I had a crappy morning.  I woke up with that non-specific anxiety I sometimes have–that I usually associate with subdrop, but which isn’t possible to have since I’ve done NOTHING kinky for weeks–and just feeling down.

Of course the fact that I have been eating like a PIG and bad bad BAD food for the past week, haven’t run or even moved very much all week, am having to leave the hair on my legs and cooch to grow out (so I can get them waxed), leaving me feeling like Lady Sasquatch, and have massive roots showing through in my hair, could all have something to do with it.

Seriously, I have to get my eating under control.  Today has been a good day–so far.  There’s still plenty of time to fuck that up though.

Cupcake, anyone?

Really I should be feeling great. W and I proved that we are getting better at this whole long distance communication thing by resolving a potentially uncomfortable situation immediately and with very little fuss last night.  He simply said in chat: “Call me,” when he realized I was upset. I logged off and for a heartbeat considered not picking up the phone. I was feeling small and embarrassed and like a big screw-up, like I’d overstepped in some huge way, and wanted to hide rather than talk about it.

That wouldn’t have done either of us any good, though, so I picked up the phone and we talked it through and he helped me to realize that I hadn’t overstepped, far from it in fact.  So all was good.  It still amazes me how easily I fall into that same pattern of thinking though, of being sure that I am unwanted, of feeling rejected, or that I have overstepped.

What happened is that acquaintances of ours had emailed that they were coming into town for an event that W, Ad and I are attending. In previous conversations, they had invited us to stay with them if we ever got out their way, and we had invited them to stay with us, though neither of those things had happened yet. Well, now it was, and they wanted to know if the offer of someplace to crash was still open. Of course it was! I assured them, and told them that there was plenty of room at W’s, if they didn’t mind that it is under renovation, etc. He and I have been wanting to get to know them better, and had spoken of throwing a party and inviting them down for the weekend, so I knew he’d be thrilled.

And…he was. But he was also pragmatic and practical, and mentioned that he was getting home Thursday night and needed to get a hair cut Friday and he had no idea what shape the house was in for their arrival…whenever they were getting in…

It felt like he was unhappy that I had offered them his home.  I was hurt, and felt as if I’d overstepped, and assumed too much. It’s his home, his space, his time.  I had just treated it like it was ours.  I had fully intended to go over and clean house before he got home anyway, change the sheets, make the bed, etc., and when I offered our friends to stay over I was thinking in those terms.  As though it was my space too. I was planning to go to the grocer and pick up soda and beer, some wine and munchies, breakfast food, etc., bring over a set of clean sheets, pillows and blankets for them, and do whatever else would need doing to make them comfortable. But of course those weren’t my things to do, it wasn’t my decision to make…

I was nearly in tears in embarrassment and mortification that I had acted like it was.

He assured me that I had done right, and exactly as he would have wanted, and that he was thrilled.  It took me a while to truly believe him, but eventually I got there.

The most wonderful part of the conversation, though, the part that I will remember, was when we had gotten past all that and were talking logistics.  “Do we want to make up the bed for them downstairs, or give them our bed?” he said.  He actually said that!  Called his bed “ours.”

So see? I should be very happy today, not feeling down.

I’m trying.

Here’s something funny. I went to the dentist last week. While there, we talked about flossing, which I hate to do, but always promise to do, and then don’t follow through. This time, though, he asked if I’d like his hygienist to show me how to floss correctly. Seriously? I know how to floss, I thought, I just don’t like to.  Then I got to thinking…maybe I don’t know how to do it right. It’s been what, 30 years since I was shown how to do it? I’ll bet flossing methods have changed drastically!  Look at all the other changes in the world! So I accepted.

I am pleased to say that flossing, and the methods thereof, have not changed one iota since I was a kid.

And I still don’t like to do it.  But I’m going to this time!  Really I am!

Truth–Day 22: Regrets

Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable. ~ Sydney Smith

Day 22 → Something you wish you hadn’t done in your life.

I don’t have many regrets. I feel that everything we do, everything that happens, serves its purpose, even though we may not know what that purpose is at the time.

