have had no lightness of being, no reprieve from this internal misery, and my hope has been fading each day. My very reason for being has come into question. Repeatedly. The moral compass that keeps me in touch with me is spinning out of control and I don’t know how to stop it. Or talk to it again and slow it down. I have locked myself inside myself and forgot to leave a note as to the whereabouts of the key.

Words, which have usually been my solace, my guide and at times, my only friend, have melted in the heat of my thoughts leaving a sticky, gooey substance too thick for comprehension, self awareness of self-compassion to penetrate. There has been no light touching the understanding usually present in my mind. It is there. I feel it. Always on the cusp of the horizon. But my feet, my hands and my heart is bound in this sludge and I have been a prisoner of its suction. Pulling me deeper and deeper into the darkness…

And then, just moments ago, I found this link, which had been sent to a sister blogger in need, whom I adore, from another sister blogger who I also adore.

And I had a moment where I felt the sludge give way, ever so slightly…

http://www.osorhan.com/bigo/

(Ann, you know I love you right?)

18 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Random Me

February 20, 2013

Safe: A Four Letter Word

By t.dot

I had another talk with V yesterday, the 26 year old baby dyke at my local grocery store, and she said something which is still clinging to me like an embarrassing piece of toilet paper on the bottom of my shoe. She’s a very perceptive and astute young woman who has told me (bragged about actually!) that she can size up a person in just a few minutes of conversation. Lol I think she may have my number. Crap. But, then again, I’m an open book. Literally.

During our conversation the number of relationships we’ve had in our lives came up. You would think me being almost twice her age would mean that I’ve had just that much more experience. Lol nope. Not the case. When I told her that I’ve only had about half a dozen lovers (not including my limited  ‘encounters’ with women ;) and that I’m one of those people who meets and falls in love with and then stays forever in a relationship, she told me – while asking my forgiveness for the assumption – that she thinks I’ve played it safe.

Instantly, I wanted to pounce on that shit like a feral cat on a wily street mouse. Squash that silly, annoying, taunting contagion before it could spread any of its nasty truth. In fact, I did deny it! Vehemently. Me? Playing it safe? Hell nooo!!! I challenge and stretch myself in areas I would never have dreamed possible prior to! I hang off cliffs – metaphorically speaking – all the time! I boldly go where people just don’t go! I push myself into un-comfort zones ALL the time! I am NOT a coward! I have been brave enough to live this life!!! Damn it.

Ego jumped in and boasted about how I was so done with monogamy and wanted to try the poly-amorous take on relationships.  After all, this “love” thing hasn’t been working out so well for me, ya know? Told V I was totally down with having more then one lover. That I would prefer and welcome the opportunity to meet, feel an attraction for and ultimately sleep with women simply for the pure sexual experience of it. And to be honest, I really don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.

Part of me has always been envious of the sexual freedom experienced by those who can and do sleep with whoever the hell they please. (safely, protection, all up front, yeah yeah ;) I am a sexual deviant. I admit it lol. My sexual life has been pretty vanilla till now. Limited. Unexplored. Not of my choosing. But because I’ve only been with one partner ever, who really wanted to play. I have always had a strong sexual appetite. And it hasn’t fully been satisfied. I’m not sure one person can fulfill all my fantasy anymore. My hunger has grown to ferocious, peaking now and in a most interesting and often times, confusing manner.

I was cut to the quick by near remorse for my proclaimed propensity for bed-hopping when V told me, with unquestionable certainty, ‘she could never do that‘. That she has to take time to know someone before she sleeps with them. That she is looking for someone special. Something special. Something very few people seem to have, she said, but once she sees it she will know it. Violins were playing in the background, two lovers running across an open meadow, songbirds mating in perfect harmony and the air was filled with the scent of lavender and tulips… Then, just when I was starting to feel like a slut for saying I wanted multiple lovers, she vindicated her baby dyke/lesbian membership card by telling me about “this woman” she had just met and how they had crazy-ass sex the other night!

Screech! Ping ping ping!! Violin strings snapped, the lovers collided, the songbirds fell from the tree and the musky scent of sex filled the air as a base, tribal drum began beating in the distance. Uh huh. I smirked. Who’s the slut now bitch? Lol. I’ve said it before and I will say it again! Time is not the same with lesbians. It’s like dog years and humans lol!

So, V proceeded to tell me about her sexcapade with a 40 something woman (she’s into older women. who knew! lol). Apparently this woman had made the assumption – and vocalized it! – that V wasn’t as experienced sexually. That she was gonna “school” the baby dyke. Yeah. Right. If you knew V like I know V…um. BIG mistake! This baby dyke is not someone to back down from a challenge! So, as V so eloquently put it, she ‘armored up’ and corrected that shit straight up! I will just say the retelling of their bondage-slave-I’ll-show-you-who’s-in-charge night made me squirm a little and cross my legs ;)  As for the time it took to go from “hello” to “fuck me”, my overall impression is that it didn’t take very long in dog years!

When I teased her about age sometimes benefiting sexual expertise, V said she likes taking away a strong woman’s sexual power. Her narrative about them wrestling for who was going to be on top had me in stitches…But, it also scared the crap out of me. There’s are whole breeds of lesbians out there I know nothing about!

And that brings me back to the ‘safe’ factor.

V is not the first person to tell me that I ‘play it safe’. Maybe that’s why it irked me so much. P has accused me of the same thing in reference to my eX. She told me that I chose him because he was ‘safe’. She made it sound like a dirty word. Or maybe conceptually “safe” sounds like ‘coward’ to me? Maybe it was simply because there was a truth in her accusation that I wanted to deny? A truth about me that I wasn’t prepared to face?

