Work, Work, Mom

I've called the hotline a few times now.  I know what they're going to say, almost by heart.

We take deep breaths. I apologize for calling. I apologize for crying. Vaguely, somewhere in the back of my mind, I wonder what their stories are; I wonder what led them to this point, sitting on the other end of the phone.

This time she has the same name as my sister. I want to tell her, but I can't get the words out. Her voice is calm, quiet, soothing. She feels so reassuring and there is a small part of me that hasn't been able to be comforted in a long time that feels calmed.

"Have you seen a professional?" she asks. "Do you have a safety plan in place?"

We talk about what's going on. She validates me, tells me that my emotions are okay. That I'm really struggling with this and it is so understandable.

It's what I've been wanting a friend to tell me. It's what I've wanted with hugs and kisses and apologies and whispers that it will be alright, but I've promised not to tell our friends.

We make a plan to get through the night. Stop looking at social media. Stop expecting phone calls you're promised but not going to get. Give up control over other people and just focus on yourself.

Self care, she calls it. Take a shower if I can, journal, read a new, intriguing book, watch a movie I know won't trigger me, something I can get engrossed in. Doctor Who sounds great. Keep yourself occupied and maybe take 2 Benadryl so you can get some sleep.

Every moment now is a countdown. How can I get to the next thing? How can I get to work in the morning? Then after that I'm alone for 18 hours, then work again the next morning and then finally relief. Finally, I get to see my Mom and my day will be easier.

I can't think about the three days after that, filled with hours of loneliness and no way right now to make it better. I can't focus on that without crumpling, so right now I just count down. Work, work, Mom. Work, work, Mom. I can do that. I can make it to Mom.

T tries to tell me that I'm overreacting. That this is not catastrophic and I am making a mountain out of a molehill. Maybe I am, I don't know. I just know that I'm not handling this well. I feel so isolated, I feel so uncertain about my future, I feel so hurt, I feel so betrayed. It should be getting better but it's just getting worse. I know T needed space but all that space is doing for me is putting me back in that dark place. I'm right back to the middle of June. I'm right back to not eating, to sleeping all the time - I can hardly breathe, I don't want to be in our house by myself.

It's so hard but I'm trying. I'm making plans. Work, work, Mom. I'm thinking about my cats, but they don't want anything to do with me. I feel like they're mad that T is gone and that I'm such a mess.

Work, work, Mom.  I can do this.

Upside Down/Blame

I wanted to place the blame on others, but it's so clear to me that it's my fault. 

I'm letting these things get to me, break me, twist me until I'm literally sick-

Until I don't even know what I'm saying anymore. 

How could I be so cruel, so hurtful? How could I be so narcissistic to not see how that would affect someone I love? How could I push and push and push when all I want to do is pull closer?

What the fuck is wrong with me?

For a while I just said everything was B's fault. Everything that she did was dragging me down, was ripping me to pieces, was shattering my soul until I couldn't stand in the shower without crying, drive down the freeway without thinking too much and having to pull over and bawl my eyes out. 

But this was no one's fault but mine, and maybe it's been this way for two, three weeks now? Maybe it was my fault the whole time? I don't know. Actually - it probably was and I was too egotistical to realize it. 

I'm digging my own grave. I'm making my own fears come to fruition. And how do you handle the arguement you've been waiting for when all of the sudden you are on the other side?

How do you handle your life and dreams and plans for the future being turned upside down, inside out, until the options are unrecognizable and that's not at all what you wanted in the beginning?

How do you handle losing grip of everything you've ever wanted and it's because your hands are just too weak?

Everything has Changed

I'm getting married.

Isn't that wonderful? It is, actually, since I started this blog in a place of sarcasm and jaded bitterness wherein I truely believed I was working on myself because happiness with another person just wasn't in the cards for me.

And then I met T. Perfect, wonderful. Kind, smart, handsome, ambitious, compassionate- great with kids and a social butterfly. And she could make me laugh so hard I would cry, could make me feel so full of love and so loved in return, could make me feel like I was the only person left in the world, and the only person she could see was me.

Fast forward two years. We live together with a cat (how cliche gay) and most days are relatively happy with each other, being in the same space, sharing a couch and watching Gold Rush. But some days are filled to the brim with little things, little nags, nit-picks, digs at this or that. We get over them, we move on, we apologize and say I love you and continue to grow in our relationship.

She gets down on one knee and I don't know what to say, what to do. I'm ecstatic, I'm thrilled. I've been waiting ages for this, but also it's so fast. I don't want to see her with anyone else, I want to take care of her and her to take care of me for the rest of our lives- but there in the tiniest corner in the farthest back of my mind, I'm also thinking of all the arguements, of all the times I want to call her an asshole but don't, all the times T gets frustrated with my Resting Bitch Face.