One thing that I can say I regret doing, I regret because I hurt someone else, and possibly may have caused his (and my) life to go down a different path, although honestly I doubt that. What I truly regret about it is that because of my actions, he was not able to experience the fullness, the richness of an alternative life to the one he chose: my actions closed that door for him. I still believe that he probably would have made the choice he did, but at least it would have not have been out of fear.

When my ex and I were about a year into exploring poly, we started dating a woman together. Actually, I started dating her, he and she were friends. She is gay, but occasionally sleeps with men, and they had an instant, strong attraction for each other. Knowing this, I facilitated a threesome, and we all had a great time. Flash forward a couple months, and he confessed to having fallen in love with her.

I totally and completely lost it. Worse than any emotional meltdown I have ever experienced, worse behavior than I have ever exhibited, just sheer madness and insanity on my part.  The meltdown only lasted for a couple hours before I brought myself under control, realized how patently wrong and unfair I was being, and tried to salvage the situation…but the damage was done.  Previous to that he had been involved only sexually with other women, and believed himself incapable of loving anyone but me.  He was filled with such delight, such unexpected joy at the discovery that he could love someone else.  And I stole that from him.  After that…he was afraid to open himself up again to anyone else but me.  It was horrible to witness, and so much worse to know that I was the cause of it. My incautious words, my thoughtless reactions, my insecurities and fears.

I think he would have still come to the same conclusion–that he is happier in a monogamous relationship–but I stole something from him that day, and I do regret it.

It is no justification, but I learned a lot from the experience, at least.  I know myself well enough to know that that is always going to be my initial, knee-jerk reaction.  I wish it wasn’t so. I wish that my lovers being with others didn’t elicit this almost primal sense of insecurity and fear of loss, but I know that it is as much a part of me as my need to overcome that fear.  But whenever I feel it, whenever it starts to overwhelm me, I remember the stunned expression on his face, and I make myself remember the look in his eyes…and I take a deep breath, and walk, slowly, back from that precipice.

I hope that forcing myself to feel that regret, to acknowledge the pain I caused him, makes me a better partner to those I love.  No, not in justification, but, perhaps, in recompense.

A Happy Day

Ah the joys of popping awake at 4am. Not sure what this is about, but I’m ready to get over it. Now. Please?

My week is looking up. I hate to admit that just the thought of seeing W gives me a whole new outlook, but, okay, it does.  I was pretty crabby yesterday, after a week of enforced quarantine from him due to health issues.  His, not mine. He caught an awful cold last weekend-ish, and has literally been nearly bedridden the entire time, too sick to do much more than sleep, take meds, sip a little soup and send the occasional email that he’s still alive. Because I have some rather major surgery scheduled next week, he hasn’t allowed me anywhere near him, which has been driving me nuts.  Besides just being crabby about being separated and having so little contact, it’s also been hard because I am a nurturer and a caretaker at heart, and to know he’s been alone and sick all this time, without someone to care for him, about kills me.  He says he prefers to be alone when he’s ill, but I think he lies. No one likes to be sick and alone. Period.  So this past week has been rough.

This is one of the conundrums of living separately. I consider both he and Ad co-primaries, and yet, because W and I live apart, I can’t share in all the little parts of daily life with W that Ad and I do.  If he was just a sex/kink partner, that would probably be fine–keep the relationship at a shallow level–but he’s not, and it is very hard for me to deal with him as if he is, when he holds me at arm’s length like he did this past week. It makes me feel rejected, our relationship somehow minimized, to be told to stay away because he is ill. Sharing the good and the bad, caring for each other during the good times and bad, helping each other, are all hallmarks, to me, of a relationship that is about more than just getting fucked. And though I may write about that aspect of it in Pieces of Jade quite a bit, our relationship means quite a bit more to me than that.  Honestly, I know it does to him too, but it’s hard for me to see beyond the knee-jerk “he doesn’t want me around” feeling to know that in my heart as well as my head.