The irony here of course, is that people are now telling me that perhaps I have stayed with P this long because she is ‘safe’. As in, she is known, familiar, comfortable…a safe person for me. I know her. I know her ways, her likes, her dislikes, her habits, her quirks, her selfishness, her generosity, her gentleness, her hardness, her kisses, her sex, her smell, her love… Even with all her crazy. She’s a ‘safe’ crazy.

So, last night, that voice kicked in. You know the one I mean. That niggly one you want to kick out of your head the second you hear its voice? “Aah, but what about love girl?” it taunted mercilessly. “Are you brave in love or do you play it safe?” ” “What kinda of partners do you pick?” “What kind of people do you choose to stay with?” And why?

Hmm. Niggle niggle. Damn it. Thanks V. The germ has been planted.

Shit.

This self realization stuff sucks.

14 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Random Me

February 11, 2013

Irreparable Damage

By t.dot

An unsent text to P…

Your snide comment last night about me not “getting it” at all was unappreciated and incorrect. I do get it. I get it because it’s not that complicated. You’re not that complicated. Your needs and wants are fairly basic and simple. Like you.

The problem is now, and has always been, your behavior when those needs and wants aren’t being satisfied. We are currently in a situation that has escalated to this point due to an example of that bad behavior. You seem to think that because you’ve apologized and promised it won’t happen again, that I should readily and easily be willing to forget the damage caused and move back into a position of safety and trust with you. And when I’m unable to do so within the time frame you’ve allowed, you get angry, paranoid, frustrated, accusing and insensitive.

It took a long time for me to get here P – to this place of distrust and total confusion about you. The constantly picking at me and the essence of who I am, the put-downs that made me feel small and inadequate, blaming me for your unhappiness and worst of all the disparaging constant reminders that I’m not like any other person you’ve been with and that no relationship you’ve ever been in has been as full of turmoil, drama and frustration.

Somehow, I must admit, I do find that hard to believe.

You tell me now that you’re unhappy, that you walk around on pins and needles. That you don’t know what I’m going to do from one minute to the next. That I have some kind of power over your life and treat your emotions as if this relationship were a game to me. That I’m just “playing” with you.

Really?

Wow.

I think that may be the cruelest things you’ve said to me yet.

I have always tried to treat you with patience, acceptance, understanding and love even when you hurt me so deeply I didn’t think I could get back up again. Sure I have been scared and angry and said some unkind things out of that fear and anger but I have never ever not taken your feelings seriously or treated them with the respect they deserve.

The thing you don’t seem to “get” is that you began this dance of emotional insanity between us with that ferocious need of yours to be paid attention too, to be loved, to be consumed and to be put before and above anyone else. When you felt that was being given to you, you became the loving, compassionate, giving and generous partner I’ve always wanted…but when those needs weren’t being met you became mean and selfish and demanding.

The irony is that you’ve now created an insecure, confused and unsympathetic partner for yourself out of a woman who was once strong and confident and empathetic to all your scars and tragedy. And you want her back. The one you met 4 1/2 years ago. The one with the laughing eyes, the easy smile, the fun, the wit, the humor, the sex… Who would have given you the moon and the stars if she were able, who did make you the center of her universe and who did put you before others, at times even before her own daughter – a fact I’m ashamed to admit – who would have played into all of your sexual and domestics fantasies and who would have shared your sense of adventure.

And yet you’ve done every possible thing to destroy her!

Why???? Is that how ultimate your need for control is? Ruin, breakdown and then rebuild in your own image?

You tell me that I don’t talk to you. That I don’t tell you how I feel. But I remember a time when I used to talk to you non-stop. So much and so fast in fact, that you couldn’t keep up! I used to tell you exactly how I felt. I used to share my dreams with you and talk about the future. But, apparently, you were never listening. Not really. And the day I realized the truth of that statement, is the day I stopped talking.

You probably never even noticed because, as always, you still had so much more to say.

But now…

Now there is nothing left of her but a hollow shell with a ghost of a smile filled with a useless sadness. And yes, a growing, simmering deep rooted anger that this has never been what it should have been…could have been. So beautiful. So perfect in loves wonderful imperfection and would have been if you had understood from the beginning that “we” was not simply about you. That “we” had an “us” and in that “us” there was me! An equally valid member of this relationship. One whose needs were voiced but never fully acknowledged – but I suppose I have only myself to blame for that. I didn’t scream loud enough to be heard over you.

I have heard you, listened to you, hurt for you and wrapped you in my love a thousand fathoms deep, a thousand times over to try and show you that you were cherished and loved. By me. Fully, completely and honestly. And in return you have snarled, hissed and even bitten me in my efforts to soothe your disquieted soul. And over time my love has weakened from the continual battering of its walls, it has cracked openly from the brutal attacks that rip at its mortar, and now it is truly in danger of crumbling into a broken, dusty pile of fractured rubble that will never be rebuilt again.

You say you are unhappy. You say you don’t know how to “be”, what to say, what not to say… You sound just like me now. But you have always mirrored me. Perhaps, its that fluid Pisces things you do? You say you’re afraid to be yourself? Well, to that I can only respond with the deepest regret, “welcome to my side of the relationship”.

I wish you weren’t here with me. Hell, I wish I weren’t here. But I have been living in this barren, cold and unfulfilled wasteland for quite some time…catching glimpses of beautifully inviting  mirages and oasis’ of  misty lush havens. I touch the cool grass, I drink the fresh water, I rejuvenate and begin to feel comforted by their pleasing affects and then “poof” it’s all gone. And I am alone again in the scorching wilderness of your virtual abandonment filled with curious, questioning scorpions always ready to attack if I move the wrong way. Because once again, you’re needs aren’t being met by some inadequacy in me.

