Good Night and Good Luck

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

I want to talk about me. Indulge me for just a little while.

I have been thinking about where I want this blog to go. But first, I’d like to talk about where it started.

Bloody Laughter didn’t start here. It started, in point of fact, with an open diary I had back with my first kinky boyfriend, where I wrote him love notes and jumped whenever I realized someone else was reading. That blog, before I deleted it, was called Your Sadism Is Showing. When I started dating Maymay I decided I needed somewhere to store ideas my family couldn’t read, and I started a LiveJournal, titled Sweet Steel. (It was that LiveJournal, incidentally, that eventually allowed my family member to connect this blog to me and subsequently confront me over my chosen topics.)

Just as I like to think that in his time with me May’s understanding and appreciation of art, literature and fashion have matured, I know that in my time with him my technical capabilities and opinions have matured. Hence, Livejournal moved to Blogger and eventually to my own site with Wordpress, newly titled A Place To Draw Blood Laughing. I have in the past year hesitated over my choice of name, blunt and potentially disturbing as it is, but I kept it because I think it is poetic, and accurate.

At first blush, this was just a space I’d made where I could talk about how I have sex, and be sure (wrongfully sure, admittedly) that my nearest and dearest were not reading, or reading only with invitation and sympathy. It’s a theme here that I over analyze, that I am extremely body-conscious, that I am sensually driven and sex-positive and in some ways deeply strange. So it made sense to write about my strangeness, and to make a place for the dark parts of me to breathe.

And then there was a merry rush in the form of a golden summer of kink, of working on Floating World and digging out my strong opinions in words for the first time. Then there was the death-defying tailspin of being attacked over what I’ve said in this space, and my somewhat pathetic attempts to crawl my way out of the wreckage.

I limped along, for a while. I moved to Australia. I widened my scope.

I said when I started this blog that I would never apologize to myself if I didn’t want to update it. That was my little way of being clever, keeping myself free of the thing. In the end, though, that’s a stupid plan for a blog. Blogs should update. It is unfair of me to not update and still call this thing a blog, and want to make it thrive.

Maybe you have seen where this is going. Maybe you knew months ago, as I knew. As I’ve said before, I make decisions quickly and then come around to them slowly. The truth is I knew in the middle of last year that I would lay this blog to rest.

This is the end. A Place To Draw Blood Laughing is now closed.

I’ll give you two of my reasons. The first is creative.

At the height of this blog I was writing two posts a day and chronicling my sex life with lust and eager glee. I was also not writing anything but blog posts. My stories stagnated, my fiction trailed off and was eventually nothing. It seems I do not have the focus and energy to write here and also maintain my other creative pursuits.

As I’ve mentioned, I’m writing a manuscript, a long and meaty thing. In doing so, I have become jealous of my own words. I don’t want them here. I want them there, in the pages that are growing.

I pour letters out in the shape of sex, of Maymay’s hips and the wispy curls on his soft neck, of hot mornings alone in my bed with my hand between my thighs, of a blond Australian man who moves my hand to his throat when he comes and smiles in his own aftermath.

I pour them out and want to keep them for the book, this thing I’m trying to write that keeps growing into my creative spaces when I’ve looked the other way, so all of my drawings turn up pornography and all on my blog posts are sucked clean-dry.

The reality is I can’t figure out how to write about sex and blog about sex at the same time. I want to write this book more than I want to blog my current adventures; I want it to be finished so badly, the thought makes my chest ache.

The second reason I’m ending my time here is because I’d like to learn to speak for myself, openly, with my real name and my real voice.

I wrote once:

I honestly believe that being able to write what I want about my life and my sexuality is more important to me than the possibility that I may never teach children. I may never become powerful within a large company. I will definitely never run for public office…

A part of it is the belief, the naive, wide-eyed, furious, childish insistence that my life is my own, my body is my own, and I should always be able to speak my mind.

I can only be hurt by the words I write if those words represent a secret that is for some reason damaging. In many ways, being out protects me. Being unashamed, vocal and revealing can only limit the weapons available against me.

I have become increasingly skeptical of anonymity, or pseudo-anonymity, in my case. I’m certainly not saying we all need step from the shadows and reveal ourselves. I think our identities within our community are always our own, to do with as we like. But for me, keeping up the anonymous show seems increasingly pointless.

Most of the reasons I had to keep this journal separated from my real name vanished the day I sat down with my family member over Thanksgiving weekend and found my life suddenly ripped in tiny shreds. I clung stubbornly to the other reasons for a little while; the future jobs, the rest of the family, the possible consequences, the blinding, sneaky fear.