But then I read a line in an email, “Please call me, I miss the sound of your voice,” or I talk to him on the phone (finally, last night) and I hear him tell me he’s been protecting me, and it puts it–and my head–in proper perspective again. I am so needy at times it makes me sick. But that really is all it takes. To know, to hear, that he misses me, that he wants me there, and I feel okay again. Not happy about him not letting me be there to care for him, but on sure footing again in our relationship. I know, I know–he tells me all the time that I shouldn’t question that or feel these anxieties, but the fact is I do. I am learning not to react (overly much) about them though. “You can’t control how you feel, but you can control how you react.” That’s my mantra, that is the shining example of being a “better person” that I reach for and hope to achieve, and, slowly, I am.

Of course, it took me three days to call him after he emailed me, because I was still crabby at him for not letting me be there.  I didn’t say that I don’t react, just that I am learning. Baby steps.

I had really sweet moment when we talked.  I am sure I am projecting too much onto this one phrase (especially as I am the one that brought it up) but he was telling me why he hadn’t allowed me near him while he’s been sick. Personally, I think he was being excessive about it, and he admitted to it, echoing my own “You’re being over-protective.” But when he said it, it wasn’t an indictment, it was an admission of caring that completely disarmed me.  He is very protective of me, caring and concerned in a way that speaks volumes about him as a person, and about our relationship in general.  And made me realize that for all his protestations of wanting to be alone when he’s sick, if it hadn’t been for my surgery coming up, and him wanting to protect my health prior to that, he would have allowed me to come over, and probably appreciated having me there.  He was sacrificing for me, not being difficult or stubborn.

---

So yeah, as I said, my week’s looking up.

Got most of my shopping done. As odd as this may seem, although I hate to do the decorating stuff at Christmas, and have issues with the celebration of Christmas in general (for information on the real origins of Christmas, read here), I really, truly love the excuse to shop for presents for my loved ones. Not that I need an excuse to give presents, but having one gives me license to indulge myself (and them.) I get to hunt for just the right thing and I get to spend hours shopping, dealing with the hustle and bustle of the stores, which I love.  It’s the exact opposite of how I feel about shopping in general (unless I am on the hunt for a perfect pair of shoes.) And giving presents just makes me happy. To see someone’s face when I hit the gift-nail on the head gives me more satisfaction than getting a gift ever could. I am sure these feelings have narcissism at their roots, but you know what? I don’t care. I love it.

Anyway, got most of that done, as well as a handmade gift that I have been working on for weeks. I thought it would take a few days to complete, but it took far longer than that, and honestly, I’m not thrilled with the end result. (Sigh. I’m a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to these projects, which means I need to start NOW for the upcoming year’s gifts.)  But Ad says it’s beautiful, and it will have to do–if for no other reason than that it is a testament to my new “follow-thru” philosophy. LOL  I need to complete two smaller projects this week, but those really should take just a couple hours each.

This morning I am going to hit the gym and run a bit. I am not sure if I should even be worrying about working out, as I will probably be unable to be back at it for 6-8 weeks after my surgery, but (as Ad notes) working out makes me feel good in my head–it has nothing to do with being in “shape.” So I need to do it.

I spend the next two nights at W’s. I could hardly stand it when he said I could come over last night.  I wanted to drive over there right then, but realized I had no work clothes, nor my laptop, etc., so had to postpone it until today.

Wednesday our office closes early, and then is shut until January 3rd. Wednesday afternoon the Missy and I are grocery shopping for a dessert and cookie making extravaganza that we are having on Thursday. So far on the list are sugar cookies, cinnamon-sugar pinwheels, white-chocolate peppermint bark, Kahlua-chocolate cheesecake and my infamous chocolate chunk brownies.  She is making a list of several other cookies to make, and we are going to spend all day Thursday baking.

Oh yeah, that reminds me, need to get a tin for the cookies, so that I can wrap them and keep them from the marauding hordes before we head out to my sister’s on Saturday.

And last but not least, quite by accident (because I haven’t been keeping up with my blog reading) I ran across a fellow blogger’s “Top Blogs 2010” list, and found APL on it! I was enormously flattered and pleased to be listed among that august company.  The list is a good one, with many great bloggers on it, and a few new ones that I hadn’t heard about.  Head on over there and check it out!