So my love…

I think we should say goodbye.

I think we have to.

There is nowhere else for us to go.

As much as I know a piece of me will die without you, an even bigger piece of me is dying with you. I can no longer see the silver lining of our emotional cloud. It’s dark and gloomy and depressing and the rain just never let’s up. And I’m too beat up, too tired and too emotionally drained to fight for this anymore. I don’t even remember what it is I’m fighting for now. Whatever sweetness we used to share has turned sour from discontent. Whatever compassion we had for each other has turned to contempt. Whatever we once had the potential of becoming is far removed from the reality of what we have become. This is not how the story was meant to be written.

I have loved you deeper then I have ever loved a partner before.

I held on for as long as I could.

I wanted your sweetness more then life itself.

But you weren’t able to give it long enough for me to grab hold of and feel its stability.

I wish I could have been who you needed me to be.

But I’m not.

I wish your love had never hurt me.

But it has.

And sadly…

Irreparable damage is not negotiable.

13 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Random Me

January 24, 2013

Boi Love

By t.dot

The past few days have been soulfully mournful. I am having to say goodbye to something I never really had, yet feel its loss with every fiber of my being.

I’ve been searching again. Deep inside. Trying to make sense of my life. A premature ending to a marriage?  A premature start to a relationship? Coming out too late? Aaaah. There is the trigger.

Hurting. Questioning. Barely surviving my life. It’s all catching up to me and I don’t know what to do or where to go. A friend and I have been texting a lot lately – she’s been my sounding board through what I’m starting to recognize is a crisis. Midlife? No. It’s so much more then that.

When I came out, it was so freeing. I felt like life had finally opened up a door closed to me for so long. I believed if I walked through that door wearing only my truth as armor, that I would be safe. That I would find that elusive muse called happiness and dance with her, bathed in white washed moonlight. A blank, naked canvas, I was eager to be written on, my truest story waiting for the breath of life. Secretly anticipating, like a modern day sleeping beauty, for my first real kiss of awakening…

I had a dream. It was vague, unstructured and colored with indigo blue, but it was mine. It gave me purpose. It fueled my heart and allowed hope to soar with innocent possibility. I felt more alive then I had ever felt. My spirit lit from within and curled around my love. I knew that I had made the right decision.

Now, nearly five years later, I can no longer validate my choice. I arrived at the crossroad too late. And I am in limbo. I can not go back. I can not go forward. I have no direction. So much time. Wasted. And that’s starting to scare me. A lot. My life feels so completely fucking wasted.

Today my friend told me to slow down, breathe, and not to make any hasty decisions. That even though she understands that my life feels like its spiraling out of control, it’s really not. She’s right. It does feel like its spiraling out of control. There is so much movement and yet it seems strangely, perfectly still.  I wake up each day and go through the motions of responsibility. I go to school. I cheer on the underdog. I give the homeless money. I encourage the insecure. I help classmates with note-taking. I advocate for the oppressed. I empower all whom I can in any way that I can. Yet I have no words of wisdom or encouragement for me. I don’t understand the meaning of my life. I don’t understand what it’s all been for. The pain. The neglect. The abandonment. The brutality. The fleeting love given then taken away. I don’t mean to sound cliche…but I am asking that deep question.

Why am I here?

This is the text I sent back to my friend… (ya I text short stories sometimes but my friends love me in spite of it!)

“…I told each of them that I don’t want to be in a committed relationship right now. I want a lover. Their responses to that statement were completely different. One told me that if I do take a lover it will have to be someone much younger then myself who doesn’t want to settle down, but warned that I would have to be careful cuz young hearts break easily and wouldn’t it be easier just to stick with her? …and the other said she’s more then willing to be my lover and allow me to fully explore my sexuality (another post yet to come) but, that it would have to be exclusive.

Well, isn’t that kinda like a committed relationship???

I feel like I came out too late M :( I just want to play and have some fun and yet everyone I am meeting in my age range wants to settle down, nest and grow old together. Maybe I should want that as well, but I don’t right now. I’ve done the wife thing, the mommy thing, the caregiver thing and now the ‘bad relationship’ thing…but all I want to do is have some fucking fun!

There’s this girl who works at a grocery store in my neighborhood – V. She’s a baby dyke. Maybe 25-26, maybe 27ish. She’s cuter then hell and lately I see her every time I walk in – which, this past two weeks, has been almost every day. Lately we’ve been talking. Really talking. Not sure why lol. But, sometimes you connect with people and just find yourself sharing shit that you never dreamed you would tell a stranger. She has seen P and I together often and up until recently, thought we were a happy, stable “cute” couple and she told me she’s envious of our relationship. I corrected her and burst the bubble.

I told her I had only been out for a few years and she was amazed. I also told her P and I were split up and her eyes got even wider. Told her P was house sitting for the month of January and this was giving us some time to breathe and reflect on shit. I started blurting out my story – the censored and abridged and polite version and left out the P-blaming, but still, it was intimate.

The store was quiet. It was the middle of the afternoon. The moment just presented itself. So, while she unpacked boxes and restocked shelves we began a huge sharing session which ended with her giving me her phone number and saying we needed to go out and have some fun. I laughed. I liked the sound of both those things. Been awhile since I laughed from a place of joy. V told me about her dates and eluded to her crazy active sex life – her ‘hookups’ as she calls them – and I have no reason not to believe her stories. She rocks that boi thing like nobody’s business and she’s got people smarts that make her open and brutally honest. With dark sparkling eyes on fire with mischief, curiosity and sex, she’s got an appeal I understand . She says she’s an ‘old school butch” at heart and likes to treat her women with respect but that girls of her generation don’t seem to get that. She says they’d rather be with a bad boi but told me bad boi’s are usually emotionally fucked up and aren’t capable of giving a girl what she needs. Like I said – people smart.

