Sense

My therapist and I have been talking about self care through the senses, as a sensory input. 

Why is that so amazing? 

Perhaps it’s the sensation of knowing that someone is actively aware, caring, and helping me build a world I wanna experience through my senses, when they have been so impeded upon. 

Ain’t that sweet? 

Future Love

To my future love in the beauty of polyamory, 

I think about you all the time. 

I think about you so much that I’ve decided to say fuck it. 

Here are all those love poems I carry on my heart for you always. 

I sometimes wonder if they are meant for many lovers, and perhaps they are. 

But I highly doubt that and I present these to you here, knowing that one day you will appreciate the growth of us humans in love with love before we knew it between us. 

It could make me weep. 

I just wanted to let you know that today, I stopped worrying what you will look like and I started worrying what you will feel like. 

I think I know, 

And I know you know. 

This (poem) is proof. 

Everything Soft and Sweet

CW: This post deals with sexual trauma, with mentions of flashbacks and memories, sexual frustration, mental health, and therapy. 

I’m in this part of therapy where everything just feels incredibly itchy. 

I can’t sit still, my chest heaves, and I feel like I’ve lost control of my breath sometimes. And my self awareness leads me to feel embarrassed that I’m showing physical symptoms of my discomfort. But damn it, I pay to get through my shit and learn to cope, so I sit there and let it happen. 

This means that something is drastically changing and rapidly. The pacing scares me but it’s only the fruits of all my labor paying off. 

I mourn and celebrate with my inner child. Mourning for the bodily discomfort in realizing that I’ve never known sexual safety. Celebration for the realizing and coming to understand sexual safety. 

There are all these little memories I do remember and then there’s this side plot of flashbacks developing and it scares the ever living piss out of me. My therapist says I get to decide how much I want to remember and I have more control over that than I maybe realize sometimes. And I don’t know what I want to remember, but it feels important to know what bullshit led me to being itchy in therapy. 

All this is going on and I have to exist. I have to exist in the world around me, with this chaos happening. 

“Hey! How are ya?”

“Just fine. Remembering some traumatic shit from my childhood lately and working on my sexual expression, hbu?”

Is there a way to best describe what having all the attraction in the world but not being able to express it feels like?

My therapist suggested I take sex off the table of my life for a time. I understand why she suggested this. It makes absolute sense. 

But I’m angry at the situation not being easier for me, and for the people responsible for making my sexual expression this difficult. I resent it. 

It’s not only the feeling of embarrassment, but just as soon as I feel embarrassed, I get pissed that I’m embarrassed. I am strong but this area of my life feels awfully weak, and for reasons I’m not always tangibly able to express in a moment’s notice. 

“I am attracted to you and would be interested in doing the do” is one of the most exhausting sentiments for me to both feel and express. Not because I don’t enjoy sex. It’s precisely because I do, and the process I have now unraveled where my attraction is neighbors with my trauma is chilling and of no peace. I’m not certain I know how to engage in sex without internal chaos, and it’s not even my fault, and the overwhelming feeling of futility is god awful. 

I hate the sense of confidence I have when I allow my attraction to flow because the trauma response that immediately follows doesn’t align and I feel like such a foolish imposter. 

“I promise, I meant what I said, but now it’s not here in the same way and it’s not because of you and I wish it wasn’t that way but please go out of your way to be safe to me.”

All my potential beauxs feel an arm’s distance away and that’s okay because I’m a romantic in need of connection first, but also ungodly frustrating because it’s not how I’d like it to be. It’s not how I feel internally and I know that. 

I used to think there was something seriously wrong with me. 

I used to think it was god punishing me for being gay and I used to think it was my life’s lot under misogynistic modesty/purity culture, but now I know it’s because I’ve been sexually traumatized. 

And that’s the harder reality to live with. 

How do I enable power where I feel powerful but just as soon feel powerless? It’s like a whisp in the wind. A hot breath fading in a millisecond. 

I know the answer - I’m paying for it - but the distance in what I know versus what I experience is nauseating. 

Do you know what it’s like to want to be able to express physical love but not be able to?

I am not entirely incapable and I am getting better every day. 

But goddamnit, I don’t know how to express how soul crushing it is to not have words for what I am going through right now. 

And I’m sick of the way it impedes on my expression of polyamory as well - this desire of abundance but the feeling of falling short in the giving. I know this is an unfair sentiment towards myself, but my hope is its’ unpacking will pull some weight out from under it. 

