Episode 1 -- Just a Little Bit of History Repeating

Our mutual friend wrote: "I met him as I was going through my first divorce 20 years ago, and he was my rebound then.  It was a very confusing relationship. Probably a good thing he had to leave the country.  Now it is much easier. I no longer see him that way at all." 20 years ago, he and our mutual friend fucked like crazy while he was in a relationship with another woman.  Call her Colleen.

I tried twice to stop the sex part of our relationship.  Once because of his real partner, and once because of mine.  I found it impossible both times.  I actually said to him, in all earnestness, "I just can't quit you."

I asked him if this is just a repeat of his 20-years-ago mess where his current partner is Colleen and I am our mutual friend.  He insists this can't be so because Colleen was a nasty, cruel woman, and his current partner is kind.  But there are so many parallels.  The sexless central relationship.  The supposedly clueless partner.  The recently divorced and slightly crazy Trilby to his Svengali.  And, I hope, ultimately the lasting friendship. 

Will I now have to leave the city, state, or country to ever end this hold he has on me?  This hypnotism that turns me into a confident woman, able to ask for and express my sexual desires.  In that book, Svengali dies of a heart attack, leaving Trilby distraught and void of her talents.  In this life, the outcome is much much messier.  Here is where I try to sort it out as it is happening.

Puzzle Pieces

There is a moment in Augusten Burroughs' Running with Scissors which has stayed with me ever since I read it.  Burroughs talks about returning back to his "normal" life after a stint in rehab.  A therapist had warned him that after rehab, he may find that the people in his life didn't fit anymore.  The therapist described people as puzzle pieces who fit into their world in a particular way.  When people go to rehab or have significant experiences, they come back to their life in a different shape.  People around them either reshape themselves to fit again into the puzzle of this person's life --- or they don't, and eventually find that no amount of pushing will make them part of the whole again.

I am a reshaped puzzle piece.  I know this feeling from many things.  For the past few days, it has been an insistent pressure, right in the center of my chest where I can't ignore it.  My shape changed, and now I'm chafing up against the people and things in my life trying to find the new place where they fit -- if they fit at all.

In quiet moments (in my car, sitting here at night after I've done all the chores I can stand and it's still too early for bed) I feel myself adjusting to my new shape.  I feel like my sternum is folding into a prow-like shape, ready to cut through whatever water is coming my way.  And the water comes.  Some days it's tears I' can't control, some days it's choking on air like it was water in my lungs, and some days it's needing to sit because someone replaced the bones of my legs with fluid.  Both my internal and external environments are changing.

Until I understand this new shape, I am wary of people who used to fit so well with me.  Alone I am reaching further into doubts and fears I never faced.  At some point, this will all have to be integrated into my new shape.  For now, though, raw and watery as I am, I am not yet ready to lean into everyone to see if I can make their shapes fit into mine.  Some of them I can see will not fit -- everyone else will have to wait.

100 Days

Today is a day of celebration.  I am choosing to celebrate as I choose to do most things -- quietly.  Because I am celebrating not only accomplishments, but also clarity.  The accomplishments bring me great satisfaction, and the clarity comes tinged with sadness.

But first, the celebration:  thanks to my ever-supportive powerhouse of a friend, I just finished 100 days of dancing.  Every day for 100 days I danced, videoed the dance and took the time to reflect on the good, the bad and the growth.  I got to share those reflections on our Facebook group, on what quickly became known as the "Wall of Positivity."  Even through travel, exhaustion and difficult career decisions, I danced, videoed and wrote about it every day.  This is what happens when resolve, love, and community support come together.

And because things come together like that -- today I also found out that I passed the testing for the Initiation Phase of Rachel Brice's 8 Elements training.  Resolve, love, community, studying, and delicious Portland coffee.  I am growing into this new community of beautiful artists -- and though I am not yet comfortable calling myself an "artist," I am comfortable calling these wonderful women my dance sisters.

So now, as I am succeeding at these challenges, and accepting new ones, comes the clarity.  There is much in my world that is unnecessary and unfulfilling -- habits, objects, obligations, and, most difficult of all, people.  I have shed my interior skin, and now the exterior is shedding.  Piles of stuff are all around me, ready to be carted to thrift stores tomorrow.  Obligations I kept around for fear of their absence are being collapsed and soon gently let go.  And the people.  One by one, I am removing myself from the people.  People I hid behind, or used like some people use video games -- to distract myself.  People whose support was really a way of draining time energy and attention I should have used on something else.

Like dancing.  Because look what happens when you accept a challenge.  Time to face my fear of the next one, shed more layers, and do it.