V seems to know exactly who she wants and who she doesn’t. I envy her that knowing and decisiveness. She doesn’t like to waste time. If I were younger I would totally have a thing for and with her. Twenty-five years ago I have no doubt she would have been putty in my hands – or maybe, I would have been putty in hers lol. Either way, I so would have crushed on her.

I listened to her talk about her life and boast, in a shyly bold way, of her significant ‘women’, smiled and gasped in all the right places and felt myself momentarily restored by her exuberance for life. I love her energy and the boi sweetness that oozes out of her lopsided smile. Yet, behind my smile was a growing sadness in realizing, once again, that I’ve missed out on so much :(

It’s tough being in this place of longing for a life I should have lived. The women I should have loved. The hearts I should have broken. The heartbreak they should have given me. The sex I should have had…the sex I should have had….the sex I should have had. So much of this life has been spent doing what I thought was the right thing, but it was never really for me. And now that I’m finally out, crooked as it has been, I’m too old to live the life I should have lived and want desperately to live now…

I missed my time, M. So, at the end of the day…what is left? Really? Tick tock ya know baby? Sigh. Like I said. In a mood today :( “

M responded back with…

“OK stop right there! OMG…it’s not too late and if someone has told you that, I need to slap them. For real! There are women out there who still want to have fun…and there’s no reason why you can’t find her…really I’m being fucken serious here…deep breathe baby…we need to talk more about this in person…like really talk girl!!!! Man alive, if I was in an open relationship I would fuck you in a second! No baggage attached…damn, you are so hot! Do you have any idea how amazingly sexy you really are??? Stop talking shit!!”

M is 34…

I stared at the phone and blinked. Hard. WTF??? But after comprehension dawned it was quickly overruled by the humor of it all and I actually laughed out loud at my friends bastard attempt to make me feel “not too old” to be desired.

My response…

“Um babes. You might wanna delete that.”

Her response…

“LMFAO…yeah maybe.”

God I do love my boi’s ;)

I don’t know that I am any closer to understanding why I am here and my life still feels wasted and unlived and once I hit “publish” and sign off from here, I will slip back into my moodiness…but I do appreciate the attempt, made out of love, from a boi who is my friend.

Thank you M xo

6 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Random Me

January 10, 2013

Foot Soldier

By t.dot

I am a foot soldier of life.

A nameless. A thankless. A dispensable.

Engaged in this bloody crusade to teach you a better way of human being.

But, make no mistake. This path was not my choice…

I am a weary combatant enmeshed in the dark, polluted battles that thrive in the blackest pits of humanity so that you can have your life, explore your fantasies, realize your dreams and live in the light.

I am the warrior who, with my battle scarred body, allows you to be who you are even though I can never be who I am.

I am the one who allows the rape so that you can remain pure and unscathed.

I am the one who gives so that you can take.

I am the reason you are happy.

I am the reason you have memories of times when things were simple and easy and filled with laughter.

I am your peace of mind.

I am the facilitator of harmony.

I am the all-knowing aunt who calms the family squabbles and reminds you all how much you truly love each other.

I am the friend who reminds your partner that you have never been unfaithful and aren’t about to become so now.

I am the stranger who smiles sweetly at your “not so cute” baby and validates your role/identity as mother.

I am the woman who holds the door for you, a man, and gives you that knowing, playful smile as you pass close enough to smell my womanhood.

I am the balance you need to blanket your sorrow as if it never existed at all.

I am the one who commiserates when you’ve had a bad day and takes your abuse when you’ve lost patience with the world.

And I am the one that reminds you, when you feel small and helpless and insignificant, that you mean the world to someone.

I am the voice inside that corrects your bad behavior and the remorse that you feel when you don’t.

I am the one desperately holding on to the shining hope in that thinning, single stranded, damaged tapestry that weaves your life together.

I am the one watching its glow diminish and fade into an ashen ember of what once was being replaced by what now is.

Your pride and ignorance, your brutality and greed, your selfish lust and perverse desire, your reckless pursuits and foolish abandonment, your powerful manipulation that oppresses, your bullying and victimizing, your prejudice and blasphemy, your angry spite and jealous rage is twisting your truest colors into psychedelic spirals of brilliant malice.

And still I can see the beauty in you.

I am an angel in her most perfectly failed form.

But I am your undeniable, imperfect salvation.

I am a foot soldier of life with blistered feet and battered soul, wearing only the markings you have carved in my skin.

Yet each day I rise and take up the battle again.

So that you can have your life, explore your fantasies, realize your dreams and live in the light, all with the assurance that you are deeply, forever, unconditionally loved.

(Aaaahhh. Frustration be thy name. I just needed to write something!!!)

11 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Random Me

January 3, 2013

Homeless in Toronto

By t.dot

Don’t even ask. Explanation will follow.

But, one thing I have learned already in this new year is this:

If the tears smudge the ink, it’s too soon to write.

Sigh…

Still trying to come back here but circumstances being as they are, I will have no access to the internet until this coming weekend. I do, however, have access to a laptop just waiting for me to burn my fingers on its keys…so perhaps, if I can, I will write now and post later.

In the meantime, I do wish you all a belated Merry Christmas and all the very very best for 2013!

Oh… And when you lose your new gloves in 15 below, retrace your steps and find them!