Sometimes, poly IS hard

But then, so is monogamy.  So are relationships, in general.  It is not the underlying structure of the relationship that makes it easier or harder, although admittedly poly and open relationships can be more complex, simply by virtue of having more relationships to manage. The difficulties one faces in managing healthy interpersonal relationships, and the skills one employs in overcoming those difficulties, are the same whether you are monogamous or poly or something in between.

In a recent chat, a friend told me that she had been catching up on my latest blogs. She was concerned about my recent emotional upheaval, and worried that I was unhappy in my relationships, that perhaps my dis-ease with W’s recent play date was an indication that I truly don’t want to be poly or in an open relationship in the way that I am.  “Maybe,” she said, “you actually want a closed triad with your partners.”

The fact of the matter is that, during all this, W posited the same thing. Was the root of all this that I truly wanted a closed relationship with he and Ad?

There’s a knee-jerk part of me that doesn’t like that question, that immediately and instinctively denies the possibility. But the other part of me, the one that makes me stop and pay attention, to think about these kinds of questions, even if I don’t like them, forced me to do so. Even while everything in me was saying, “No!” and listing all the reasons why that is absurd, I had to let myself toss the question around and give it room to breathe.  If I didn’t, then I would be just as bad as people that simply accept the one-man/one-woman paradigm without ever questioning if it’s right for themselves. It is only through thinking about, questioning it, that I can know if it truly is right for me.

But the conclusion that I came to is that nothing could be farther from the truth. Having difficulties dealing with my own insecurities and issues has absolutely nothing to do with wanting to change the structure of our relationship. It could mean that–oftentimes people realize, as did my reader in the last Question Time, that their discomfort is an indication of needing to change something within the relationship.  That is true in monogamous and poly relationships. But far less often do you hear a monogamous person struggling with some personal peccadillo say that it is the monogamous relationship dynamic that must change, that must be at fault. When you’re non-monogamous, it’s just so easy (especially for outsiders) to blame the dynamic and decide that is what must be changed, rather than addressing the underlying issue in oneself.

Jealousy and insecurity are not poly-specific issues.  Being monogamous would not necessarily mean that I would feel any more secure in myself.  In fact, I would contend that being monogamous might even hinder the personal growth that I have experienced since I have embraced this lifestyle. It is only through forcing myself to acknowledge and examine my own failings in this regard that I have had the opportunity to address them.  It is only through the love and support of my Others that I have found the strength to admit my weaknesses, and to strip my insecurities of their power over me (okay, I haven’t completely overcome them, but it’s a much closer thing than it was.) I am a better person because I have been forced to face these things about myself and work to overcome them. And I couldn’t do that from within the “safety” of a monogamous relationship.  For me, emotional growth requires emotional risk.

Does it hurt sometimes?  Hell, yes.  Is it hard at times? Yep, it sure is. But would I want to change a thing? Not on your life. I want to love with an open heart. I want to give to them all that they have given to me.  I want to honor where I am on this journey and where they are, even when it stings like fuck. Even in the midst of the darkest part of my turmoil last week, I never once wished that the girl W played with would not call him, would cancel. (Oh all right, maybe once, in a fit of self-pity, I may have said it.) But I never, truly, wanted her not to want to play with him. In fact I bent every psychic energy I had to willing her to call.  Because I knew the pleasure he would get from it, and I want that for him more than anything. Even more than my own in-the-moment happiness.

Because in the end, while I may be unhappy with myself at times, I have never been happier or more fulfilled, felt more loved, cherished and supported in any other relationship in my life than I do in this one.  Not once in all the crap that I was feeling last week did I want to alter the rules, boundaries or structure of our relationship. All I wanted to change how I felt, how I reacted.  All I wanted was to be a better me, so that I could live up to this wonderful relationship that I have.

It’s been a rough few days. I’ve put my guys through the wringer and myself on an emotional roller coaster. “We have to kill the hamster in your head,” W said, though what he actually said was the “squirrel” in my head, and “kill” might be my interpretation (and preference) and what he was referring to was the hamster Ad says runs around and around on its little wheel in my head when I can’t stop myself from thinking.