Trampoline Life

I am at an airport again, phone off, headphones on, thinking of sweet things to pick up for dear friends.  It feels good -- this feeling of being zippered out of my life for a while, but keeping the zipper attached so I can fit myself back in.  Maybe.

It is more accurate, I think, to say I am starting to feel like a trampoline gymnast.  I do touch down, land, and land, and land again -- because gravity needs me to.  But the real work, the real beauty and flight happens between the landings.  The sins and flips, the turns, the mesmerizing views of a body spinning in space.  This arc up and then down -- that is where the real life is happening.  the landings are points to regroup, gather strength and pull on what I learned in my last flight before I launch myself again.

This.  This is the life I want.  A trampoline life.  And if someday I can do it all while holding the hand of someone who loves to fly almost as much as he loves me -- all the better.

But right now, this moment-- I am breathing into this moment and the freedom of being so much on my own.  No plans but those I make.  No need to answer to anyone unless I choose to.  It is the up side of loneliness -- this freedom.  I am arcing down from my latest flight, having changed and expanded while I was in the in air, glancing down I see my base gently moving towards me. I will sink into it with gratitude and collect all my energy until I am ready for the next jump.

Practice Log

In a small number of days, I am going to do a completely selfish thing. I am going to travel and spend a week immersed in learning my new creative love from a brilliant teacher. Lately, I have allowed myself to block my creative energy, and I have been focusing on all the fear. Things busted up yesterday, though, as I got reacquainted with writing. I am ready to go dance my fear face off, and my open face on. 

Side bonus -- I am writing poetry again. Here's a little bit from today:

Get up in the morning and dance

like your life depends on it

because it does. 

The quivering soft soul battling night terrors

awakes encased in amber

Corseted tight around the ribs

unable to breathe. 

Get up in the morning and dance. 

Tunnel your hands through to open space

Carve into walls with your hips

Crack the amber

top to bottom 

side to side

until it falls into the microscopic infinite. 

Breath deep to fill the space of you

a pulse, your vibrant metronome, ticks again. 

Get up in the morning 

and dance. 

Your life depends on it. 

Woman Down! Send C*ck!

There are a lot of things I have discovered about myself lately, but perhaps the most fun thing is that I like sex.  Kind of a lot.  I have had an amazing time playing with that knowledge and trying out all the wacky things people do in their 20s -- with the benefit of being in my 40s and generally smarter about taking care of myself.

I've been getting exhausted with play partnering lately, though, and am gradually settling in to looking for something more settled -- with  lots of communication and openness about sex, though.  I'm not willing to compromise on that.  Gradually, my friends-with-benefits are fading away, either through active or passive disengagement.  I'm getting lots more sleep, and I have more energy to focus on "serious" dating prospects.

But it has been a while since sex.  I have gone for (much) longer than this before, but that was when I still had this sense of shame and taboo around the whole thing.  Now that I'm comfortable with it, being without it is much less comfortable.

Another thing I have discovered about myself, though, is that I can be patient about getting what I truly want.  So we wait, watch the snowstorm, write filthy messages in the drifts and watch them get covered up again as the snow continues to fall.

anx*i*e*ty

anx*i*e*ty (noun), "desire to do something, typically accompanied by unease."

That is actually not the primary definition of anxiety, but it is the one that lives with me. Remember when I thought I could smell Ativan? Yeah, that still happens. I am meeting people -- actually meeting and getting to know them as people. The common thread in every person I meet is still anxiety of some kind. It even got to the point where a friend who treats anxiety disorders has offered to form a "Survivor"-type therapy group of the men I have met. The man who makes the most progress in the group gets to date me.

This "suggestion" grew from me talking about a date with yet another man who was broadcasting anxiety.  As our conversation continued, though, I realized that I kind of want the anxiety.  I mean, I get anxious about stuff, so that's something to have in common.  And, really, people who never have any anxiety about anything are kind of ---- well ---- boring.

bor*ing (adjective), "not interesting, tedious."

I am in a space where I am actively exploring and nurturing my creative self.  A certain low level of anxiety fuels this, and I find that people without even the smallest levels of anxiety are often not understanding of this drive to be creative.  Of course, high anxiety also kills creativity, so it is a continual balance.  I need my anxiety to be a passenger in the boat with me, and I really need a partner to bring their anxiety along too.  Otherwise, we just end up with an unbalanced boat.

Our anxieties are necessary to allow us to build something new -- a work of art, a structure, a relationship -- anything.  So, I am embracing my anxious passenger as part of the whole flawed tapestry.

Take us out, Kierkegaard: