Ravings of a BiPolar Gothic Witch
     Occasional commentary, observations and tidbits as well as other random thoughts

I have awoken from the dream. Like all dreams it was bittersweet. It was the most beautiful, and like a previous post at the end I did crash and crumble, moreso than I have in a long time. But only because I flew so very high, even if for so short a time. The dream awoke me to the passion beating in my heart, the desire that lives in my soul, the buried love and wants and needs that had so long ago been put away, forgotten.

I loved. I do still love. Yet, I found a soul that is not yet ready to go down the path I am walking. For a brief shining moment he loved me deeply and with his entire being, but it was not meant to be, whether it was a choice he made, or something that was flawed. It matters not. Through the confusion, the miscommunication that increased as things became more difficult, I still saw what we had.

And for that I am grateful. For now I know that while that dream has ended, I am awake and alive. And awake I shall find what it took a dream to realize I still wanted and needed. Tremendous passion, tremendous love, the gift of total submission, the joy of giving, playfulness, wonder, laughter…. love.

And with the awakening, I was shown that there are others who stood in the shadows waiting to show me their love. I am loved beyond measure, and in many ways for the first time in my life I have found family that means more to me than anything else in the world. I would walk into a fire for them, stand at the gates of hell, bare my soul and give all that I have - just as they would for me.

Crash and burn? Yes, there was some of that. But as a phoenix I have arisen to a more beautiful now. Even without the illusion that was him.

Tags: love, relationship, change

Living in the moment can fuck things up. So many things have been opened up in me again by this new relationship in my life. One is the sexuality and passion that I really do have inside. For the first couple weeks, things were hugely passionate, explosively sexual, and at least for me building towards really good wonderful sex. It made me remember my body, my physical self, and needs and desires that I had buried. Then things changed. Not sure why or how, they just did. Things now are more tender, and loving, and also more geared towards a submissive/Dominant space, but not in that primal energy of raw power and sex. I love what is going on now. But I also want what we had.

I’ve struggled with this for the past couple weeks. And this last weekend we started a dialog about it. And I’ve had some realizations this morning. Regardless of what happened or why things changed, they are the way they are right now. And again, I’m happy in that space. Yet, I’m needing/wanting more now that I’ve been “awakened” to those feelings inside me. If I live in this moment, each moment with him. We’re not going there. So how do I deal with that?

How do I deal with needing/wanting something from someone who can’t/won’t give that to me? Is he responsible for taking care of that… absolutely not. But yet, remembering what was makes me know how incredible the could be is… if I look outside of that for what I perceive as my needs, do I lose the potential for that in the future? How do we live completely in the now and still look forward to dream and hope?

I was talking with a colleague about something totally unrelated, but it has ties to this concept. I want what I want NOW. It’s not that I can’t wait… I could. But the not knowing if that will ever be fulfilled when it was so THERE before… that is hard and I that I don’t think I can do. In questions (which maybe he didn’t understand) I wanted to hear from him that this was a place he wanted to go like I do, but he couldn’t answer that. I’m not sure if it was because he truly doesn’t think about the future and for him now is all there is and that isn’t what he wants, or if he didn’t understand what I was asking. I’ve tried to clarify but it doesn’t help, and when I found myself writing yet another email with questions I realized this morning that I had my answer I just didn’t want to accept it. We aren’t there in the now, and there is no definition about the future. We could go to a place of mind blowing sex, or we may not. There is no definition.

I guess the biggest answer is the one in my heart that knows that I need to do what is right to take care of myself now, and things will work out as they should. Do I need/want sex. Absolutely. Can I have that now with him? No. So to I need to look for other ways to have that. That makes me totally responsible for myself. It also makes me sad - he awakened those needs and passions in me by being so amazingly passionate, and for whatever reason that is no longer an option. Maybe it will at some point in the future, maybe it won’t. But if I am to live in the moment, that doesn’t matter. It isn’t NOW. And now is what I have. And in the now I want to go there with someone special - I want to have what started with him for myself. To share that part of myself with another. To lose myself in the amazing primal energy of twining bodies and explosive passion. And I can manifest it in my life.