I could give a masterclass in consent though, and I think that’s sexy because safety is sexy, and I physically cannot accept anything less than crystal clear understanding of consent. 

I just wanna be able to be in love with people and say and do what I mean, when I mean it. 

And my body will catch up and my brain will slow down and I’ll find my way. I always do. 

But as for this moment in my healing, I will fight and wrestle with it. 

For now, in every way, everything soft and slow and sweet, soft and sweet. 

Maybe

Man, how funny it is to be back here, blog. 

I think I may be returning to you because you’re a source of that chaos a friend was referring me back to recently.

You’re a source for that uncertainty, that lament, that wandering, and that wondering, even that longing inside me. 

I miss certainty. 

I miss the certainty I made out of my personality these last few years. 

I’ve been so bitter, so hurt and healing, and so self righteous about my journey that I’ve forgotten to just lay down and rest into who I am. 

And it’s so damn funny to me -

I thought I’d never be returning to this place, this spiritual place, in my life to find any sense of meaning ever again. 

But here I am. It boggles my mind absolutely. 

I wish it weren’t so. 

But,

I sense a sort of wisdom in this uncertainty and my tossing away the key and the door and the frame and all of it has left me free in most ways but also so empty in other ways. 

Not only did I throw away the framework for life to me at that time, I threw away parts of myself I really dug into crafting, the parts I’ve been developing and in a roundabout away, working on in a worshipful way. I’ve given myself over to the practice of my feelings, and while those are so very important, I’ve drowned myself in them. Quite truthfully, I think I’ve been self harming in that drowning, forcing myself to feel the most. It’s partly been experiment in learning about myself and partly been self sabotaging not to allow myself space to breathe and pause, to notice, and only attach for as long as necessary. 

And in that way, I’ve also been relying on the ingrained sense of traditional femininity in being the most emotional I can be. 

It’s so odd the way these things dance about my feet like chained goblins. 

I’ve been desiring the most raw form of me because that’s what’s been expected of me and because I take expectation as a means to harm myself with. 

And maybe that’s not a fault to place anywhere in entirety. It’s just this monstrous way of being human this is chosen for us and that we choose. 

And for all the things I love about humanity, there is still so much I don’t understand. I’d like to and maybe I will, but maybe I won’t. 

And I think I’d like to live in that maybe, very much. 

On Community

 This is going to be a hefty topic for me. 

It’s plagued me my entire 20s. 

And I’ve tried not to drown in wondering if it’s just because I am in my 20s that I don’t feel I belong anywhere, and if it’s exclusively a symptom of my mental health or trauma, and if it’s my right to even indulge in this conversation. 

But it isn’t exclusive to any of those parts of me. 

It’s part and parcel of my fundamental understanding and approach to so-called community. (I am using so-called because I don’t like the word anymore, myself). 

I’ve spent all of these years of my life wondering if it’s me and other people like me, while simultaneously not wanting to get swept up in an endless existential dread the size and likes of a white man whose entitlement covers damn near the entire world at this point. 

There are many a self professed loner that would stew and spew on and on about the world being a steaming pile of shit and seeking to do nothing about it but spend time in the self drawn trenches, navel gazing and nauseously expecting the world to conform to them at every which way and turn. 

That isn’t the loner I’m talking about here. 

He’s had his movies made about him and is not welcome here. 

It isn’t just the world at-large as a sucking void that’s the problem. 

It’s the societal relationship - at least in America as I don’t wish to speak for other countries - to the idea of community. 

And perhaps, in that way, it’s the idea of community. I do believe this to be a bit of a stretch but I will leave it here to make my point.

That all of our conceptions of community are inherently hierarchical and diseased. 

Here in America, we compartmentalize every conception of every little thing. And when we’re tired of that ceaseless compartmentalization, we throw away the whole damn thing. The thing becomes something to break free from and in need of saving or salvaging, brick by brick, board by board. But what if the whole house in which we hold these compartmentalizations is rotten, so much so that the rebuilding or the throwing away doesn’t matter because it’s all happening in this rotten house? What if they need not a house but a human in which to exist? 

When I beat my head around the ideas of community, it is always around these two novel ideas: 

Are we a community of individuals?

Or are we individuals in a community? 

One presupposes that the idea of something bigger than ourselves and myself creates space for us/I to exist in and relate to each other because we have individual personalities that speak to the greater good, or even the greater human experience as defined by said group. 

The other presupposes that individuals create a space that is comprised wholly of them, as in a circus of mirrors where said individuals define and decide the course of the group for their own selfish purposes but branded in the context of selflessness because they are, well, in community with each other. 