I say yes, because this is love like I've never felt before. Because she makes my heart swell and music crescendos and we sing and dance to T.Swift in the car, make doing laundry a date night with good food, can do all the choreography to Fantasmic, and cuddle with our cat-son and I want to make this my family. I want her for life. I want to see the good and bad, I want her to want me, I want to be there when she needs to cry, I want to make life better for her.

But all I can do is make it worse. We fight more often-she goes out with her friends and I work late.

Fast forward to tonight. We argued earlier over something small. My tone, I think, when I corrected her about what time a TV program was on. I get off work- "should I meet you guys at the bar?" I ask, where she is with her friends. "It's up to you." Comes the reply. It's not the one I want. "I'm kinda drunk."

"Kind of drunk like it would be nice to have me there or kind of drunk like you are having fun letting loose?" I try to be tactful. I shouldn't.

"Everyone is asking for you. Come if you want." There it is again. That apathetic response that makes me want to scream 'FUCK EVERYONE ELSE, I JUST WANT TO KNOW IF YOU WANT ME!'

But I don't. I sob my face off. I sit in the car for a half hour, twisting my engagement ring. I look up Red Flag Warnings for relationships. They're troubling. I look up engagement doubts and that freaks me out even more. I don't want to leave. I don't want this to quadruple our chances of getting divorced. I don't want anyone to tell me we don't get a happily ever after.

I just want to stop crying, to stop fighting, to feel secure in my relationship, which T has tried to help me with more than once. But I don't feel secure. I don't know why I feel insecure. I know she won't leave me, I know she loves me. But nights like this it's just not enough. And I don't know what to do about it and I don't have the right words to give to her to talk with her about it.

I feel powerless, helpless, less than, and unwanted. And of all of those, unwanted is the one that hurts most.

Thoughts Answered

Often, I have tried to figure out the moment I decided I was gay, or I first knew I had a girl crush, or I knew I was attracted to girls, at least sexually because I fantasized about them while I made out with my boyfriends - going back in time to try to understand why I never knew I was gay.

And then I met someone. I stopped asking. It didn't matter anymore why I hadn't known at 13 or 15 or 17, because I met my love and that was all that mattered. Her friends accepted me in a way that I had never known before, because all they saw was my out and comfortable side. Over the past months I've settled into a beautiful serenity with myself that I've never felt before.

And then last night I had this dream. It came out of nowhere, my last thoughts of the night solely focused on British TV show Doctor Who, and somehow answered all the thoughts I'd left alone all those months ago:

We arrived in New Zealand, my lovely boi and I, and were driving to a little vacation spot, eager to see the exotic animals and the rainforest. The water was pouring down and the road was narrow, slicing a thin path between two vast bodies of water, but we were so happy just to be together.

We arrived at the camp to see a few others, a man and his girlfriend or wife, and another girl with them, mingling in the main kitchen. They greeted us and helped us with our bags. Before I knew it I had been dragged off by the separate girl, who was offering dry clothes and towels. She brought me into a bedroom where I gratefully took a towel from her to help with my hair.

And then she started pushing, asking about having sex with men and why shouldn't I just try it? She kept talking about how much she enjoyed it, how much she enjoyed the taste of men and I couldn't handle it. I wanted to find my boi. I stalked into the kitchen where my boi was wrapped in a towel at the table, and clambered to sit at the tabletop where I felt safe.

"Why are you in a towel?" I asked.

"My bag fell in the river and everything is wet," she responded and I laughed, heart relaxing.

"Sorry. I stole a shirt and underwear to sleep in. I'll get them, they're in my bag," I offered with a smile and a kiss. The lighthearted moment faded as I pulled away because the girl was in the doorway again.

"I don't understand why you won't just try it. You'll like it," she promised. I wanted to rip my hair out, I wanted to scream. I wanted to tell her about the time I was almost raped in high school, or when I was molested in college, but I knew I'd only be proving her point by showing her my bad experiences.

"I have tried it," I insisted. "I have had it sweet and nice, I have had normal relationships with men, but it was never right. It was always wrong, so inherently wrong, and no matter if I gave consent to them I wasn't giving consent to myself because it was never what I wanted. It always felt like being molested, and I can't even blame anyone but myself because it was me who allowed it to happen," by now I was shaking and crying, but I could feel their eyes burning me.

"So can we drop the subject now, please?!" I slammed my fist on the table and turned into my lover's side, not wanting to hear what anyone had to say. What I felt mattered, and I had said my piece.

I was worried about my boi's reaction, but I shouldn't have been, as I felt an arm protectively curl around my back and I cried into her shoulder.

When I woke up, I realized that maybe the moment doesn't matter, maybe I don't need to know exactly when I figured it out, or why I didn't realize it earlier. All those years of discomfort still take a toll on me occasionally, still sneak up on me when I don't expect it.