Knowing that how do I go forward? Haven’t a clue. I am however, grateful for the insight. I’m working hard not to worry about the how, but now that i realize that that was a big part of what I was trying to gain in my life, I want what I want now…

In spite of getting a horrendous period today, I feel better.  Much happened last week to give me clarity, some sense of the what is, and now I’m balanced again.  It allowed me to put things into a perspective I could understand instead of struggling with concepts that were some one else’s and foreign to me.  It allowed me to make decisions like not writing about deep things in email, unless you speak the same language.  Come to think of it, there is only one person in the entire world I was ever able to do that with, and now he is out of my life.  Sad for me, but true.

So today is a good day.  I have the happiness, if not the giddiness of before, and I am excited about where I am going and how to get there.  I see plans and decisions on my horizon, I can have my dreams, and still have fun and be myself.  Went to a club Saturday night and saw people I’ve not seen in ages.  Got to talk with them and share and had a wonderful time.  And to think I hesitate to go by myself.  Times like Saturday make me remember that I am loved and valued in the community and that there is a place for me if I simply walk into it.

Things are more peaceful at home right now.  My house needs cleaning (ugg).  Badly (double ugg).  I hate to clean.  Would love to hire a maid.  Maybe I will for this once.  Probably be incredibly expensive but it would be really nice to have a really clean house.  Of course, that doesn’t solve the clutter problem which is also driving me nuts - too much STUFF.  But no where to put it.  yikes.

Do i miss the giddiness, the new "in-love" feelings?  yeah i do… i would have like them to stay longer.  there is something about that that makes you feel really really alive, your senses, body and soul open to all the possibilities of everything in the universe.  i’m hoping it’s just gone on hiatus.  but we’ll see.

anyway, i survived the crash

i’m back

Tags: love, relationship, bipolar

I need to write, I want to write… yet it feels like in my head my words falter and fail. I know that much of what I am feeling is likely chemical, some stupid neurotransmitter misfiring in my brain. But we know so little - does that happen first, or does shit happen and then the chemicals make it worse? I don’t know.

I know that I feel like I’m on the precipice again. Not the beautiful one that I wrote about just a while ago, or maybe it is and I have different eyes. I want to wrap myself in ice again, and I am fighting it. I think that is the discomfort and unhappiness I’m feeling. The normal reaction I have to feeling exposed and as if I have risked myself and my soul is to close myself off. To back down, back away, turn my back and even run away if I need to. I fight within myself because I don’t want to.

I want to believe that I am worthy of love, of being told I”m beautiful, of having good feelings and warmth. Because of circumstance I have no control over I have stopped being in a place where I can accept that and feel like I have to question everything. And the questioning is making me despair. I doubt myself, my judgement, my ability to care, my ability to give anything to anyone and simply want to just disappear.

I really don’t know where these feelings come from. It is certainly nothing anyone has done. And nothing that I feel that I have done. What I really want I can’t have right now. What I really need I don’t know.

Fear, the thing that sucks. External fear is nothing. Someone threatening me, a fear of something external - those are nothing. The fear that we are not worthy inside, that we have no value, that we are only a burden and should not bother the people in our lives… that is fear. That is the circle of black descent that there is no venturing out of. That is the precipice I’m standing on. I can hear my therapist, my friends, saying that I need to just choose to realize I am a good person. That I deserve to be happy and have wonderful things in my life. I wish it were that simple. There have been times in my life when everything was crumbling around me and I had the choice to be happy. Here I am now with so much that is good in my life and I don’t see that choice. I only see the approaching ice.

And finally the fear of bipolar. I am too crazy for people to stick around. My moods scare people off, and ultimately I am again alone.

Today is black. The world is black. I just want to cover up in my bed and let it all go away. Float in the nothingness where there is no pain.

————————————————————————–

Heaven bent to take my hand
And lead me through the fire
Be the long awaited answer
To a long and painful fight

Truth be told I’ve tried my best
But somewhere along the way
I got caught up in all there was to offer
And the cost was so much more than I could bear

Though I’ve tried, I’ve fallen…
I have sunk so low
I have messed up
Better I should know
So don’t come round here
And tell me I told you so…

We all begin with good intent
Love was raw and young
We believed that we could change ourselves
The past could be undone
But we carry on our backs the burden
Time always reveals
The lonely light of morning
The wound that would not heal
It’s the bitter taste of losing everything
That I have held so dear.

I’ve fallen…
I have sunk so low
I have messed up
Better I should know
So don’t come round here
And tell me I told you so…

Heaven bent to take my hand
Nowhere left to turn
I’m lost to those I thought were friends
To everyone I know
Oh they turned their heads embarassed
Pretend that they don’t see
But it’s one missed step
You’ll slip before you know it
And there doesn’t seem a way to be redeemed

Though I’ve tried, I’ve fallen…
I have sunk so low
I have messed up
Better I should know
So don’t come round here
And tell me I told you so…

- Sarah McLachlan, Fallen

One of the most beautiful things about getting to know someone new, someone whom you are attracted to and is attracted to you, actually falling in love, is the sharing of lives.  The stories, the blends, the vistas that open up with that new person.  In some ways he has been a part of worlds that I was aware of but had no connection to before.  I had seen them from the outside, but never gone through the door.  It’s not anything I ever avoided, rather something that I had never been drawn into for any reason.  That doesn’t mean I am not immensely curious.  I love asking him questions and getting real answers.  Of course sometimes he is very playful and doesn’t answer and just lets me wonder.  He has a wonderful smile when he does that.  But with serious things, with questions about his experiences or journeys he answers. 

When we talk, we really talk.  We share.  Past experiences, dreams for the future.  Where we will be.  Where we want to be.  Things we want to explore.  He talks geographical philosophy (and I didn’t even really know there was such a thing - I’m still trying to understand what it IS) and I talk quantum physics.  We both talk about ourselves and our lives.  What is important to us, what has meaning.  We meet in the middle and neither of us is right.  We speak the same language.

Things are so good that it scares me.  We’re taught that nothing should be this good.  That life isn’t supposed to be this happy.  That just being with a person and wanting them beside you THIS much is sick or co-dependent or that something is not quite right.  My intuition and every fiber in my being says that this is exactly what I made my spell for.  He is who I put out to the universe that I wanted, manifested down to almost every detail.  But I hardly know him.  I’d never met him before 3 weeks ago.  That horrible part of me wants to squish my happiness and my feelings.  It whispers in the back of my brain that he isn’t who I think and that he’ll disappear as quickly as he appeared and that maybe he just knows how to say all the right things.  That is the co-dependency.  That is from allowing myself to not live for so long.  Those feelings come from inside me, telling me that I’m not good enough to be so happy, that I don’t deserve it.  Thank you for sharing no go back into the corner, I tell the voice.

Another voice pops up.  What about all the rules, all the safety gauges, all the precautions that particularly in our lifestyle we take?  What happened to following them?  I’ve thrown them out the window on intuition and feeling.  Not completely.  Again, thank you for sharing, and here is what I will do to be more careful, I again say to voice number 2.

Life is risk.  Life is a precipice waiting to be stepped off so that you can fly.  We are meant to fly.  We are meant to transcend our lives that exist in the physical plane, and feel unique and deep spiritual love, passion and happiness.  Yet somewhere along the way, we’ve made agreements with ourselves that life is hard, that we will not ever get what we truly desire (and if we do it is "too good to be true") and that we are meant to suffer.  That without suffering there is no gain.

