I Want to Give Myself the World

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…the question should never be ‘What is the least amount of effort I can give to myself so that I’ll stop being a problem?’ The question is always ‘What do I have the capacity to give? How can I give myself the fullness of what I have to offer?’ I want to give myself the world.

@frankiedoodledandy

Now I’m historically not a great cook. I forget to use salt and pepper, I’ll happily just eat an avocado with Everything But The Bagel seasoning and call it dinner. 

But tonight I laid outside and read until I got hungry. And then I looked up what I can make with the half a cabbage in the fridge and I roasted it to sweet perfection. I even made a sauce! With multiple ingredients, that required using an additional pan. And added mustard because I’m worth it.

I treated myself like someone I’m trying to woo like whoa. And let me tell you how loved I feel. The warmth and the sweetness. It felt like a big delicious hug. That was probably the best date I’ve ever been on. It just happened to be with and by me. 

Sometimes It’s Just So So Good

I met a man and had a touch that exists without frame, without reference points, without time before or time after.

The day I arrived I saw him and couldn’t stop noticing him. The way he walked and smiled, hugged people, smiled. Those teeth like perfect pearls, making me smile for absolutely no reason. Like a painting that tickles you every time you see it. Why? Who knows. But I’d rather have the feeling even if I can’t explain it than not have it at all.

It became apparent that he had been seeing me the way I was seeing him. Wanting to speak, wanting to touch, Wanting to uncover the mystery; why can’t I stop noticing you?

Walking alone under an open and unjudgemental sky I told him,

I want to touch you with curiosity. Just run my hands on your skin without shame or fear and see what I find.

That sounds amazing. I’d love to connect with you that way.

After years of thinking the same thought in relationships and situations where it’d not come true my brain was flooded with anticipation. What would it be like to get what I’ve always thought I wanted. Really though.

I tossed and turned imagining luxuriating in the temperature of his chest, grazing my fingertips along his lips, those lips that smile like he’s about to tell me a secret. By the time the time came I was high on my fantasies, vibrating, embarrassed to have passed a whole day with this elevated awareness of self, of color, texture, grinning stupidly about someone I don’t even know.

Reality was different of course. Curiosity means listening, responding not to what you had imagined but to what actually presents itself. What I found more intoxicating than the skin I’d wanted to caress was the muscle beneath it and the intention it held. Like a lionness stalking her prey, he put his hands on my arms and moved me through space, enjoying the way we walked like waltzers, hands full of information, structure, satisfaction.

Enjoying each others willingness to lead and be led, see and be seen.

Before I learned about the mechanics of sex this is what I thought it would feel like in my chest, the tightness and release in my throat, the tingling all over and inside my head, the freedom. He ran his hands down the sides of my torso like a builder looking for warp to address, stopping to notice muscles, ran his hand to the space just below my belly button and collapsed his weight into me, enjoying the roundness and warmth of the intimate no man’s land right above my underwear band. Not sexual, just private, pleasurable in it’s own rarely-noticed right.

Tell me some thinking or feeling words.

This is such a wonderful destination. Just itself.

He held my arms out to my sides floating in space,

Keep them there.

And I did, in the chilly night air, luxuriating in his palms scampering from fingertip, across the soft insides of my elbow, glancing off the lump of my shoulder, skateboarding across my collar bones, and out the other side and back again, breathing and watching his face gleam with joy at my skin.

Not long after that I put my shirt back on and we rejoined the world.

Heading back towards other people with all their eyeballs and opinions I remembered who I was, who he was. This was not the new couple, triumphant, announcing themselves, inviting the tribe to rejoice at their starting a journey as a pair. Just two people who shared a moment in the woods returning, ever so slightly changed, to their own lives. The idea of having to back away before being noticed, to not be seen as some romantic leech clanged around inside my chest.

I’m important to this person! I swear it, you should have seen how he worshiped the shape of my neck just a moment ago!

The knot rising in my throat at the inevitable “she’s not with me” implicit in the return to society. This person is allowed to be important to me, but not in a way I can ever adequately describe, and that makes it feel un-respectable.

The shame trapped me under it like a waterfall, the flow locking me in. Then I got what I’ve always wanted. In a room full of people, an unselfconscious arm around me.

Thank you for not making me feel like something to be ashamed of.

You aren’t something to be ashamed of.