I find it very unfortunate and a little shameful that I feel the want to censor myself more fully now than I did when this blog began. Perhaps you could say that I’ve learned, or grown. You could say I’ve become more frightened, which is also true.

But in a wider sense, the real take-away is that my goals have changed. I am not content to speak from a pseudonym any longer. I have, in fact, soured radically upon the concept of not claiming my own ideas. But I recognize that speaking from my real name and voice will require a different perspective, and will have a different audience.

I’m sick of being afraid. I don’t want it any more. When it comes to emotional turmoil, I only really know how to bury things or confront them head on. I’m not sure which I’m doing right now.

The reality is that this is not an anonymous blog. Anyone with half a brain can find out who I am from here; Twitter was the last step that fell in place and clinched it. Any pretense we all may have made to my anonymity has been out of mutual respect and politeness. The sex community builds itself upon these fragile understandings, thin as sugar sticks. You support me, I support you. You trust me. I trust you.

I am out, but not unified. I’ve decided I’d like to feel unified, for once. I’d like to have a space on the web that can contain all of myself. Right now I have two sites and neither of them do what I what them to do. Both are limited, this site by its very narrow scope and my professional & personal site by its attempt to be clean. I would like a site that can be a little naughty, be professional, host my writing and my job hunt alongside my queer politics and community work. I don’t work well when I’m not fully integrated.

I’ve decided that I’d like to speak as myself, and that I can no longer accept the fragile, imagined protection of using other names and putting on a great pretending show. I am not a conjurer in that way. I am forthright, and know no other way to be.

My name is Sara.

I’d like to thank you for reading me as Eileen these past two years. I don’t mind if you keep calling me that; I answer to it now anyway.

I’ve found amazing support, dear friends and ever-expanding opportunities through this blog and the queer and kink scenes. I’m not leaving. I’m going to stay open, stay active, and keep writing. I’m going to make new spaces, run new events, spread new ideas. Perhaps I will return in a few years to this same ground, swept clean.

For those of you interested in the nitty gritty: the archives will remain active. I will continue to accept and respond to password requests. I may try to find a mental space that allows me to open those posts again; I’m not sure yet. The site may be slightly rearranged, but the content will not change dramatically, or be erased. The BloodyLaughter Twitter account will be suspended, as I’ve switched to SaraEileen.

In the meantime, you are invited to visit my personal site, where in the tradition of most blogs I am writing my way through being young, confused, and complicated. SaraEileen.com is a somewhat different website; it connects to my resume. It has my real name. It is not just about this part of my life, but also about writing, job-hunting, creativity and business. It will be a different blog, and I will not be offended if it doesn’t strike your fancy. Of course, I would love to see you there. As I said, I trust you.

It seems silly to just say thank you, but I will anyway.

Thank you for helping me take the big issues seriously and the little ones lightly.

Thank you for keeping me truthful, growing and proud in return for my words and affection.

It’s been raucous and wild. These things will continue. I’ll be seeing you, good people. I’m always around.

With love,
Sara

Labels: Filed in Announcements, Choice, Contentment, Emotional Orgasms, Future, Greetings, Out and Proud, Past, Politics, Power, Pride, Psychology, Questions, Trust, Writing | Comments (19)

19. Feather Sink

Saturday, January 3, 2009

Went out to a friend’s for dinner last night, and we just got home. My friend is a chronic hostess; I don’t think I’ve been fed so well in months. May and I crashed out on a spare bed in her place for the night, and as I hit the pillow I thought to myself: Oh god, I forgot about real matresses.

When we moved here we did  not buy a mattress. We were budgeting, and we didn’t know how long we’d stay, so we bought a foam pad, thin, soft, and malleable. We figured we could always replace it in the future.

Ten months later, our foam pad has dips carved where our bodies rest in the night, and we still have not replaced it. It is obvious now that we will not. We will only be here two more months; two months and three days, in fact.

Last night I sunk into this feather nest of pale green cotton, and May and I slept like dead and drunken logs. It felt amazing to sleep that way again. It makes it harder to think of sleeping on our foam for the next two months, and then the inevitable bumps of couch surfing and floors and whirlwind unsettlement that await us before we can finally start building our home again. I want to do it right this time. I want to find a place I can paint and push and pull and make just ours, just right. I have not had a chance to do that, yet.

Labels: Filed in Anecdotes, Body, Drabble, Future, Maymay, San Francisco, Sydney, plans | Comments (0)

16. Finding the Balance

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Had a comment on my last post. The post sort of jumped the track of my wandering narrative. The question was, how do Maymay and I strike a healthy balance in our relationship? 