When I think about girls who are coming out later, I can't help but wonder at the sneers they endure from lesbians, at what other pain they must have to face. Do they also have years of giving consent to others without giving self consent burdening their backs? Though I'm now part of the "always been gay" club when I go out, I have to remember never to pass judgement. It wasn't that long ago that I wouldn't have been accepted.

Feeling Proud

LA Pride was a big hit with me. Of course, you know that I live in a little tiny village where my neighbor churns butter and we all sing in the streets as we bake bread and open our shops, so Pride seemed huge.

I spent the day with the boifriend and a bunch of friends. There's something about being surrounded by people who are happy and excited, by people who are a part of our culture, by people who smile when I hold hands with my boi, or we dance together, or kiss. There's something about making friends with the people standing nearby, walking down the street, passing too close, ordering at the bar - something about the easy way our bodies ebb and flow and belong to everyone and no one as the good vibes keep rolling in.

The parade went on for forever and a day and I made out like a bandit with stickers and a free flag and lots of other stuff. I was fairly tipsy and warmed from the sun by the time we decided it was going to continue forever and moved into the shade of a bar. I don't drink a lot, especially in the beginning when my boi's friends made me nervous and I wanted to make a really good impression.

I felt so comfortable, so alive, so happy and free, so in love, that I felt free to drink and keep drinking, though I had water between - felt free to enjoy myself and my relationship and our friends and this beautiful community full of beautiful, glittering people all around us. I felt connected to all of them.

Of course there was some drama, I mean, we're still lesbians, but none of it was between me and my boifriend. I feel so lucky for that. Lucky that I feel like we're on the same page. Lucky that I feel so loved, lucky that we're communicating, lucky that we fit in all these little jigsaw ways, lucky that we can see an outline of something on the horizon that doesn't seem crazy, that's not a complete compromise for one of us.

I feel proud to be gay, proud to be part of this family, proud to have found friends in my boifriend's group, but the most proud to be with the one I love.

Radar

Some people spend every minute of their active days noticing the people looking at them. Maybe it is the touch of makeup he is wearing or maybe she is paranoid because she is still so closeted and uncomfortable, or maybe because the danger of being gay is still so very real in our society. But they walk down the street and they worry.

I don't ever think about watching, because no one looks twice at me. Some days I stop to peer into the faces of passers by with a broken heart, wishing that someone would recognize me for what I am. Some days I long for a kindred spirit, for a judgemental glare, for some sort of reaffirmation that someone else can see in me what I see in myself.

A gay woman.

But they all keep walking, so absorbed in their lives. I'm not pretty enough to turn heads, nor odd enough to attract attention, and so I am invisible to them as they talk on their cell phones or rustle up their children or dig their keys from pockets and purses.

And I spend long afternoons with my boifriend's head on my lap or our fingers interlaced and my heart swells with joy. Our eyes meet and there's so much between us and I know someone is seeing me, really looking into me.

I'm so glad someone else can see it. I'm so glad I can have this loving, caring relationship with someone so wonderful and beyond my wildest imaginings.

But I also can't help but wonder sometimes what's wrong with me, that everyone else pings on the radar, and I don't.

Slam Poetry

If I could perform slam poetry
I would stand up with the women
Whom I admire so greatly
Who SPEAK
with simplicity about complexity.
The spoken word is our
HISTORY
Passed down from mouths
To ears to hearts.
Stories of victories, losses,
Lovers, and legends,
All preserved throughout generations.
Literacy replaced
With rhyme and rhythm.

If I could speak with such
VORACITY
I would tell the world of my own
SHORTCOMINGS
Of my misdeeds, my misheards
My mis-nameds, my Miss Less.
I would tell of how I got to be
My age
Without becoming a
WARRIOR
Without learning how to defend myself
Or manipulate the field.
Of how sometimes I am
Cornered
And I don't ever fight back
Instead going silent,
Retreating into my
TURTLE SHELL.
If I could breathe slam poetry
I would not be the victim
I am the survivor
Without needing to take up the
Spears and daggers of this
VIOLENT world.

Grief/Silence

When I need it most, my brain goes quiet. In the ugly radio silence and white noise, the ruined meat shudders and whimpers over all the collective thoughts I should have, should have had while I had the chance. As if I were suddenly rebooted into some safe mode without networking or the capacity to connect to my drives, I curl up, cut off from all possible methods of recovery.

Of course, I’m still talking and functioning. I still laugh and think about other things, still call my boifriend and have full conversations. But once I hit this trigger I shut down. I become useless. I refuse to call my best friend back and talk about the memorial arrangements.