You’re So Sweet To Me

My mom used to say “I just want you to find someone to love.”

My partner tells me “You are so sweet to me. You are being so sweet to me.”

It turns out that I enjoy being gushy. I enjoy being a completely goofy romantic. There are so many fun sweet things to say and do and make.

With no fear that I’m going to be laughed at. With no fear that I’m going to be misunderstood.

I want to give that ooey gooey melty center to someone who knows what it means, what it costs, what the associated fears are.

I love getting to be that drippy heart, it’s such a treat to get to show it on my sleeve. It takes a lot of practice to feel comfortable being that person in front of someone, even when it’s so graciously and appreciatively received. It is shockingly hard to push that edge for myself. But I can feel it already being so worth it.

O Brave New World

Dude, did you know that men are like, nice? Like really nice. Like hug you while you cry, rub your back, not look even the slightest bit embarrassed that you’re doing this in public. – Nice.

Like looking deep into your soul and saying “You are not something to be ashamed of.” – Nice.

Like “What are you thinking when you stop your hand right above the band of my bikini?” “Just how nice your belly feels against my hand.” – Nice.

My face is so leaky because the inside of my brain is just a photo reel of all this niceness now.

How could I ever have not known this?

I must have known this?

When did I know this?

And why does it feel like such surprising news?

I love men. Some of my best friends are men. Some of my favorite people in the world are men.

So why didn’t I trust them to be this? Or to be this with me?

And how did it come to be that now I do?

No matter. Now that I’ve seen this beautiful new world I’m never going back.

Even if this person disappears, I know what how it feels to kiss someone who thinks I’m fireworks. I’m kissing people who make me feel like a beautiful burning star. That’s mine now.

Head Space

You know that moment in magic-y, thriller-y , sci-fi-antasy movies where the guy is like

Bend the spoon with your mind!

And Neo is like

Are you crazy? I can’t bend a spoon with my mind!

And the other guy is like

Don’t tell me you can’t do it. Don’t think about it, just do it!

And then he does it!?

That’s how I feel in a really good yoga class. If I stop thinking about how or why or whether I can do it then suddenly I can do things that are otherwise impossible. It’s magical, that feeling when you get an instruction and then your body does it without having to consult your brain. That reminder that your body is a thing that you can run around and play in, stretch and bend. The form of it isn’t bound by anything, not even your brain. Not even your imagination.

Your body can run off in the playground of someone else’s fantasy too.

The world is full of people who can tap you into that subspace where your body leads and your brain follows. Go find them!

Menstrual Cups and Self-Ed

I would really like for my menstrual cup to be good at catching blood.

It was sold to me as “12 hours, no leaks!” but my experience so far has been a non-stop stain-a-thon. Every once in a while I emerge from the bathroom “This time it’s going to be different. This time I finally figured it out!” but it never seems to stick.

People keep asking me why I’m still trying to make it work after 5 years of constant failure.

Answer number one is simple and true “I really would like my period to be a carbon neutral event. I don’t like constantly buying and throwing away tampons. I need a better solution.”

But the deeper answer is something I didn’t expect.

This month in trying to get the damn thing to work I discovered that my cervix is more conical than the donut shape I always imagined it as.

And you know how in books they say your cervix will “feel like the tip of your nose” [x]

It totally does! It feels exactly like the tip of your nose!

How cool is that?!

So, my menstrual cup might suck at being a menstrual cup, but it’s pretty great at making me think about bodies in a new way. And so for that I’ll be grateful. And that’s even better.

Laughter Is The Best Anything

One of the most amazing blessings* in my life is what I do for work. Not because I’m wildly successful at it or respected for it or even particularly good at it. Because it allows me to do the thing I like best. See people and what they’ll do. What a writer thinks they’ll do when in a specific and unlikely situation. What they’ll do when the director has been gone for a few months and they think they can get away with some edits. What they’ll do when faced with something horrible. What they’ll do when they think something is funny. What they’ll do when they are amused that someone else finds something funny. People reacting to each other is my favorite form of entertainment, bar none.

A few months ago I worked with a lovely man who posed to me a question: How badly do you want to go to the moon?

Do I have to pay a lot of money to do it?

How long will I be there for?

What can I bring?

Can I talk to my family on the phone? Am I in an airplane seat for more than 20 hours straight?

