I'm Content

I got rid of my old bed. The iron one with lots of lattice that made it easy to be tied up.  My new bed is a sleigh bed, much more traditional. No way to tie me up.  But so much more comfortable when I nurse my son. And it will be better when we read books for years to come.

He is beautiful and a delight.  I think I'm happier than I've ever been. I miss sex and physical closeness. I wish I had a partner.  I'm shocked as how much kink is like mom/baby.  I am responsible for all his needs; he has to trust me to meet them. I always put him first, but he doesn't really get a say in what happens (other than crying, which I listen to--I suppose some mom's can tell by the cry what is going on but I'm not one of them).  I try to please him. So much. You can't spoil a baby But I also make sure I look out for his long-term needs.  Molding him a bit.  Training him a bit. I hope he grows up to be vanilla. I hope to protect him from all the world.

 I don't miss dating.  I may date again, but probably vanilla. If I met someone into kink, that would be amazing, but it will always be more important to me now to find someone who was a good father, rather than a good lover.

The end of a book series I loved ended with "I am content."  But actually, I'm pretty joyous right now.

Alone

I've pretty much stopped dating because I'm going to try and get pregnant.  When I dated "Martin" it threw all my plans into muck, and I realized that even if I knew how to talk about it with someone, I don't know how to be open to someone new and also move forward with wanting a child.

But I'm so terribly lonely right now.

I got a really big promotion at work.  A big fucking deal.  And I got some lovely text messages.  But that's it.  I miss brunch, so much.   Dotty is still planning on moving back in a year and a bit (and we are getting together to celebrate in a couple of weeks, but that's a couple of weeks).  And I have made a couple of new friends, but they are gal-friends who either have severe enough dietary or money restrictions they can't go out, or partners so we get together in early evenings on work nights.  I don't have anyone I can truly celebrate with.

I'm trying to accept that, at least for the next few years, if all goes "well" I will be putting another being's needs far ahead of my own. And I've done that in lots of ways (boy do I miss stevia, and regular toe-nail polish!  The all natural stuff just doesn't work well).  But at night, I miss hearing MaxEarnest breathe.  I miss kneeling at his feet.  I miss kissing Martin. I miss John.  (Although the only one I see is Tony, and he's the only one I don't miss--little twit.)  I want to be a mom, more than anything else, but I can't even move forward with trying to get pregnant for another couple of months.  And I'm so lonely right now.  

Alone

I'm going to Italy next week for a couple of weeks.  Last time I went to Europe, it was with Dotty.  And before that it was with MaxEarnest.

I'm going to try and get pregnant this summer, and I'm very clear that I want to have a child.  But I have pretty much stopped dating and I feel like I still have a Dotty-sized hole in my life.  I know MaxEarnest and I wanted conflicting things.  Intellectually I accept that.  He said you can't have everything all the time, but every time I see his country on the map, I miss him. 

Transparency

I feel like I'm at this weird crossroads.

The last guy I met on OK Cupid literally seemed like a performance artist--I couldn't believe someone could be quite that awful in every way.  He was

• living in his mom's basement
• while he finished drug rehab
• so he could get his driver's license unrevoked
• because he HATES it here and always has so he was going to 
• move to LA and become a movie star at 45.

And he wondered why no one wanted to go out with him.

I tried to be kind, but I was really blunt that dating is about making roots and connections and if your only goal is to leave, now isn't the time to date.  And the truth of the matter is, I expect he will find a partner before I will.  Because I'm beginning to think, I'm going to be single for the rest of my life.  And so it Dotty.  And so are several other of my amazing friends. 

It is hard not to be bitter about men.  But I do think they care more about women look like than everything else combined.  And I don't think I'm hot enough for most of them.  (I was at Panera this week, and there was a guy next to me, complaining on the cell phone that he can't get a date because he doesn't have a job, and I felt like saying "I would totally go out with you without a job." But I didn't like how rude he was at Panera--we were in the room that is sort of the quiet room and he was talking loudly enough that everyone heard his business, for a very long time--I probably wouldn't go out with him.  But not because of the job.  I guess we're all picky. But, who am I kidding, if he'd asked me out, I would have given him a couple of dates to see if I liked him."

I've been watching Transparent and it is terrific.  But the easy casualness with which everyone is hurting each other so badly is painful.  Real, but painful. It reminds me of how much I feel I get casually ignored in ways that hurt.  And I am probably doing it to other people, but I swear I'm at least aware of trying to take someone else's feelings into account.  But I'm also aware of how much I shrink from conflict.  I don't want people to be mad at me, so I go along way more than I want to.

Entanglement

Martin said something wise back whenever: "the givers have to stop giving because the takers won't stop taking."  

I think this is a really big issue for me, and I don't really know how to stop. I was listening to the Invisibilia episode on Entanglement, and I feel like the "mirror touch synesthesia" is probably a spectrum and I have about 10% of it.  When people are upset, I feel it--especially anger.

I'm pretty good about not feeling for people that I don't care about.  (Although, interestingly, on Christmas my dad and I had to run to the store for a couple of things and I gave $5 to a homeless man, and I was embarrassed my dad saw--like somehow it was a personality failing--usually I give to organizations--so I was actually a bit ashamed to do an act of charity on a day supposedly commemorating that.  I'm sure my dad is right and he used it for booze or weed, but I have so much and he seemed to have very little.)  But this woman has been staying with me since November (and she is leaving today--glory! Hallelujah!) and it has been an interesting way to exam how and why I overreact and then give too much.

