Why most relationships in life (love, friendship, work, parental, neighborly, consumer, etc) are complicated and fraught with miscommunication and misunderstandings. Could it be the expectation thing? Maybe. I don't appreciate being expected to..... fill in the blank. Can't I just BE.
Have I mentioned that I love my dog? She doesn't expect. Together we just are. Since I stopped expecting her to behave a certain way and stopped disciplining her when she wasn't ...amazingly she has blossomed into a better companion than I had even first hoped. Out from the expectation of who I thought she should be, she became who she is.... which is remarkable.
As my teacher, I bask in her guidance. She is the trainer and I am her oft disobedient pupil. I struggle with the lessons. She is a smart one... with a wise ass grin and one hell of a wiggle.
Friday, September 19, 2008
Thursday, September 18, 2008
To F^*% or Not to F^*%
Inevitably the topic arises and I have to explain. No one understands. The reactions vary. Why an otherwise healthy early-mid thirties woman would consciously CHOOSE celibacy is beyond any of their grasps. I am not unattractive so it isn't that I am trying to make lemonade from lemons. I get offers from both sides of the fence. It's just this simple.... at this point in my life a sexual relationship with anyone offers as much enticement as eating a bowl of raw haggis. NO THANK YOU.
Complications, hurt feelings, unmatched sex drives, and drama. Sex with women is just messy...in so many ways. What I have noticed over the last decade is that the years when I was seriously involved...I stopped evolving. I became half of something and found myself constantly having to consider what the other person wanted, thought, felt, expected...oy... the headache. One can not freely evolve when one must always consider someone else. Evolution is created by spontaneity and big bangs happening all around that send you on a journey. In a relationship... my journeys were often to the pizza parlor or the coffee shop. In the two years I was with my ex fiance.... that is what I did...I was WITH my ex fiance. My life hovered for two years and sort of spun it's little wheels. In the two and a half years since I ended my last relationship I have bought a condo alone, started a full time and a part time business, rescued a dog (and lost one), flown out west twice and left dirty dishes in the sink...all the time. I have stopped focusing my energy on whether my partner would be mad at me for being a lousy housekeeper (yes, they usually were) and started focusing my energy on my businesses and my life.
So, maybe my relationships have been unhealthy.... perhaps my partners expected too much of me. One once did tell me it was a business I wanted to start or her. How very supportive of her. Maybe I pick people I am not compatible with .... or maybe relationships are just messy beasts that often become who we are. We are no longer that guy Bill but we are Judy's boyfriend or husband. Perhaps I am unfairly judging relationships. Whether they are casual (anyone had much success having a CASUAL lesbian relationship? Um, hi.... uhaul?!) or more exclusive.... the idea of sharing myself and being expected to divvy up my time and journey in a way to complement someone else is just a big no.
Also, I have to admit... the longer I go without sex, the less I miss everything that goes along with it. I have developed an almost Monk-like prude germy eww factor about it all. I mean really.... when you think about it in all of it's glory... it ain't pretty. Sometimes it smells bad and sometimes it tastes bad. Sex isn't like pizza. There is such thing as bad sex. Pizza? Pizza is always good.
Complications, hurt feelings, unmatched sex drives, and drama. Sex with women is just messy...in so many ways. What I have noticed over the last decade is that the years when I was seriously involved...I stopped evolving. I became half of something and found myself constantly having to consider what the other person wanted, thought, felt, expected...oy... the headache. One can not freely evolve when one must always consider someone else. Evolution is created by spontaneity and big bangs happening all around that send you on a journey. In a relationship... my journeys were often to the pizza parlor or the coffee shop. In the two years I was with my ex fiance.... that is what I did...I was WITH my ex fiance. My life hovered for two years and sort of spun it's little wheels. In the two and a half years since I ended my last relationship I have bought a condo alone, started a full time and a part time business, rescued a dog (and lost one), flown out west twice and left dirty dishes in the sink...all the time. I have stopped focusing my energy on whether my partner would be mad at me for being a lousy housekeeper (yes, they usually were) and started focusing my energy on my businesses and my life.
So, maybe my relationships have been unhealthy.... perhaps my partners expected too much of me. One once did tell me it was a business I wanted to start or her. How very supportive of her. Maybe I pick people I am not compatible with .... or maybe relationships are just messy beasts that often become who we are. We are no longer that guy Bill but we are Judy's boyfriend or husband. Perhaps I am unfairly judging relationships. Whether they are casual (anyone had much success having a CASUAL lesbian relationship? Um, hi.... uhaul?!) or more exclusive.... the idea of sharing myself and being expected to divvy up my time and journey in a way to complement someone else is just a big no.
Also, I have to admit... the longer I go without sex, the less I miss everything that goes along with it. I have developed an almost Monk-like prude germy eww factor about it all. I mean really.... when you think about it in all of it's glory... it ain't pretty. Sometimes it smells bad and sometimes it tastes bad. Sex isn't like pizza. There is such thing as bad sex. Pizza? Pizza is always good.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Strange dreams
I woke this morning from dreams that haunted my entire day. I am 34...nearly. I have dated women exclusively for a decade. Prior to that I knew I was attracted to women from the time I was 17. However, I hadn't realized my ho-hum YAWN feelings towards the men I dated or had...what some elders might refer to as ..."relations" with meant that I was gay. It never crossed my mind. Until it did. Then it REALLY crossed my mind. Ha Ha Ha. I have had a few serious long term relationships with women. One of those resulted in an engagement, however, in retrospect, perhaps it was the sheer mortality fear of living in NYC during 2001 that led to a rushed engagement to someone who was at times lovely but not the love of my life. It's a blur 7 years later. Looking back, it was so intense that I can not remember it in my mind's eye as clearly as it really happened.