I’m tired of living that agreement.  I have stepped off the precipice and I’m flying.  And if my flight doesn’t last long, or even as long as I think it should, well than I will have loved deeply and had experiences I would never have had in any other way.  And that is life…

Did I mention that he’s very sexy, absolutely chivalrous, and even protective?

shiver…

Tags: romance, love, life

My lover says when away from me:

Was it just an hour and half ago I was touching your skin?

actually from this point 3 1/2 hours i was breathing your breath…

intimacy, the slightest brush of lip against lip, breathing in the breath of another, feeling the skin of our faces together, smelling your hair…
i have had several lovers - but few understand that the way you do… to be honest I think that was what got me -
i close my eyes and can feel the touch, the warmth, smell you and taste you on my lips
but it pales besides the poetry of you beside me, and to come, entwined with me

I have absolutely no idea how long this spell will last - and it doesn’t matter. What matters is the real magick of what is happening now - this is truly the spiritual side of physics in the reality of time and space - eternity between when we are together and how time seems to stop and hours pass when we are in each other’s presence. You are a gift and for that I am thankful. You have opened me in ways I couldn’t begin to explain… and I know that there is so much to come if it is meant to be…

we are halfway to when you will come to wake me

missing you

Just when you think things are not possible anymore, when you have gone past a time when you can truly feel alive in all of your being from being close to another person, if you are lucky, really lucky - you meet a person who is your mirror. And when that happens time stops mattering. I don’t have a clue what will happen or where we will go, but living forever is about moments like this, the desire of wanting things to never stop.

———————————————————

wow. dreams last night, again unremembered but waking from them made me ache wanting to sleep again just to have you there…

i, like you said last night, have no idea what this is, what is happening, but i want more

my thoughts have turned to you at every moment that has not held a conscious thought - is that happening to you? not only that, i think of you and my body flushes, heat radiating from my belly out - warmth that wakes me to something i thought was lost a very long time ago - what is this affect you are having on me? if it wasn’t for the fact that something deep inside me is meeting something deep inside you, i would be scared, feeling as if i had lost my mind or that i am losing it - but only when i am not in your presence does thought take over - when you are in front of me, behind me, bruising my shoulders or neck with your fingers, your lips… there is only the pulse of the dance of our heartbeats… and I fall into that beat, steady slow, the breathe, the heat, the eyes

last night, at some point between the end of one event and the middle of the next, something inside shifted - i hope i’m not scaring you off - you have brought out tremendous passion that apparently had not deserted me entirely, just dulled down to the coals somewhere deep inside me - I think you’ve made me 14 again too

and by the way, just as a very important side note - 14 year old hormones in an adult dominant… hot doesn’t begin to adequately describe the affect -

sometimes my words are not enough to pull what’s inside me so:

Possession

Listen as the wind blows from across the great divide
voices trapped in yearning, memories trapped in time
the night is my companion, and solitude my guide
would I spend forever here and not be satisfied?
and I would be the one
to hold you down
kiss you so hard
I’ll take your breath away
and after, I’d wipe away the tears
just close your eyes dear
Through this world I’ve stumbled
so many times betrayed
trying to find an honest word to find
the truth enslaved
oh you speak to me in riddles
and you speak to me in rhymes
my body aches to breathe your breath
your words keep me alive
And I would be the one
to hold you down
kiss you so hard
I’ll take your breath away
and after, I’d wipe away the tears
just close your eyes dear
Into this night I wander
it’s morning that I dread
another day of knowing of
the path I fear to tread
oh into the sea of waking dreams
I follow without pride
nothing stands between us here
and I won’t be denied
and I would be the one
to hold you down
kiss you so hard
I’ll take your breath away
and after, I’d wipe away the tears
just close your eyes…

- Sarah Mclachlan, Fumbling Towards Ecstasy

you take my breath away, again and again
when can I see you again?

Ok, so it’s been much too long since I’ve written. Thanks to all of you who faithfully kept coming back to check on me. I’m ok. I’ve just had lots of stuff going on, besides which for a while there I felt like i couldn’t write. I write about stuff going on in my life, and when the major “going on” has to do with the boyfriend you’ve given your url to, well there are issues. Lesson learned. Until I know I”m mated forever, my boyfriend/lover/friends will not read my blog. Period. Bad idea. It stiffled me and kept me from doing my usual rambling way of working things out in front of the whole anonymous world.