And then this sick, awful part of me wonders why this hit me so much harder than my grandfather’s. Why is it my family's deaths are so normal for me but my friends' tear me up inside? Is it all the broken promises? Is it all the unfinished business? Is it that I know my family knows I love them unconditionally but maybe my friends felt less than cherished, less than cared for?

Because I don’t think he knew how much he meant to me. I don’t think he knew everything he did for me or how he shaped my life or brightened my day or saved my family. I don’t think he knew that he made such a huge impact on us, or how much we all loved him. How his laugh could make all the horrible things of the week run for the shadows, or how his crinkling eyes always reminded me of the kindness and wisdom I imagined in Dumbledore’s.

When I was a freshman in high school I was teased and told I didn’t belong in a certain group because I wasn’t smart enough. He was having trouble with a case and asked us for help finding a defense. I don’t think he really expected any help, but I piped up with a pretty solid way to get the warrant thrown out. It was a totally “Legally Blonde” moment, and it boosted my confidence by a million miles. He always had faith in me, even when I didn’t have faith in myself.

I’m going to miss that.

Complexes/Femme Invisibility

Last night I had a dream where I was at some sort of summer camp and all the lesbians I've ever known were outside playing/having sex/joking around/whatever in the water trough/pool area outside. I felt hurt, embarrassed, left out. My friend Lauren was with them even though she's always been straight and since we were the closest, I joked with her first, calling across the courtyard.

"Lauren, what the hell?" I tried to laugh. "Did you think I wasn't cool enough to invite or something?"

She looked at the girl next to her and then smiled at me, "We thought you were busy otherwise we totally would have invited you." She swam to the edge of the pool near me and I knelt down in front of her. I could feel them, all of them, staring at us while their hands skimmed along skin under the water.

"I can handle it," I assured Lauren, and then out of desperation and anxiety and fear I grabbed her and kissed her quickly. I felt nauseated. I wasn't attracted to her and everyone knew it. She was my friend, my good friend, and instead of making myself fit in I was just floundering further, drowning in the sea of manipulative games and subcultures and titles. Lauren looked at me - angrily, harshly, and I tried to backtrack. "Look, this doesn't mean you're gay or that I like you, I just-" I tried to explain that I wanted to prove myself but she cut my off.

"I don't know what you take me for," I'd never heard her so cold and harsh, "but I'm not gay. And if I were, I'd definitely go for the pretty femmes." I recoiled. Which you're not was implied in her sentence. I'd never been attached to the title of femme, but the way she tore it from me left me reeling - empty handed and wanting to cry.

I feel this a lot. I feel this all the time. Constantly defending and proving and feeling like my sexuality is not broadcast clearly enough. Constantly feeling as though "lesbian" is an exclusive club to which I am not invited or wanted. Constantly aggravated because I'm subjected to male gaze and overtures while easily passed over by lesbians and dismissed as less than or an outsider.

Maybe I'm not femme, but Femme Invisibilty seems to apply to me so easily.

I understand that it is my own shortcomings and brainwashings and past manipulations that have given me this not enough complex, but just because I know that doesn't make it go away. It's a trend in all my writings - not enough - and I'm trying so hard to tamp that down but then it rears up in dreams like this and I know it's still plaguing me.

Personalities

Victoria over at Musings of a Lesbian Writer picked up this fun link from a blog she reads, where you type in your blog address and it tells you what sort of personality you have. I thought it would be fun to try. Try your own Typealyzer here. It was pretty spot on, however, I think my brain would be more focused toward the intuition/symbols quadrant rather than organizational. The only time I'm ever organized is when I'm working at a desk job :)

Also, how well dressed is my drawing? Thanks, much!

ESFJ - The Socializers

The social, warm, enthusiastic, energetic, structured and opinionated type. They are especially attuned to the feelings of themselves and others. They tend to be very aware of the values of their peer-group and tend to see things as either right or wrong, good or bad. They tend to be traditional and value their friends and family the most. People love to be around ESFJs and they are extremely good on bringing out the best of others.

They take pleasure in other people's happiness. They give generously, but expect appreciation in return. Sensitive to the physical needs of others, they respond by offering practical care. As expert people readers, ESFJs often adapt their manners to meet the expectations of others. However, they may have difficulty recognizing the shortcomings of loved ones.

The Socializers are down-to-earth, practical people and very keen on making sure everyone is alright. This quality makes them enjoy social work places. Since they enjoy being and keeping things neat and tidy, they often also enjoy working in such environments.

Common satisfying careers: Teacher, Office Managers, Administrative Manager, Child Care, Special Education Teacher, Counselor, Dentist and HR Manager.

Notable ESFJs: Harry S. Truman, Bill Clinton, Tom Clancy, Barbara Walters, Tyra Banks, Jessica Alba, Jennifer Garner, Woody Harrelson, Sarah Jessica Parker, Jessica Biel, Victoria Beckham and Mon Mothma.