And seriously? I just want to stop right now, I don’t even want to write more about it now, because I’m just so fucking tired of feeling this way, out of control and anxious and unhappy! And writing about it makes me feel worse when I am really trying hard to remember everything W and talked about yesterday and not think about making him feel bad when it is all me and my fucking stupid head…

Oh fuck, there I go again, thinking about it.  Please God, if you’re out there, can we just skip ahead to this time next week? Because I think I’ll be normal again by then, or at least not this fucking anxious crazy person that can’t stop herself from turning her insides out.  It’s like picking at a scab, and I don’t even get that feeling of relief along with the pain when the scab finally pulls loose, revealing new, raw, skin beneath, or maybe just ripping yourself open and watching the blood seep up because you’ve picked it loose too soon.

~sigh~ I will get through this, I will be okay again, I will.  But right now?  Right now fucking sucks.

Bittersweet

I got the word yesterday that my story “Are You Gonna Be My Girl?” is, in fact, going to be published in the upcoming (August release) anthology “Lesbian Lust.”  The editor at Cleis Press called it “atmospheric, nice.” Now I don’t know how much I like “nice” to describe my erotica…but then again that’s better than, “sucks!” right? And they are publishing it, so I am (actually) absolutely thrilled. It is a nice little story, to be honest.  And when a friend asked me to describe my writing to him yesterday I thought about that description: atmospheric. Yeah, I like that. And I think it fits.

It’s a little bittersweet, for me, getting this piece published. I wrote it when I was in the hot-and-heavy throes of NRE with J, and the story is infused with all those feelings of love and longing and desire.  We have since broken up, and though we remain friends, it’s not the same, of course.  But now I’ll have that story to look back at, to bring those feelings back vicariously, like experiencing them through someone else: not my own.  Safe.

Truthfully, though, by the time it was “officially” over between us I knew that I had chosen poorly by falling in love with her in the first place. Not because she isn’t worth falling in love with or a wonderful person, but because I violated my first rule of poly: no drama.  And dear J, as much as I (still) love her, is drama-incarnate. I am sure that is one of the things that people that love her love about loving her–she is a wild ride. But I am done with that phase of my life, and have been for a long time, with wanting the emotional highs and lows that come with drama-in-relationship.  Give me a real roller coaster or the intensity of an incredible BDSM ride any day.

(I should also be honest enough here to admit that much of the drama she engendered was my own–all of my insecurity issues came raging to the fore when I was involved with her.  Add to that the fact that she was new to poly and has some of the very character traits that can make poly relationships difficult, and you can see why it was destined not to work.  I could too–and I deliberately ignored my big head.  So, I am complicit in this and accept responsibility.)

As I write this, I also had cause to pause and think about the phrase “chosen poorly by falling in love with her.” A sometime-lover of mine snorted at me (snorting sounds funny over IM) the other day when I used that phrase. “How can you choose who you fall in love with?  You either do or you don’t!” And maybe he should know, since he falls in love every other day it seems. (And gets his heart broken on the opposite days.)  Personally, I believe falling in love is a choice, and yeah, lots and lots of us choose to fall in love with people we know aren’t right or good for us.  Me included.  Because sometimes, we don’t care that they aren’t right or good for us.  Sometimes we want the drama, or the thrill, or whatever-it-is that we get from loving someone wrong for us.

If you’re poly, though, it can be damn hard on the rest of your SO’s. And that’s why I really really work hard to make good choices, because I love my guys, and I value their peace of mind as much as my own, and I know how crazy I can get in the midst of emotional upheaval.  And you know what? They deserve better than that.  So…good choices. Smart choices. At least I can try.

And in the meantime, I can hold this bittersweet close to my heart, savoring the memory of the sweet, even as I acknowledge–and accept as a consequence of my own choices–the bitter.  And it’s okay.

Stupid Girl

Apparently I can’t shut up today.  My third post (or is it fourth, counting HNT?) in one day.

I just gotta say, W is smarter than he looks.

Wait, that didn’t come out right.