But as you can tell I’m back so obviously things have changed. We finally called it like it is and went back to being friends who date occasionally. We were never really more, although for a bit there I think there might have been a chance. It got squashed, first by him, and then most definitely by me. It culminated over the holidays in a couple of very big misunderstandings making me realize that this just was not working. Really, I was just stating out loud what we were living out. We barely talked during the week, had no commitments to doing anything or even seeing each other on the weekends. Those are not the ways of people who are dating, let alone in a relationship. This was, I think, fine with him. It was not for me.

In the end, he summed it up well. I want someone to be in love with me. And I do. But there is so much more and that would be another example of not being in the same world as him. I love him to death but we just don’t live in the same reality. I don’t just want to have someone in love with me. I want to be in love. I want to be romantic and silly. I want to go out and stay in. I want to talk for hours about philosophy and spend the night dancing in a club. I want to ride on the back of his bike. I want him to tell me I’m beautiful and mean it. I want him at my side when we’re together somewhere. I want to be part of a set… As I wrote to a friend, I want a knight in shining armour, not to rescue me, but to match the Queen that I am inside.

So I’m back - finally. Back to myself. Back to being alone (although again in reality - it is no different than last week - just the perception of what it was versus reality). I’m only as alone as I want to be. And I don’t want to be. I’m inviting lots of friends into my life. I have lots of people I love to be with. And I’m happy that way. And I know he’s out there. Looking for me just like I am looking for him. We’ll bump into each other soon…

Report on the klonopin: failed. Miserably. Too much stress, likely due to B and I as well as the holidays… maybe some time later. For now I’m back on the full dosage. I got down fine to 1/4 dose (1/2 a pill a day) and then completely felt freaked out. It was affecting my entire life; work, home, family, friends. Once I realized that I just went back on it for now. I have time and I will leave it behind at some point.

Another news flash: I did something that definitely is one of the top 5 events in my life over the holidays. M and S both went to New Orleans over Christmas break. I took vacation. For those of you not in Denver, we have been dumped with snow. Repeatedly. Ad naseaum. Well the 2nd storm was rolling in, I was on vacation with no children (gods that almost NEVER happens) and there I was about to be stuck in the house. So I booked a plane for San Francisco, and escaped. I spent 3 full days and 4 nights in the beautiful city I love. And remembered that I loved it even more than I remembered… I could spend forever there and not get full. Haight-Ashbury, Fisherman’s Wharf, Golden Gate, Chinatown, Japantown, Market Street, it was amazing and wonderful. And I want to go again. I took tons of photos. I had so much fun. I was by myself in a huge city that I love doing whatever I wanted however I wanted whenever I wanted. And I felt so much better coming back. It was like I was a different person.

So hello everyone. I survived. I am here. I am writing again. I have so many things in my head to write so I’ll be back often again now that I have time.

I’ve been going out with a guy for just over 6 months now. I’ve written about it frequently as we’ve gone through issues and communications trouble. And I have not written much at all in the last month, mostly I guess because instead of writing I’ve been living. Life has been really good. It’s not that I don’t have a lot to write about, but things have whirled by and I just haven’t had the time.

Several weeks ago I started to look hard at the relationship between B & I. As you grow up, I think you are taught to take the relationship that has started between you and another person, and instead of seeing where it goes on its own, crush it into your container of what you believe the relationship should be. For the beginning of the relationship I was confusing doing that with defining what I want to have as a primary relationship - how that looks to me. I felt as if I was asking things of B that he didn’t want to give. In my frustration that he wasn’t meeting those needs we had hours of difficult conversation. Somewhere in the last few weeks I got clarity about things.

It is not that I can’t have everything I have always dreamed about in a relationship. What doesn’t work is taking someone you feel a lot for, and trying to make them match that. I didn’t believe that I could have the man I have dreamed of. It was a combination of thinking that he just couldn’t exist, and that I didn’t deserve him.

After watching The Secret I realized that what has been inside me all along about the world being one we create as we go, not just figuratively but LITERALLY. We live in an agreed upon design. That wall is solid because we’ve agreed that it is solid. It is an agreement we’ve made, just as are all the other agreements we’ve made along the way about reality. But if we create it why are we sad, overweight, unhappy, unfulfilled, uncreated… on and on. Why are we sick or tired?