Namaste  xo

3 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Random Me

November 16, 2012

No Monster. No Victim.

By t.dot

After posting my rant on being in an abusive relationship, I started feeling really uncomfortable with it.  And as I read a few of your wonderfully heartfelt responses I felt even more uncomfortable with it. So I just need to make something perfectly clear.

P is not  a monster.

And I am not a victim.

I just want to be clear that this blog was never intended to be a P-bashing blog.

My relationship with her, as with all relationships, has two sides. I’m sure if she were able to respond to my allegations and tell her side, a different feed back would erupt. But, hey this is my blog and my heart and my space to share, so the bias will continue to reign in this realm. However, I have played a  large part in our dysfunction. I do recognize this. And I need to publicly own my culpability even if it’s only to the few beautiful souls who read and respond to me here.

Without laying all the blame at P’s feet, my one standing defense that will forever hold true as my truth, is that if her meanness had never been introduced and repeated in such a deeply hurtful and profoundly personal way, my own would have stayed locked beneath that little black patch on my heart, quiet, dormant and unprovoked. My eX told me last night that I have the greatest capacity to love unconditionally and without expectation but when I become hurt I have the capacity to hate as equally. I reacted to the use of the word hate, but I understood what he meant. And he is right. When I love, I love like nobody’s business with every fiber of my being, but if you hurt me or betray that love, I don’t easily forgive.

Our dysfunction may have stemmed from her having a quick and nasty temper, but there were things I probably could have done if I had been able to think without emotion. If  I had been given the tools for damage control. If I wasn’t reeling from the pain of disillusionment. I’ve never been comfortable with outward displays of anger. I have a deep sensitivity and my energy is a calm and soothing one …normally. But when P’s hammer struck and began chipping away at my heart, my usual calm, rational self-control cracked and emotions began squeezing through and running  a muck in chaotic riot. It was all very very messy.

My negative reactions to P’s behavior may have been slow in the making, but when they kicked in full tilt, well…look out. Yup. There’s an angry fighter in me too. She doesn’t come out very often and you really have to provoke her, but once roused, she is formidable. I began to resist P’s domination with as much force as she used to dominate. It’s true that in the beginning I allowed all the bad behavior and accepted them as circumstantial. I thought that when the circumstances changed, so would the behavior. It didn’t. I thought it came from a place of love and her eagerness to be with me. And I still believe that it did. Drowning in her raw and insatiable passion for me inevitable. I craved that more than anything. It was what I had turned my world upside down for. That explicit intangible sweetness you feel deep in your soul when you connect with someone intimately, sexually, and almost spiritually: that ‘thing’. Her sex, her voice, her touch was like a drug to me and I was indeed intoxicated and hopelessly addicted. It’s the ‘thing’ that ties me to her, unconditionally. It is the only thing I am a victim of in this dynamic.

I could throw around words like passive-aggressive, co-dependency and abuse and I could place the blame solely on her brokenness and walk away feeling completely justified in doing so, but the simple honest truth is that in between the bad behavior, the rages and the manipulation there were the sweetest moments of the greatest peace and joy I have ever known. And I haven’t learned how to let go of that…

Sigh.

I’m so tired right now. I have no energy for anything of this. My creative flow is stunted, my head and heart are melting down. School is overwhelming, my personal life is a mess. I am stressed beyond belief. Might be time for little happy pills…or maybe therapy? I dunno. Feeling kinda defeated and deflated today.

2 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Random Me

November 13, 2012

Burst & Apologize: The “Prettier” Abuse

By t.dot

” a·buse: defined as the systematic pattern of behaviors in a relationship that are used to gain and/or maintain power and control over another. When one defines domestic violence only in terms of physical abuse they do not fully understand the dynamics that keep these relationships together. Emotional and verbal abuse, which consist of swearing, bullying, attacks on self-esteem, blaming, criticizing thoughts and feelings, damages a person on a psychological level and alters their reality often leaving them with a strong sense of hopelessness and no means of escape…“

Hmm…

Yup, you’re probably correct in your assumption. Took me a four years, 3 months and a gazillion verbal onslaughts before I finally accepted and connected the dots. I am in an abusive relationship. And ironically, it was my emotionally and verbally abusive eX husband who pointed out the frightening yet undeniable similarities between himself and P. What a fucking light-bulb moment that was, let me tell you. Sigh. I think this is going to be a long post, split in two…maybe three. Crap, it might never end.

Where to begin? It’s been weeks since my last confession. I’m a little out of practice, but here goes…and yes…this will be  a rambling, incohesive rant.

Late one night, about two weeks ago, I came to the shockingly stark realization that I am in another abusive relationship, when I found myself literally tip-toeing around my ‘home’ in a near anxious, fear panicked state that I might inadvertently wake P from her sleep and have to deal with the wrath of her big, loud, intensely frightening anger. And in the midst of my creeping and shsh-ing all inanimate objects and external noises like the fridge, the cupboards, the toilet and my freaking breath, my eX texted to see how a school project I’d been working on was turning out. I texted back that it was going well. P and I had argued before she had gone to sleep and I was upset and needed to talk. I started to text him some of my anxieties. About 2 minutes in he asked if he could call. I said yes. And the conversation that took place over the next 15 minutes – of which I mostly listened – literally changed my entire perspective on my relationship with P and brought home a truth I could no  longer deny. In his words, “You left me for another version of me but with a vagina.”  Fuck. Seriously?