“W is one smart cookie.” Yeah, that’s what I meant.

So anyway, last night he mentioned that he has a gmail account. I just got an email address there myself so I could chat with a new sexy lady in my life, and I got a teensy bit excited. “Oh yay! That means we can chat!!” I enthused. He shut me right down on that.  Why? Because he said I’d get all upset that he wasn’t replying right away, or at all, and it would just be bad. I pouted. I claimed that would NOT be the case. I chat all day long, off-and-on, with various friends and lovers, and if they or I have to go, have to work, get distracted, whatever–no biggie, right?  Right.

Except when it is.

Like today.  My moodiness, from this morning? Was about someone I wanted to chat with that was too distracted to do so.  And I felt all rejected and pouted and got pissy.

So. Fucking. Infantile.  But obviously–W was right on with that one, wasn’t he?

Honestly, though, that’s usually not me. But…I guess I was excited about some plans that needed to be made, and I felt like…maybe those plans weren’t so high on that person’s priority list. Fuck it! I thought (and maybe said, in a conversation with Ad shortly thereafter.) I am such a stupid, self-centered girl.

Also (completely unrelated to this) I am also a girl that occasionally thinks with her dick. (sigh) That one’s gonna come bite me in the ass later–fer shur.

Snark

So W put me neatly in my place this evening.

I was being…a little snarky. I know, I know–hard to believe, right? Moi?? Snarking? But okay, I do occasionally, snipe a bit.  Just a bit. Just every once in awhile.  And (sigh) it’s usually about some girl or other. This time it was in regards to this girl that he played with a couple times. “The Tart” I called her, for no other reason than I didn’t want to give her a real name, see her as a real person. She was just some chick that he played with. And slept with, all night, in his bed, without me knowing a thing about her, that she was even there…

Yeah, yeah, yeah, blah, blah, blah…  Are you crying, “Bullshit!” yet? “What a pile of shit that is, oh Ms. PolyPerfecto”?  Because I am.  I can excuse my insecurities all I want, but the truth of the matter is that, for whatever reason, I felt threatened by her. By her freshness. By something in her eyes, by some…desire…I sensed on her part.  To…go places, with him.  A desire I recognized.  A desire I’d come to him with myself.  And…bottom line, I was afraid he’d like her more than me. Like her youth and her pale skin and her fiery red hair and her innocence.

And he wouldn’t want me anymore.

How’s that for bass-akwards? Why can’t I believe that my guys will love me and want me just as much even if they want someone else? I do.  What I feel for one doesn’t diminish one iota what I feel for the other.  In fact, I believe it enhances & multiplies what I feel for the other.  The fact that they can let me be me, let me do what I do, and still love me? Still want me, sometimes even more so? How could I not love them to death?

But maybe what I am talking about feeling insecure about isn’t love.  Maybe it’s desire.

Because I want to be desired. I want to be dreamt of, longed for, yearned after. Even when they are with someone else I want it to be me they are thinking of.  I want to be the hottest fucking girl they’ve ever fucked, they’ve ever wanted, they’ve ever been with.

I’m selfish like that.  Unreasonable, and, at times, unreasoning.

Anyway, once I realized that she wasn’t going to supplant me, either in his affections or his life or his desire, I recognized what an insecure cow I was being, and I worked hard to adjust my thinking.  I actually allowed her to have a name, and was able to think about the reality of her, which never had been a threat to me.  What we make up in our heads is always so much scarier than the reality, which is usually quite mundane.  (No smartass remarks from the peanut gallery about how easy it is for me to feel “secure” when she’s moved away anyway, by the way.)

Then, tonight, wandering through FL, I saw a picture she posted of a scene they had had. Of her, curled up, in W’s cage.  And…for no other reason than that I was feeling pugnacious, I sent him a snarky note about “my” cage.  His response? “I wonder if So-and-So is irked too,” naming another of his play partners, who came well before me, and, obviously, spent some time in that cage.  Before me.

Score: 1 for the WoodDemon, 0 for Jade.  And that’s what I get for being snarky.