But I digress , the dream you see wasn't about her. The dream, a truly vivid remarkable one.... hmm. You see, I do not dream. Atleast I never remember any of my dreams. A handful in 34 years. That is all. I remember one from when I was 14, one from the weeks after my dog passed several years ago, and this one. This dream was about him. The him that sprung into my life like an odd flat note in a song. At first it seems out of place and just wrong... then you keep listening and your ear realizes that the flat note is the unique piece that makes the song.
3 months... secrecy. No one knew. Okay, 4 or 5 people knew. The rest we hid it from because we worked together and didn't want the drama. We didn't like eachother when we met. I found him twitchy, pale, arrogant in a way that was pedestrian. He thought I was "just a bird". See, that is what I mean. What white american midwestern male uses the term "bird" as if he's a righteous brit? We dealt with eachother. Humored eachother's diatribes until one day when my eastern spirituality and his eastern spirituality came up in conversation. We raised eyebrows at the other and then began to listen to each other. One night we had a movie and take out night at his apartment... three of us from work. The one with the crush on me grew tired and decided to sleep on the couch. How polite to leave me with the floor. At this point mr twitchy and I were finding common ground but still nowhere close to great pals. He was polite enough to offer space in his bed, with no intentions. Seriously, there were no intentions. We slept and at some point we woke up at the same time, facing each other, our eyes locked. I felt infinite. I knew then that he and I had a connection older than us. We continued to stare at each other until eventually it became an embrace. 3 months.
3 months and he met a woman in a bar, she pursued him relentlessly and he dumped me unapologetically in a note on my door, days after my birthday. I remember knowing deep down but laying in bed alone and praying for him to "just please not marry her". Yes, they married. I think they are still married. I am not sure. I moved from that place the following year and while he is in my thoughts, I have never seen him since leaving.
Funny that I dream of him. I am gay. To some of you, many of you, you may not understand how a woman can say she is gay but admit relations and a past love for a man. It is simple, you have your preference or leanings and then, if you believe in eastern philosophies at all, well then... it opens the world to confusion. As an eastern follower and someone who believes in reincarnation... how can I say that a soul partner will only come back as a man or a woman or a human for that matter. Now when I say that, a soul partner does not mean a lover per se. We can be blessed in our lives with connections that are unexplainably wondorous .... we just feel in our bones that these individuals, whether human or animal, have been intertwined with us before. The love I had for that man from a decade ago does still haunt me. I have a photo of him which I shot on one of the first nights we truly saw each other. Perhaps it was even that first night. He said it was the only photo that ever really captured him. When I look at it now it feels as if he looks right into me. Still.
Strange but wonderful. To have memories of such intense connections. To have had such intense connections. Strange...but wonderful.
But I digress , the dream you see wasn't about her. The dream, a truly vivid remarkable one.... hmm. You see, I do not dream. Atleast I never remember any of my dreams. A handful in 34 years. That is all. I remember one from when I was 14, one from the weeks after my dog passed several years ago, and this one. This dream was about him. The him that sprung into my life like an odd flat note in a song. At first it seems out of place and just wrong... then you keep listening and your ear realizes that the flat note is the unique piece that makes the song.
3 months... secrecy. No one knew. Okay, 4 or 5 people knew. The rest we hid it from because we worked together and didn't want the drama. We didn't like eachother when we met. I found him twitchy, pale, arrogant in a way that was pedestrian. He thought I was "just a bird". See, that is what I mean. What white american midwestern male uses the term "bird" as if he's a righteous brit? We dealt with eachother. Humored eachother's diatribes until one day when my eastern spirituality and his eastern spirituality came up in conversation. We raised eyebrows at the other and then began to listen to each other. One night we had a movie and take out night at his apartment... three of us from work. The one with the crush on me grew tired and decided to sleep on the couch. How polite to leave me with the floor. At this point mr twitchy and I were finding common ground but still nowhere close to great pals. He was polite enough to offer space in his bed, with no intentions. Seriously, there were no intentions. We slept and at some point we woke up at the same time, facing each other, our eyes locked. I felt infinite. I knew then that he and I had a connection older than us. We continued to stare at each other until eventually it became an embrace. 3 months.
3 months and he met a woman in a bar, she pursued him relentlessly and he dumped me unapologetically in a note on my door, days after my birthday. I remember knowing deep down but laying in bed alone and praying for him to "just please not marry her". Yes, they married. I think they are still married. I am not sure. I moved from that place the following year and while he is in my thoughts, I have never seen him since leaving.
Funny that I dream of him. I am gay. To some of you, many of you, you may not understand how a woman can say she is gay but admit relations and a past love for a man. It is simple, you have your preference or leanings and then, if you believe in eastern philosophies at all, well then... it opens the world to confusion. As an eastern follower and someone who believes in reincarnation... how can I say that a soul partner will only come back as a man or a woman or a human for that matter. Now when I say that, a soul partner does not mean a lover per se. We can be blessed in our lives with connections that are unexplainably wondorous .... we just feel in our bones that these individuals, whether human or animal, have been intertwined with us before. The love I had for that man from a decade ago does still haunt me. I have a photo of him which I shot on one of the first nights we truly saw each other. Perhaps it was even that first night. He said it was the only photo that ever really captured him. When I look at it now it feels as if he looks right into me. Still.
Strange but wonderful. To have memories of such intense connections. To have had such intense connections. Strange...but wonderful.
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