He reminded me – not that he really needed too! – of his wickedly nasty temper, how he could fly off in any given moment without much provocation and explode with cruel insensitivity. And then literally, moments later, would apologize most sincerely, often times in tears he felt so wretched. And I would forgive him every time. I would accept his apology. But one day I finally told him that every time he did that to me, it took a piece of me away from him. And it did. I told P the same thing. He told me he saw how much he had hurt me, saw it in my eyes at the moment and that he tried so hard to stop it from happening, over and over again. P has said the same thing, over and over again. With my eX it continued for many years. 15 to be exact. He’s learned to manage his anger over the years, but he still has a wicked temper and it still makes me feel incredibly uncomfortable when I feel it coming on. And so does P’s. Difference being that I don’t have another 15 years in me to defuse someone else’s anger issues and tip-toe around my life in fear…and even if I did, I wouldn’t!

He called this explosion of angry temperament “burst and apologize”. And told me P does the exact same thing. That it’s never really personal. That the anger is really self-directed. That they are both just angry people. Great. I’m not sure I will ever be able to interpret that in a healthy enough way for me to able to unpack the damage it inflicts on me. The fact that it might not be personal and the anger is directed inwards doesn’t really help the victim who has to ward of the verbal punches. It didn’t help me with him, and it doesn’t help me with P. But I must point out one huge difference in their attacks. My eX never made it personal. I know how odd that must sound but his anger was usually circumstantial, situational or environmental and directed at something other then me. He was actually rarely every angry at me, I was just unfortunate enough to be in the path of his storm. I never once felt like he deliberately abused his place of privilege in my heart and in my life – which is probably why we are still so close. I am in no way excusing his behavior or denying that I suffered continual emotional abuse at his hands, but he never, ever attacked the core of who I am.

P does. She has always fought dirty. Learned behavior? Maybe. Detrimental. Definitely. Excusable. No.

In my ignorance, I allowed certain behaviors in the belief that because this was my first lesbian relationship there were subtleties, nuances and language that I was unfamiliar with and my inexperience of how to deal with these unexpected behaviors were the cause of the dysfunction. In short, I blamed myself. For a long time. My self esteem plummeted and I questioned everything about who I was. Prior to meeting her I was a pretty confident person, full of optimism and light. And in my ignorance, as I have said before, I thought that love between two women would be kinder, gentler, sweeter and more understanding then between a woman and a man. But, lemme tell you, a woman can be just as much, if not more, emotionally abusive then a man could ever be. Women know where the deep shit is buried, they know how to hurt and will go for the jugular every fucking time when they’re needs aren’t being met. Grrr…so another post!!!

So, after that deeply honest, vulnerable – (on the part of my eX who cried while confessing his remorse and the fact that he is finally in therapy to deal with his anger issues…btw so is P now) – and emotionally touching and completely revealing conversation with  my eX, I sat on the couch dumbfounded. All the memories of past abuses, and there have been many, flooded in and I was awash with a feeling of certainty. I was ‘there’ again. And I started to cry. Heart wrenching, chest racking body shaking sobs…placing my hand over my mouth so that I wouldn’t make any noise. Ya, I know. Messed right?

Truth is I have always known the truth, have whispered it in the dark recesses of my mind on several occasions, but chose to observe and contemplate from the sidelines till now, always finding excuses for her behavior and rationalizing with explanations that she herself had given me, all the while trying to come to terms with the damaging blows on my psyche.

I was in denial.

Red flags be damned.

I didn’t want to believe that I had stupidly walked blindly into another manipulative, controlling debilitating mind fuck of a relationship.

Things had already gone from bad to worse, but after that conversation they just continued slipping on a downward slope. The arguments, meanness and bullshit escalated cuz now I was really in the fight too. I don’t take to being a victim very easily, I’ve had enough!!! And I was pissed off enough to fight back.  If she thought she could continue to abuse me emotionally, fuck her! Yes, I got mad and called her on everything. I became the nazi nag bitch she had called me just 2 1/2 months ago. Funny how if you hear negative things often enough you start to believe them, become them, and allow them to alter your perception of who you are. And after a final culmination of grueling confrontation we both hit the wall. She came home a week ago last Saturday after working out at the gym and after another bitch session, said she had had enough. That she wanted a break.

For me that signaled the end. Once and for all. I am done. I am not going to dangle on that string of hope again. It’s demeaning and humiliating. I deserve better.

A year ago P had left me alone, in a depression of the blackest kind. I was unemployed, our relationship was as rocky as it had every been and I fell into a deep depression. Not surprising I guess. But she told me then, that she needed a break. That she couldn’t deal with “my life”. I can not even begin to tell you how devastated her words left me. I felt as if a lifeline, her lifeline connected to me, as tenuous as it was, had been yanked out of my hand and I was completely bereft and alone. She left me to fend for myself and find my way out of it. It was the scariest time for me that I can remember in a very, very long time and thoughts of suicide danced with my demons on many a moonlit rise. Her abandonment told me she only wanted the light and happy Trish, that the dark and confused Trish was too much, even if P herself was at the root of much of my unhappiness… And sadly, it told me that she would never truly be there for me when my chips were down. That was a hurt whose wound has never healed.

When I eventually fought  my way to the surface from those black waters, she wanted me again. Again, messed. And fool that I am, I was grateful. But, I told her if she ever did that to me again, I was never coming back.

You do some fucked up shit when you’re in love and as twisted as ours might be…love is love. And even though I am angry, disillusioned and hurt beyond repair, I am still in love with that abusive bitch and I have to believe there’s a sane reason why. But be that as it may, I have to be done. I can’t do this anymore. But god, it would be so much easier to deal with this if I actually hated her. When things are good between us, there is no place on earth I would rather be. I have clung to that dream for so long…it’s hard to let go. I mean, how do you stop loving someone just because they are incapable of giving you what you need?