And it hit me. I don’t have to be. That can be my reality if I want. It can be my reality that I don’t have enough money, or that I can’t go to school, or that things don’t work out for me, or that I can’t have the man of my dreams. Or I can have all the money I want, the man of my dreams and the life I want. It is my choice. I control the reality I live in. Radical concept for our world, but one I’ve believed all along, and the reason I’m in physics. As a friend said last night Quantum physics touches meta physics. Things are not what they seem, and what we believe them to be make them what they are. Sounds like doublespeak, but it’s not. Truly we have learned scientifically that our observations in some ways determine the outcome of the experiment.

So, what does that mean about the relationships I have now, and in particular about that between me and B. Well as I discovered a few weeks back it doesn’t have to mean much at all except for a change in my perception. He is a wonderful guy with a big heart. I adore him and have learned a great deal from him. I can value this relationship as it is, and still realize that it doesn’t fit into my needs of what I want in a long term relationship. Do I enjoy spending time with him? Absolutely. But in the end, squeezing him into the box of the man of my heart will only hurt him and me. And truly I know in my heart that I am not that person for him. I don’t make him sing, don’t make him feel truly alive. And that is what our mates should do.

While I have shared a lot of that with him, including saying that I didn’t believe our relationship to be one that would be permanent, I feel like I need to get completely clear this weekend. That I have been opening myself up to the universe and seeking the man who I am looking for. And for the first time in my life he isn’t a dream. He exists. I will find him. Because I am creating a reality where not only what I need, but what I WANT exists for me, here and now. I don’t have to “work hard” for it… That is another myth. Life is beautiful and bountiful. The universe has more than enough of everything, since everything just comes down to being energy. And I am ready to have in my life what I desire most.

So as I sit here on the brink of knowing the conversation I must have, I also know that he already knows. I have pulled away a great deal already. Pulled away isn’t the right term. I have adjusted my perspective and stopped demanding he fit into my view of reality. His is different. There is no judgement in that. We just have different ways of seeing the world, and they just don’t mesh. So much so that even our communication about the things that matter, as well as stuff less important is difficult. It is almost as if we are speaking different languages. When I say apple he thinks orange.

This experience has taught me a great deal by allowing me to compare and contrast it to previous relationships. I see that I’ve lived my life full of choices, and that those choices show what I believed I deserved, and who I was. This relationship showed me that clearly as I walked down that path again, got resistance and instead of pushing harder, stepped back and looked at what was happening. It taught me to be clear on what I really want, and that yes, it is ok to want all of those things. More importantly, B did teach me about talking, face to face. About communicating within a close relationship, even when it isn’t fun or pleasant or you need to say things that might be scary to say. This relationship, B, taught me to be true to who I am, to speak up about what that means, and to know inside that not only can I have what I want most, but that I do deserve it.

Six months, and so much learning. So much growth. And now the time of recreating my world has begun. From what I have seen in my own life and the lives around me, when you really ask for something - there is no time delay - it’s there… So I know things will work fast to align themselves with what I want.

It has been easier and easier on me to become more myself again. Reflection, whether it is inflicted unwillingly by others making you react, or by a genuine look inside yourself is always good. I feel so much better and relaxed to have let go of things. It’s funny because until the last several days I had not realized how far away from myself I had gone, and how deeply I had fallen into old patterns. Yes, this is something to be expected, of course, and I logically knew that. But at the same time the ego says “oh you’ve worked so hard… that won’t happen to you.

Eh hem… yeah freakin right. I don’t think so. The only thing I can say is the very true parable about the hole in the sidewalk and the number of trips it takes to walk around it without falling in. More self examination about why I get my own identity from men. Why I need them to validate who I am, and what I do. Have no clue about that one. I grew up without men. No father, brother moved out when I was 5 and I hardly knew him at all. My stepfather monster was as far away as I could put him. At least after a while.