Both are, to me, full of pretense. 

I will indulge a person that might use this language, but the ideas are pretentious to me. 

Both aim to create space for -certain- individuals and -certain- community, proximity, and likeness which ever way you slice it. 

And this dualistic framework that finds itself thinking it’s ever so clever flipping of words means the conception and whole foundation is so very different from the other is as American as it gets. 

They are one in the same, and anyone that works in dualistic frameworks is duping themselves and others with that duper’s delight of a smile or experiencing a manipulation that shreds my soul into a million tiny shards. I’m trying not to used exaggerated words here but I do find it truly disgusting. 

Community is a rotten word to me for this reason, while I recognize it’s a nice word for others. 

But I am sick of having to find each other there, always on the flip side of words that conceptualize themselves outside the actual human experience, as lived, daily, by us humans that I think know better than the pretense of theory. 

(We are, of course, the creators of theory but I posit that we do that for inhumane reasons that don’t serve us as humans. That’s not to say that theory holds absolutely no importance, but I would view this more as wrestling through our deepest understandings of humanity, not theorizing. I am not interested in theory outside of practice, theorizing humanity outside of practicing it.)

We loners are the ones that are jaded by this ridiculousness, and often bitter about the taste it leaves in our mouths. 

It’s a dichotomy that pats itself on the back for achieving nothing of value but for those it deems worthy of value. 

In community, you are deemed of value if you

1) provide a service 

2) show up regularly to social spaces that are labeled “community” or “purposeful” 

3) seek to change what you don’t like or shut up about it

4) if you aren’t going to shut up about that change, you must then o-r-g-a-n-i-z-e with other people that draw boundaries as their own community within community 

5) if you are going to organize, you must then sword fight and never ever complain about how futile the fight is or how draining of your energy it is because that is noble

6) once you’ve earned your nobility card, you now have the power to have power over others, even if you profess you don’t want it, and your use of that power will earn you value until you are discarded and new value desired of you

If you want nothing to do with this value assigning, if you want to exist in full human form, ugliness and all, if you want out of individuals and community and community and individuals and want deep in to the human experience as it is lived now and daily, you are a hypocrite, lazy, selfish, un-American, and worthless to society. You can hold no value in your human space existing with other humans. 

“Community!!!” “America!!!” “Us!!!” they’ll say. 

I must pause here and make goddamn clear that this is NOT to sympathize, again, with capitalistic power structures that ask us to ignore parts of our identities because we are all so -human-. We all hold precious, very precious parts of ourselves and the most marginalized of us deserve a fight, deserve change, deserve a better America, and deserve to be shown up for consistently. 

What I AM saying is this:

If we beat “community” and “individual” over our heads, we are going to get a concussion. We already have one. 

I speak for no one but myself and that is the whole entire point. 

I am white, I am able bodied, I am financially/class privileged, and I have many privileges that I cannot ignore in my responsibility to enact change for a better world. 

But I am not those things in the vacuum of community or individual or some combination thereof. 

I am those things in humanity. 

I can trace them through my humanity and you can trace them through yours, and that is all there is. 

There does not exist space for you and I that is above human, that I believe. 

For if there were, we might be able to shadow box with it and conceptualize around it as if it is an ever flowing well of some ethereal knowledge outside our human experience, like how we are forcing ourselves to exist right now. 

I know that privilege exists because I am human and I am capable of knowing what I know as a human. 

You are, too. 

And I must here pause again and again make damn sure that I am making CLEAR that taking away the work marginalized folks have created so that my white ass (as one part of my privilege) can understand my privilege is really fucking shitty. I am not aiming to do this here. I am aiming to say that other humans recognizing that humanity has some fucked up shit going on and that I am responsible for that and that it is irresponsible to forget my own humanity in caring about others humanity is all there is. Conceptualizing systems and even conceptualizing itself - not healthily existing together  - is the problem, the very core of the problem. 

I do believe in dreamers that dream in terms of humanity, but I do not believe in conceptualizers theorizing themselves out of human experience simply because we have a consciousness. 

And yes, we MUST show up for one another and yes, consistently. We must make no bones about doing what needs to be done. We must do it because we are humans. 

Not because we are community, not because I am saying all this and you are supposed to be inspired, not because I am, perhaps, “someone.”

If you are inspired or experience something positive, then you are. 

If you detest my words, then you do. 

And you will gaze at my words and others human experiences with a distant curiosity because we can only exist in the space of community, right? And in the context of social media and online etiquette? 