Your Daily Whine

I’m feeling the need to organize something.  Anything. This is usually a result of unresolved anxieties or a jumbled emotional space, neither of which I believe I am experiencing.

I’m experiencing something though. At the moment I am experiencing the desire to crawl into bed and sleep for a week. Or the rest of the winter. Whichever.

Maybe it is the end-of-the-semester blues. Though that should have me jumping for joy. Maybe it is the back-from-vacation blues. That would be acceptable.

I’m having a little bit of difficulty adjusting to being back in the swing of things, actually. I know, I know, I was only gone four days. But being here, at work…bah. I am feeling slow and bored and disconnected. Worse, discontent. Though not sure what I am discontent with.

I’ve had a kind of peripheral issue going on at work that is poking at me. First of all, while there are many many good things about this job (good pay & benefits, steady work, hands-off boss, enjoyable, if unexciting, work, lenient time-off policy, good hours) I am beginning to feel less than enthusiastic about being here every day. It’s getting to my third-year anniversary, and frankly, about three years is my limit before I am ready to move on. Combine that with the fact that someone else in my very small department is very-probably going to be promoted into a position above me–and combine that with the fact that because I don’t have a university degree I know I wasn’t even considered for the position, and never would be–and yeah, I am having some negative emotions about it all, and some insecurity about my own position here.

The fact of the matter is that:

1. I don’t want a VP/management position anyway
2. I know I have been distracted and not performing up to (my own) standards, regardless of how everyone here feels
3. I really don’t want more responsibility
4. If I have to have someone else above me in the office hierarchy, then she would totally be my choice
5. I like my “independence” here and that my job kind of puts me outside the usual corporate framework, even to the point that I am somewhat set apart from the rest of the staff, at least in their minds.

But I can’t help feel somewhat slighted, and as though my value is diminished and as though I will never be truly valued, unless I have some sort of degree.  I am just a cog in the…wheel in the…spoke in the cog?  Eh, whatever.  (How can I be a fucking writer that doesn’t even know these stupid phrases???) And honestly? There is this abject part of me that wants to fit in, that wants to be one of the group, part of the team. Pitiful, I know. Disgusting, really. I don’t want to be one of them, and I’m simply not–my lifestyle choices really set me apart to start with, then add to that that I am the office web geek, and, well, I am my own little department, set apart from everyone else. But there’s this sad little girl inside, the one that was never asked to play on anyone’s team, who never got a Valentine’s Day card or got asked to a dance, who was never part of any crowd, that kind of wants to be.

Wow, pity-fucking-party here, eh?

It was those feelings that drove me to marry my ex, btw. He had this perfect Midwest family & life. I SO wanted to be a part of that. Perfect kids, perfect house, perfect marriage, perfect husband. But I never was perfect, I never did fit in, no matter how much I wanted to or he wanted me to.  Realizing that–and realizing that it was okay not to fit in–was a first step to finding my own self-worth, to valuing who I am, what I have to offer the world and those around me.  But sometimes…sometimes I just want to be picked, yanno? To be popular. To fit in.

Huh, I thought I’d got over that.  Apparently not.  Looks like I’ve got some more work to do on this fucked-up head.

Or maybe just a really long nap to take.

Edit: Because I refuse to give in to my own whiney-fucking-head I am going to organize myself thusly (and do the things that need doing in the process):

1. Go to class
2. Work out with Ad after class
3. Look at my projects list
4. Work on one writing project when I get home
5. Work on one photo project
6. Crochet before bed

Because if I don’t, if I let myself skip class and crawl into a bath and then into bed and wallow in my self-pity, I’ll feel even worse.

Flaws HNT

The other day I started an email to W because, as so often seems to happen, cyberspace once again echoed a conversation we’d been having. After that echo became a roar in a recent HNT theme that a fellow blogger started, I decided it was probably worth a post here rather than just an email to my favorite Mean Guy.

The discussion involved body image, and after that talk, there was suddenly a body-image theme over on Eden Cafe, in which women posted about what it feels like as a woman in our society to be “imperfect.” To be too large, too small, too thin, too fat, to not have the “perfect” body that the media and society–and we women ourselves–have shoved down our throats.