But ya…she did it again…I did it again…and here we are. Living together now as room-mates, all pretense of having a normal, healthy, loving relationship has spiraled down the drain like dirty murky bathwater. Since moving in together we have lived in the anxiety ridden, perpetual state of being “one minute away’ – a term I affectionately coined as meaning we can slip into a fight at the drop of a dime. And how did we ever get here? What started this mad roller-coaster we have been on for four years now? P has a mean, hot temper and in that heat she has bullied me and verbally and emotionally abused me. She knows it and I know it. It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks.

But I didn’t fight back.

Maybe I should have?  Maybe I have enabled her somehow? And now that I am fighting back, she calls me mean and nag and nazi bitch. No fucking irony there, huh? And ya, I know there is a reason why she is the way she is, but should that be a blanket excuse for bad behavior???

Her quick, hot volatile temper bubbles up like a boiling pot of water, but subsides quickly once you take it off the burner. Her mother had a quick temper. Her father had a quick temper. Her brother still has a quick temper. The entire family must have resided in angry demonstration of verbal abuse from day one of her existence. It’s no wonder that this type of behavior has become second nature to her or that she sees absolutely nothing wrong with ‘bursting’ and then ‘apologizing’ , as if somehow the apology negates the damage done and the continual acceptance of hurled abuses should be a given. I’m sure her therapist will have a field day with the inner workings of her mind and the psychology behind her behavior. Might be fun to analyze, but try living with it.

My question to her therapist? Does that type of socialization make the burst and apology syndrome acceptable? Is it a justifiable excuse to continue the abuse outside of its origin?

I don’t come from that place. Not one of the myriad of families I lived with growing up yelled and screamed at each other the way P has told me her family did. But that’s not to say that I haven’t experienced abuse. I have come to discover that there are many forms of abuse and that they aren’t always as obvious as a punch in the face, though at times the effects are just as devastating, if not more so. A broken face can heal. A broken spirit may not.

My question to myself? Am I so broken, so damaged by my beginnings that somewhere deep inside lies the belief that I don’t deserve better then to be abused by people who say they love me? That shit started really early and the possibility exists and scares the hell out of me. Am I really that person?

Sigh…to be continued

18 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Random Me

October 26, 2012

time

By t.dot

suddenly i have none

the well is overflowing

ever full and abundant

but time is no longer my luxury

parchment beckons as i hesitate

pen poised perfectly in anticipation

as i stumble over my thoughts, my pain, my life

edit. rewrite. something. anything!

just begin…again

drip. drop.  ink blot

blue black bleeding out on white

tiny arteries racing to scribe my secrets

exhausted before they reveal the story within

ink deep, but growing thin in the waiting

drying to a translucent smudge of a broken sigh

i don’t know how to get there from this place of occupied confusion

i hurt. i want. i hope. i wait.

so much to say and no time to say it

i miss my words here

i need to find the time

i need to come back

to this place that gives me peace

and resolution

i need to come back to me

soon

8 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , | posted in Random Me, Writing

September 19, 2012

Red Flag

By t.dot

Today I just vent… not eloquent with edit. I’m too rattled and have no energy for it. Being a full time student again has zapped my time for creativity.  Time management will cure that inconvenience and I’m beyond thrilled by this new adventure, but this post is not about my wonderful new path as a Community Worker. That will come on a happier day…when I wake up next to enlightenment instead of disillusionment. Better be soon, damn it!

So…

P has accused me of being afraid of domesticity. She thinks that I think it will kill our relationship. She thinks my lack of enthusiasm for it, prior to moving in together, was because at the end of my 16 year live-in relationship with my eX I had grown bored and complacent. At least, that’s her interpretation of my circumstance.

Truth is, there had never been any real passion between my eX and I. We fornicated, but we never really made love. We hugged and kissed, but there was no “zing”. We touched each other, but there was no sensual exploration of the senses. It was a mutually satisfying arrangement that worked for many years, and in many real ways we were very happy, but it wasn’t my idea of a passionate relationship.

Sex was simply sex and a means of orgasmic release. It was perfunctory. It seemed to be all that was necessary. For him. No offense guys, but you really are much simpler and easier to please. Don’t get me wrong. I love my eX madly. He has been my savior in more ways then I can count, my best friend in times of desperate need and in so many ways, my hero. But, he has never truly been my lover.

And I wanted…still want, a lover.

Domesticity didn’t kill our relationship, boredom did. For me anyhow. Lack of spontaneity and sense of sexual adventure. We got bogged down by the ebb and flow of responsibility. Raising a daughter. Paying the bills. Making sure there was enough for life. The continual compromising to co-exist, to meet the ‘norms’ of his family, to compete with the Joneses. He was and still is, a socially competitive man who wants all the trinkets and toys of success. I’m a lot less materialistic. I’m more the spiritual, tree-hugging-hippy-kinda-chick who gets off on sensual exploration and kisses that melt my bones, not the number of zeros on my bank statement.

I value money by recognizing its importance, but I don’t govern my life by its influence. So, yes, we were different. And ultimately, those differences became more then our similarities – (although I am happy to report he connects more and more with his spiritual side and has improved mental health because of it and he seems happier for it. smile) But, we drifted apart emotionally. Sexually. Or at least, I drifted.

I needed more then the white picket fence and 2.5 children. It’s for many. Just not for me. I get it. But, I always thought, that even with all that, (monetary success) you should still be able to find balance, find joy, find pleasure in each other and to my way of thinking, there is no reason why you can’t still have hot, steamy, sweaty sex more often then not. Once I realized that was not going to be the case, I allowed other filters to unblock – hence my ‘coming out’  – and out of fairness to both of us, I chose to leave. I wanted to leave while he and I were still friends. I saw the red flags and cared enough to not overstay my welcome.