And we won’t be allowed to have human exchanges with each other, those heart to hearts, those moments where I feel real and you feel real because that is too intimate, too vulnerable a human experience? (Please do be very, very wary of those that seek to manipulate through words like these - they aren’t being the most human and they are conceptualizing around that navel gazing, nauseous duality of “needs met and needs thwarted so I will draw a false line where you aren’t allowed to question intention.” Its ugly and certainly skepticism and protecting your humanity are part of being human!)

I want collective experience with the loners, the people being people, faulty and all. The ones not falling for the battering hammer of community forcing its hand into our affairs, demanding power outside of humanity to drive our affairs. 

We can organize, sure, and perhaps we should. We must enact change. 

But I don’t believe in community anymore. 

I believe in collective, in acts of solidarity, in daily motions that I can recognize as the most real and the most human. 

I’m not interested in your (the objective your) fluff and your community that will, by design, always -and I mean always- leave people out that don’t want any part of community but of human experience. 

I hope all communities crumble into this and out of their toxicity, with no pretense as to the struggle they “endured” to get there over time and in painstaking increment. That is absurdly unfair to ask of anyone, individual or community. I am not interested in your spectacle you will make far too late, though I will be there when your awakening happens, and it deeply pains me that community gets to decide the very nature of being human, in disgusting dualistic fashion. There is nothing outside the human experience that humans need be concerned with for the good of humanity. We are already one and our return to understanding that, to manifesting that, to embodying that more deeply in our humanness and doing that together - THAT is what I am interested in. 

Hello

 Hello, old blog. 

And the cliche in addressing you in such way. 

I simultaneously hate you and love you. 

It’s hard for me to share space with you. 

You were so lonely and not getting the help you needed, but I force the space you need this time. 

It’s older me, sitting beside you. 

Hmph. There, you have to accept me because I am you and you are me. 

And it’s odd, the way I hate you. 

We’re in the same damn place these days.

You AND me. 

So many of the questions and longing you felt here you’re still feeling. 

And you wonder why that is. 

And you try to place blame. 

And some of it is warranted. 

And the world really needs to fucking heal still. 

It’s not just THAT community you talked about - it’s all of community. 

And you can’t fix it. 

And it feels like it’s slipping away from you, inch by inch. 

And you’re trying and trying not to lose yourself in the process. 

And you’re so strong and you’re so vocal - you do share your thoughts and feelings with human beings now - but you still don’t feel like you belong anywhere. 

And maybe it’s that you don’t, and you’re not meant to, at least not in the way the world warps itself to find meaning. 

Because you’ll make it and you’ll pave it, but only with the right people. 

And you’re not sure you’ll ever find those people, but I think - I think in some ways, you already have. 

You’re not perfectly aligned like the stars, and you’ll grow and outgrow some parts of pieces of each other but you’ll grow into each other, and that’s what matters. 

That’s community, that’s what you need. 

And maybe it isn’t localized - maybe you’re scattered and a little disjointed like stars falling but you’ll fall into each other. That’s what life has taught you on the long and harrowing journey so far, and it’s the truth you’re seeking and have. 

Hold on to it. 

Embrace it. 

Go with that. 

You’re no less spiritual than you were then but you’re not like you used to be. Not by a long shot. 

And you should be proud as hell of that, Martina. 

You should. 

You’re still that little weirdo that cares, and those words are for you. 

Sometimes When You Do Some Soul Searching, You Start Finding Your Soul

Have you ever read someone else's writing and been inspired to write for yourself? Just happened to me. Seems to happen a lot to me, but we should be careful to make patterns out of our life. That seems like good wisdom to me, person I heard that from.
I want to take this space to list off things I know and am figuring out about myself. I've been remember who I am and discovering further who I am and who I may not be. Here goes.

I like nerdy things. I think. I mean, sometimes I'm terrified that I'm just a hipster trying to enjoy nerdy things for some kind of publicity or something, but I think I really do enjoy them. It's hard because nerdy things used to be uncool and only certain people would really talk with you about them. Now it's like everyone gets a bite at being clever and intelligent...that was judgment nerds taught me to think. Unlearning that thought. But I really identify with superhero stuff, and think I always have. I've always felt the hero, and I can understand the pain and anguish and angst they feel (especially origins stuff). I love fantastical stories, too. If we're not going on a journey of self discovery somehow, then what's the point of your story? That's how I feel. I like books a lot. I wear glasses. I like to write. Am I really that nerdy? Oh gosh...yes? ...yes :)

I LOVE little kid things. Seriously, the cutest nonsensical things make me giggle. It's just so ridiculous that it's amazing. Like, I don't know if I can fully explain it or not, but I seriously just eat that stuff up. It's so fantastical and amazing, it destroys always being so serious and forces you into seeing the world a new way by immersing you in it and making you stop thinking so hard. You gotta laugh sometimes, and the kid stuff is where it's at, I'm telling ya. Also, kid things just tell the greatest stories and have the greatest capacity for simple morals and ethics. It's seriously just the best.