At first when I moved in, and I was overwhelmed by so many things (new home, parents, town, church, school… everything in my life basically) I was amazed by it all. And here for the first time was a “father” - a real one. And at first he took me for lunches at the local truck stop (well mini stop actually - there were no convenience stores then, but the gas station on the highway that ran along town had a counter and couple of tables). We’d sit at the counter, and I always order BLTs with a coke. It was a luxury for me. My mom and I never ate out for obvious poverty reasons. In fact I am pretty sure that every time we ever did is pretty much seared in my memory. He took me along on his calls for his plumbing business and I handed him tools. But within a couple years he took interest me in a way that just wasn’t ok. And when that became clear I left the house for other friends’ houses on nights when he was home without my step mom there. He always drank. I can still remember the smell of him mixed with booze. His eyes that took on a glazed sort of distant look. I learned to stay away from the that look. And the nights when my stepmom was going to be out later than my bedtime really sucked… because it was not safe. It didn’t matter if I was awake or not. Vigilence of a child means nothing against an adult. So after a couple years he became the worst of the men in my life.

So psychologically speaking, it would be said that I need to be validated by men because I am still trying to prove that I am worthy. I am truly aware of that with my brother and have done a lot of work with it. He was someone I considered to be better than me. And in truth, in rationality, he was not better just different. I am fairly certain that I have just as high of an IQ, it just manifests in a different set of areas - although in recent years obviously they are closer (physics and medicine). But what about the two others? My father and step father. Of course I wasn’t good enough for my father or he would have been in my life. And my step father taught me to believe the only use I had was sex. I took that on too - and it proved itself when I was raped at 13 by someone I had met at a party. I was so naive and drunk I didn’t even know what he was doing until the pain cut through the haze and I realized what had happened. I can still remember looking at all the blood all over the sheets of his bed, and panicking. The only thought in my head was to simply run away. And that no where was safe. There was no one to tell, no person that would think it was not my fault.

I proved it to myself again as a freshman in college when I had sex everytime I went out to drink, always with different guys, lots of them I didn’t even know their names. Shortly into that year, right around Thanksgiving I found myself sick as hell, and turns out I was pregnant. And I hadn’t really even seen the guy more than a few times and was already past him. Even that when finished, didn’t change my behavior. I went from one guy to the next looking for the only thing that made me feel good - sex. The few good guys I actually hit on from the fraternity where I was a little sister, clearly recognized my problems and walked away from me. It grew less in later years, but in theatre, promiscuity is the rule. And we certainly followed the rule. I mean for the most part if you did have a relationship it was the same as outside theatre and you didn’t cheat. But other than that - well sex was there, rampant and part of our lives. If you were involved in a play with someone, likely as not you were going to end up in bed. The best kiss I’ve ever had was from a good, but very gay, friend of mine. I was saddened when a few years ago I learned he had died of aids. I am sure that most of my friends who were gay men back then went on to face that reality in their lives, whether themselves or someone they loved. Safe sex wasn’t heard of, and none of us would have dreamed of using condoms… All the girls were on birth control and that was that. Always prepared…

So who am I trying to impress - why is it I am not good enough. Why nothing I do is ok. In fact in therapy last week, while working through things, i got to a place where “I feel so guilty” popped out of my mouth. While I was pretty shocked at first, I realized that that was a very real feeling. Amy and I worked on that. I have nothing to feel guilty for. I have done nothing wrong. I have done the best I can to be healthy, and to work from the information I had. I certainly have misunderstood B at times, and there have been things I’ve done that I’m not terribly proud of, but at the same time, I have worked really hard. There isn’t any place there for guilt. That may have been the leading realization to get to the point of where I am now. I’ve done nothing wrong. I’m doing nothing wrong. I’m doing what I need to for me. I am making decisions again about my own life, where it is going and what I do. And that has brought me back to my center. In fact as I’ve watched the last couple days - the feelings about him not talking to me when he’s online, or calling me, or taking initiative have lessened. I don’t feel that tug quite as much. It’s not that it isn’t there… but it isn’t as much.

Of course, the fact that I have now dedicated mounds of virtual space to writing out all this stuff does imply all by itself that I am still fairly engaged in this. Which is fine. I just don’t want to be unhealthy. And I think I’m moving away from that even if I slip occasionally.