He contends that the fact that a woman described as “plus-sized” won on “America’s Next Top Model” shows that, as a society, we are moving to a healthier place in terms of how we view women’s bodies, what is considered beautiful. At the time I argued vociferously that there is something fundamentally wrong with a society that believes a size 8 or 10 woman should be considered “plus size” in the first place, and I hold to that contention. But upon consideration, and after reading this post in Salon.com, I’ve come around to the idea that yes, it was a step forward, although, by and large, media images of women are still hopelessly unreal and unhealthy.

It was interesting to read this in the article:

“But “ANTM” isn’t really about finding the best high-fashion model; it’s about finding the best role model. Winners don’t end up in the pages of Vogue; they land on the cover of “Seventeen.” The judges may sneer when a girl seems too “commercial,” but the prize is literally a commercial — an appearance in an ad for Cover Girl, not even a high-end makeup by Walgreens standards. High-fashion models are odd and angular and probably inarticulate and chain-smoking; the “ANTM” winner, like Miss America, aspires to be someone little girls can look up to.”

‘Wow,’ I thought, ‘that is so cool.’  But when you take a close look at the paragraph you still see the same implication–she is okay as a “role model” (and yes, I do prefer my daughter to see images of someone that looks healthier than those of the two young women she beat) but she could never be a “high fashion” model. So maybe it isn’t society and the media and the fashion industry in general that is embracing “real” women, just this one (?) show, but I still like the message, and I am willing to agree that perhaps there is some movement (small though it may be) in the right direction in terms of the body-image messages that are getting out there.

And then  Another Suburban Mom started an HNT theme that she called “Flaws” in which she posted an HNT featuring what she feels is her “worst flaw.” Her post, her words and the beautiful photo of herself in all her “flawed” glory really struck a deep chord in me.  Many, many others were brave enough to post their own “HNT-Flaws” posts (click on the link to her blog to get the entire list.  And read the comments…so many heartfelt, wonderful comments!)

But here’s the kicker. I didn’t post my own flawed HNT. I made the excuse that I was too busy (and in fact didn’t post an HNT at all) but the truth? The truth is that I was afraid. Afraid of being thought ugly. Afraid of people’s derision, of people seeing the real, flawed, unlovely me. My body that I despise.

Yeah, I said it. I have so many flaws that I wouldn’t know where to start.  How could I pick just one? It’s hard to even write all this out.  I read somewhere that you should never point out your “flaws” to your lover, because they don’t see them until you point them out to them. Until then they only see you as you, the person they love/desire, not the individual pieces of flesh that make up our bodies.  So from this day forward, all anyone will see when they see me is the image of myself that I live with, that I see when I look in the mirror and when I think about myself naked.  Small breasts. Stretch marks. A poochy belly that never goes away no matter how thin I get.  A flat ass. Skin that is too loose and flesh that jiggles. The backs of my thighs, that never seems to be firm enough no matter how much I run.  That’s the real me, the me I live with, day in and day out.

For pictures I pose myself in ways that I hope won’t show the bulges, bumps and ripples. W is careful about sending/posting only pictures that show me in my best light (bless the man), and I’ll admit, I’ve airbrushed myself a time or two.  But I still look down at my naked body and cringe. I wonder what my lovers see when they look at me. I worry that one day I will look up to see disgust in their faces.

And yet…

And yet in spite of this I have also come to love myself. To love this imperfect body.  To feel sexy, to feel hot and desirable, to feel beautiful, in spite of my flaws.  It will probably sound weird, but the BDSM lifestyle has gone a long way towards making me feel that, as has the poly lifestyle. W’s photographic record of the times we have scened have also done so.  I have come to see my own beauty through them, beauty that is of the mind, heart AND body. And I have felt the love and desire my lovers feel for me and known that they find me-and my body-sexy and beautiful.  Something else that is helping me to love my body is running. It makes me feel powerful and strong, something I have never felt before.

It may be only a small step forward, but just as with ANTM, it is a step forward. Maybe someday I will be able to simply say, “I love my body,” without feeling the need to add the disclaimer.