When I met P, sexually I thought I had found ‘my lover”. And in many ways I had. She was a woman whose priorities were all about pleasure and spontaneity. In short, a true lesbian. And I was in heaven. Passion was high high high on her list. She excited me from morning till nite with her innuendo, her blatant, sometimes shocking, open sexuality. I was never in doubt that she wanted me. Ever. It was in that knowledge, my own sexual confidence grew and I started understanding the true power of my sexuality.

The sexual energy between us was insane. So intense. She made love to my mind long before she made love to my body and I was hooked. The wanting palpable. The need beyond hunger. I had never known such panty-wetting, melting desire before and I was consumed by her. I woke thinking of her. I fell asleep wanting her. I was obsessed and I didn’t care. I fell deeply, madly, irrevocably in love.  In lust. She was everything to me. I would have done anything for her, and often did. My entire universe revolved around her.  The P experience was everything I had imagined…and so much more.

Almost.

I saw them, but chose to ignore them. Those  fucking red flags! It’s true what they say about love being blind. Passion making you weak. I was floating so far above reality, I didn’t think I would ever come down. Who wants to be bothered by “Warning Will Robinson” alerts when you’re in the throes of the most exquisite orgasms of your life? I sure as hell didn’t!

But, fall I did. With a crash. Painfully, brutally and without cushion. And the disappointment soon took the place of those exquisite orgasms. And much too quickly, at least much to soon for my liking, my sexy, passionate lover became a mean, verbally abusive, complaining woman never satisfied with anything or anyone in her life. Especially me. And I bore the brunt of her anger and frustration. It hurt. A lot. And I shriveled up inside.  The bubble no longer glistened, the dream began to crack and break into sharp, tiny fragments I could no longer piece together with my tears. Our ‘honeymoon” was a short, beautiful powerful burst of fireworks. And then, just like fireworks, ‘poof’ it was gone.

And, for four years I have been holding on, am still holding on, to the tattered remnants of that beautiful dream…

P says you can’t maintain that kind of intensity. Another lesbian recently told me the same thing. It confuses me. I say, why the fuck put it out there in the first place then? Do they have any idea what a devastating blow that loss is physically, mentally and emotionally? How difficult it is to adjust to a fishbowl when the full richness of the ocean was your learning playground?

When did it become ‘okay’ to give the gift of sensuality, sexual awareness and enfold another in the heat of passionate consumption and then abruptly take it away? Leaving them naked, alone and shivering in the cold to figure out just what the fuck happened to them? Why burn that flame so bright that it consumes your entire being, if you know it’s going to burn out in such a short time? Wouldn’t it make sense to try and tame it a little, control it just enough to ensure that it lasts longer then the common cold? Longevity seems to be an “L” word foreign to lesbians.

Ouch.

Perhaps, I am just bitter now and that was an unfair generalization. But, I am bitter. I feel cheated. I was lured in by the invitation, a promise made to my body, given satisfaction to my curious and restless mind, stimulated into believing there was truth in the lust and brought to heights of physical and sexual awareness I never dreamed possible. I fought, then lost the battle for protectiveness of me and embraced the woman bearing all these extraordinary gifts.

I trusted her intensity. Her passion. Her conviction. Her desire for me paled all prior passions to white. Her smile set butterflies in my belly a flutter. Her deep, knowing laugh – which still affects me to this day – sparked a heightened sexual awareness in me otherwise unknown. The ‘accidental’ touching. The soft, sweet, breathy kisses.  The smutty, deliciously obscene sexting. The thrill of anticipation. The chase and eventual capture. She’s very good at the game of sexual pursuit. It’s where she lives. Exhilarating. Breath taking. More please. More.

I want to be wanted forever. Desired with the same intensity with which it began. And I want to want my lover in the same way. Is that really too much to ask? Or do people just give up too easily? Because it’s too hard? When did paying the bills, making grocery lists, food shopping, cleaning the house and doing the dishes right after dinner become prioritized over sexually intimacy? And don’t give me that crap about “love changes”, “passion cools and sex becomes less important as the relationship deepens!” Anyone who ascribes to those notions is a fool. Or simply satisfied with complacency. Which to me, is one in the same!

Relationships that endure are made up of the same stuff that grew them in the first place. If lust, passion and romance is how you won your  partner, then you need to keep them alive to keep your partner. Removing even one of those vital components leads to expectations being miserably failed and unhappiness replacing bliss. Why else are divorce rates so high and affairs a “norm” in our society? It’s not rocket science.

What happens to passion? Why does desire have to wan?

Do we just get too tired and busy with life? Or do we just get lazy?

After the conquest, is it not a priority anymore?

Jesus, when did we cross that line?

For crying out loud! Write the grocery list on my ass! Dot the i’s with your tongue! Sneak me grapes in the shopping aisle! Spin “Let’s Get It On” and chase me around the house with the duster! Ignore the fucking dishes for once and drag me into the bedroom after dinner! Rip off my clothes and remember me. Remember us!

Change your bloody priorities back to a time when the living of life mattered. When there was passion in every touch, every movement, every smile. Passion with conviction. Feeling with soul. Need with heart. Be alive to the wanting to live. To love.

Be engaged, damn it!

Don’t let the mundane take over. That is a fucking red flag of monumental proportion!

That’s what kills relationships.

Not domesticity.

I was never afraid of living with P.

I was afraid that she would forget that I still needed her passion.

And she has.

She’s forgotten how to make love to my mind.

Red flag! Red flag! Red flag!

20 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Random Me

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