She has been incredibly unhappy since the day she arrived (and I was doing her a favor!) and I thought it was me.  I kept thinking if I just did one more thing, she would be content. I have a tendency towards less tidiness than I should.  For the most part, I keep the main areas of the house presentable, but during the week, things get a little more hectic and then I tidy every weekend. I have been trying to keep things in better shape since work got stable, but no one would call me tidy. This person, will call her Michelle (and I will never mention her after today) was furious all the time. She'd go in the kitchen and I would been slow-cooking and she would slam a pot since no all 4 elements were clear.  A lot of slamming doors, loud martyrly sighs,and stomping around.  And I kept trying to please her and she kept sucking more and more.

At a certain point I stopped being emotionally engaged with her.  I still tried to do what I thought she wanted a little, but I stopped caring.  I tried to be friendly, but I did not want to be friends.  This last week she has had multiple meltdowns that had NOTHING to do with me.  She actually yelled at me because she didn't like her hairdresser at an incredibly expensive salon.  She was angry in my direction about the post office and a couple of other things that were just not my fault.

Interestingly, Martin's words buzzed in my ears and I started to set some limits.  We both had to be out on Bainbridge Island and I said I had some work to do and went to a coffee shop just so I wouldn't have to ride back with her.  I didn't actually have much work to do--I just wanted to not be around her wall of anger from her. If I hadn't given up on having any kind of relationship with her, I would have tried to make it better.  It was pretty clear she saw through my bullshit excuse and just attacked me; as she went from being passive aggressive to just being aggressive-aggressive, I realized how much I fear letting other people down.  But I need to sometimes.  She wanted all my emotional energy all of the time.  She would never stop taking, so I stopped giving.

I fear other people's anger. I really, really hate it when people lose their composure and even when I know it isn't about me, it is really hard to detach. If' I'm dating a guy and he yells at me, I will immediately burst into tears and then do whatever I can possibly think of to make him not angry.  And I assume it is me who has made him angry and I assume I can make it better. On some level, I realize that is hubris, but on another level, I feel this quite deeply.

Pleasing versus Submitting

I realize there's two parts of my personality that are similar, but quite different.  I like to please people--most people.  I bring my clients homemade brownies; I buy my family members things that remind me of them; I gave the woman who makes my coffee at Dunkin Donuts a $25 gift card this Christmas.  My first Dom said I was the most thoughtful person he'd ever known.  But that is really different from being submissive.  If a guy (like my first Dom, known on this blog as "the ex") mistakes my thoughtfulness for submissiveness and takes my thoughtfulness as his due as a Dom, I got really burnt out.  I don't know now to keep them clear.  But I do think it is important to figure that one out.

Another Fucking Opportunity for Growth

It was a really rough Christmas, but another fucking opportunity for growth (AFOG). 

I’m still not quite sure what happened, but the dinner after I arrived, my brother was busy with his 3-year-old and his 1-year-old.  He would drift in an out of the conversation and we would pay attention to the 3-year-old when the kid wanted attention, but we were also caching up a bit—I haven’t seen anyone since August.  I made a comment that I really liked the TSA-Precheck and suggested that my brother and sister-in-law get it because there kids would be covered too.  My dad asked me about some of his friends in Seattle.

Then my brother got SO angry at me.  He claimed I was "manipulating and dominating" the conversation so it was all about me.  He knows I care about politics and thought the comment about TSA was me bringing up politics again in an inappropriate time.

From my point of view, he was distracted by his kids and people haven’t seen me for months.  I don’t actually care about TSA.  (Police murdering black kids is my current political obsession.)  My dad did ask about some mutual friends and I answered, but if my brother had been fully engaged, we probably wouldn’t have gone there.  (In my opinion, my brother isn’t usually a very good host.  I tend to really like things like table napkins and water, and he never has them for company.  He usually drops the silverware in a pile in the middle, has a stack of bowls and we ladle out soup.)  We were working around the kids.

But what I think is worth blogging is how hard he laid into me.  There was a situation created by 7 people, but according to my brother, it was all my fault. 

Both my mom and dad stood up for me and basically said: “You were raised to think everything was Connie’s fault and it isn’t.”  My dad said he started therapy because he didn’t want to treat me that way anymore. That was nice.  I’m not used to feeling like anyone ever takes my side in anything. 

It makes me realize why I crave male approval so much because male disapproval was SO awful growing up.  Something would set my dad off then (or my brother now), that was really little, and he would just attack me.  I had to predict what he wanted because he wouldn’t say “hey—can you do this.”  My brother could have said “hey, I’m feeling left out.” But instead he said “Connie is manipulating and dominating.”

And I over-react.  They are just words.  But I had been in this really lovely space before this happened, for a couple of weeks.  I was feeling confident and like my heart was getting bigger.  Both my parents clearly thought I was in love with someone, which I’m not but it was nice to find that place just on my own.  Work has been a constant source of stress for years, and now it isn’t.  But I haven’t been able to get back there since my brother lit into me.  I’m not in a horrible space, but not in a joyous one either.  I’m SO tired of watching everything I do and I had sort of gotten away from that.  Now, I’m not fully answering people’s questions and trying to avoid eye contact with anyone when my brother is around.  Mostly, I’m singing to my one-year-old niece (very softly—wouldn’t want to appear to dominate things) and doing dishes.  I taught my nephew "Angels We Have Heard on High" and he liked the "gloria" part that I love.  My brother is very happy to have a conversation that is between him and my dad with the women folk off taking care of the dishes and kids.  I wouldn’t say, ouloud, that he is manipulating and dominating so everything is about him, but I sure do feel it.