I like theory based psychological thrillers. The kinds built on "what if?" questions. I love manipulating reality around and seeing what other options there are for seeing things. Perception is key in my understanding and I love messing with nonsense thoughts (at least that's what some people call them...I'm not so sure they're so right).

I love movies. You can thank my sister for helping me see this. I used to think they were fun entertainment for when I needed it, but no. They're completely something more now. They're visual representations of life stories, documentaries, the thill of the journey, the motion and action we feel in situations, the life questions we ponder, the birthplace and perpetuation of many lies, the best and worst of life's comedy, relief, a new world, all the many things that I enjoy. That may be enough said right there.

I love Smallville. It's the only tv series I've ever been able to fully get into. It's superhero origins. BAM right there! It's seriously taught me a lot about love and the junk we can deal with. It's shown me some thoughts on life transitions and emotional development. It's shown me a lot, made me cry, made me really upset, made me disappointed, made me frustrated, made me really elated, made me feel many things. But it's mostly just been very, very cool and very, very awesome to me. Yay Smallville!

I love books, which I mentioned. I've always loved reading because it's a whole new world to explore, and that rules. But you don't have to physically go anywhere, which is probably the best part. You can sit in your room or house or anywhere and learn all about the world around you, other people's thoughts, and perhaps even cooler, enter into someone else's imagination. Maybe that sounds scary, but I assure you it's actually mega awesome rad things.

I like religion. I don't have all of life's answers figured out, but I enjoy hearing what others have to say about life and humanity. It's also really scary, too, cause people day some crazy things about it all and some people are afraid to think fairy tale happy joy bliss ecstasy positivity thoughts about it all. That kind of really scares me. I don't want to be that way.

I love my family. My God, this means so much in a million different ways that I may just have to save for a book later. Basically, I have my reasons for not wanting to, but boy, how I really do love them. With everything.

I LOVE romance. I'm a super romantic at heart, and I've learned to not hide that anymore. I love all the cheesy things that some girls get made fun of for, but I don't care. I have a big heart and I want to receive lots of love and give lots of love in grand gestures. I'm still figuring out my giving of big gestures because I've always been made fun of for that kind of stuff (when I talk about it hypothetically). But my heart is good and I love romance! So everyone else can just suck a big one, okay??? ...:)

I still like the idea of ministry. I loathe with every fiber of my being how it's typically done (even by those trying to be different), but I still like the idea of reaching out to people in love for love. I just want it as organic as it can be, so much so that maybe "ministry" won't be anything more than life. And not for some overly divine purpose either. Just to be happy with people. That's it, that's all I really want.

I like little kids. They remind me of what's important in life and I love being there for them. I feel awkward because I don't have a ton of "experience" doing that and I don't know all the things I probably should know about kids, but I like them a lot regardless. I hope to work for a non profit helping them when I finally get a career job.

I love Jesus. I think. I'm not sure what that means anymore, but I know He's never failed me, and maybe I've never really failed Him. If we're together, we're together for good. He's probably my Savior, but I don't exactly have that figured out anymore. He's God, I think. I like God, I know. I really like Him a lot, I do. I just have a ton of questions for Him.

I like the color green. I don't super know why, but I've always been most attracted to it. For a reason? I don't know anymore. Maybe our interests are meaningful only within out uniqueness.

I really like to write. It is so incredibly frustrating sometimes because the words just don't come out clear sometimes and I have other interests, but I really do love writing. It's hard because I want to be other people when I write sometimes. But I can't because I need to be me. I just want to be me already. God, words, come on! Get with me! Hahaha :)

I love smiling about my boyfriend. It seriously makes me the happiest girl EVER. When I smile about him, my whole world feels okay and alright and together suddenly again. My smile about him reflects my heart, even when I've forgotten it. My boyfriend is the most amazing person I've ever known, and it is an honor, a blessing, and something incredibly special to know him the way I know him. And I just want to keep getting to know him. He is...everything.

I'll end with Payton because you just can't beat that, I think. :)