Apparently a series of questions was the wrong answer.

Your answer should be “Yes, I’d do anything!”

Eh, Honestly I’d rather travel the globe. And when we asked the rest of our co-workers, most of the men wanted to go to the moon and look down on humanity from there. And most of the women wanted to travel the world for a few months to a year.

I don’t have any insight as to why this was split along gender lines.** I just know I want to see all the people. I want to see them with each other. Up close and personal.

There’s something so beautiful about watching a crowd react, at once, and separately. To a shared stimulus and to each other. Have you ever watched a crowd watching a funny scene? It’s amazing.

A joke is made and while all people can laugh maybe only a few are open enough to vocalize their glee at that

moment, usually snort-laughers. But then there are the few that are just a half a beat behind, the ones that are instantly given permission to laugh because of the first wave. The next wave will be the people who are laughing at the original laughers. And then there’s the third wave of people who are laughing because they’re noticing this trend. Or noticing the performers reaction to being laughed at. And pretty soon it’s a microcosm, an ecosystem, a living breathing thing all on it’s own; like the economy or riding a bicycle, all it needs to not fall is to keep going.

Everyone has a moment when they permit themselves to laugh and everyone has a distinct laugh. Everyone has a soul that’s unique and everyone has an expression that’s unique.

And you can tell in a crowd if it’s full of people who will allow themselves to be cheered or if it’s full of people who will insist on lowering the room. There are so many things you can tell about people by putting them in a room together and giving them a reason to laugh.

There’s no better, no more spontaneous performance in the world. No better way to see group individuality.

——————-

*Note to self, find agnostic word for ‘blessing’.

**I’ll happily entertain theories in comments!

The Greatest Thing You’ll Ever Learn

The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.

How hard can that be?

How much effort does one person need to put into learning how to be loved.

When someone was in love with me my breath was taken away every time he said it. Was that me not knowing how to be loved or just enjoying the feeling? Getting acclimated?

The media makes a big deal out of learning how to be loved. Do I not think it’s a big deal because it isn’t really a big deal, or because I just haven’t had to learn it yet?

Polling the audience here. Did you have to learn? Was it as difficult as Grey’s Anatomy would have you think?

 

 

What Is That Called?

Last night I had an interesting experience. A great experience. I had a great time and my partner in crime had a great time too. He thanked me afterwards.

I went home with an acquaintance. We had sort of met before, but talked for real for the first time last night. He had an easy face to talk to and I guess he felt the same way about me. We were out with a group and ended up being the last two left, with still so much to talk about I went back to his house for some 3am tea. We talked about family and his new anti-anxiety-medicated life, work, all sorts of things.

He told me how beautifully I ran my hands over the textured surfaces in his house. The ridges on my teacup, the grain of the wood table, the cracks in the granite countertop. Every once in a while I’d mindlessly touch something and he’d stop talking, just stare at my hands and tell me how distracting it was.

I felt so serene and I suddenly wanted to gift him that serenity. So I turned off the light, sat on the table, put my feet on his chair “I’m going to take off your shirt so I can touch your back.”

And then I held him, ran my hands up and down his back, across his shoulder blades and through his hair for close to an hour. Breathed into his neck and felt his whole body relax under my touch.

And then we moved to the bed and continued doing that, clothed, no kissing, no touching bathing suit parts, nothing untoward. Just enjoying the delight of caressing and being caressed. Hugging and being hugged. Enveloping and being enveloped.

It was so wonderful.

Is there a good name for that?

And why don’t people do it more often?

 

How To Love The Signs

Capricorn: Be trustworthy, consistent, and never flakey. Don’t let them get away with not talking about how they feel, prompt them to express their emotions more often. Be their biggest supporter when it comes to their goals and always make sure they make time for fun and its not all work. Let them have their private time every so often, and help them to de-stress and relax. [x]

There is one person in this world who does all these things.

When I read this list that face popped into my head so fast it almost brought tears to my eyes.

It explains why I care so deeply, they know how to care for me.

There are a lot of love languages and if you’re someone who doesn’t take flowers and chocolate to mean I Love You then sometimes its hard to feel like you’re hearing it enough. It’s surprisingly unsettling when suddenly it feels like someone does know how to communicate with you. Especially when it’s instant, feeling like you’re being heard really is the best thing there is.