We pay attention, and we talk a lot. We identify issues and do the work we think is best to solve them. And really, I think that’s it.

There is an idea that having a healthy relationship depends, in some way, upon finding the “right person,” but I’m not sure that’s true. I have had many healthy relationships in the past, and have many at the moment. I have even had relationships end in healthy ways. In every case, they were the right person for me at that time, for whatever it was we were doing.

And then, every relationship I’ve ever been in that was hurtful or unhealthy had issues stemming from problems in communication. Perhaps that’s why I’m so obsessed. And, perhaps that’s why I’m so neurotic, and why the self-awareness tag in this blog keeps growing.

And as for whether Maymay is the “right” person for me, right now, he is. And he continues to be, in a way I’ve never seen before. We are suited to each other in the long term, which is why we’re pushing four years together and we’re still talking, every single day.

Labels: Filed in Drabble, Future, Love, Maymay, Reality, Relationship, Self-Awareness, Weird Wiring | Comments (4)

14. Moving Plans

Sunday, December 28, 2008

Like the last time we moved around the world, I realise now that we haven’t actually communicated our plan for the next few months to the world. So here it is.

We’re leaving Sydney in early March. We will return to New York, for a while. Long enough to see our friends, our families. Long enough to launch Kink for All. Long enough to arrange the scattered pieces of our lives. Hopefully long enough to get Maymay kidnapped, captured and througly played out.

Why are we leaving here, you ask? It’s time. We’ve been in Sydney long enough to know we won’t be making a home here at this point in our lives. The city’s not quite right for us, right now. (This makes me feel like Goldilocks; too hot, to cold, just right. Too big, too small, just right.)

After some weeks in New York, though, we’re moving on. I know there is some hope that we would once again be residents of NYC, but it isn’t time, just yet. So where are we going?

San Francisco.

Why?

Isn’t it obvious?

Labels: Filed in Announcements, Drabble, Future, Maymay, New York, Past, San Francisco, Sydney | Comments (8)

Here, Now, This

Friday, December 5, 2008
I’ve been thinking recently about the defining questions in my life. I came about this backwards; I was confused and vaguely melancholy for a very long time, pulled every which-way like a glob of sticky taffy. I kept asking myself what I wanted, and harping on myself for not being able to answer the question.

For one thing, I have not yet sorted what I want to be from what I want to have. Everything is all mixed up, and in the meantime I look in the mirror and feel as though my skin is quicksilver and my eyes are changing color.

I want to use power tools and cook scones, and date women, and date men, and date everyone in between. I want to be a woman who wears suits and a boy who wears skirts. I want to start a PR business, and live on a sailboat, and bike across the country, and be a fashion designer, and run conferences the right way ’round. I want to be a country singer, and a travel writer, and a sex god. I want to make the world better, and I want to make the world work. I want high, rounded breasts like doves hung from my collarbones, and I want a girl with long hair to go exploring over. I want shoulders and arms like a man – like my first kinky boyfriend’s shoulders, triangular and etched in the hard flesh of military life – and I want a man to fuck who has those shoulders, and also long hair, and also the thick softness of a good life tucked into the curve of his swelling hips, ass in the air. I want people who love to cry for me, and with me. I want everything. I want to know who I am. 
The thing is, the question is wrong. It is too simplistic for subtlety of planning, and to big for specific action. It is the question of a girl nestled in grass looking at stars; I am not that girl, right now.
The questions I should be asking myself are cleaner, crystallised. 
Questions like these:
Do I want to integrate my queer identity with my professional career? How would I do that? What would it feel like? How would it hurt me, and how would it help me?
How should I manage my personal brand? How much energy should I invest into it, and is it worth investing in when split into two halves? Right now it is spinning and wobbling like a cloven coconut, and how do I put it back together without spilling all the juice out?
Should I keep up with my art? Should I focus on developing my design skills? Should I take up photography again, and does that mean I should buy a proper camera? Is oil painting worth my time; is any non-digital medium going to satisfy me?
What kind of work do I want to be doing? Is writing enough for me, or should I be looking into how to integrate my writing with activism, education, organization and social media? How do I do that?
How much of my activism is based upon my location and the people around me? Are the things I want still the same when I am by myself, alone?
Which of the hundreds of thousands of projects I conceptualise are worth developing? Should I be drawing comics, drafting book ideas, building websites?
What do I want to say to other people, and what is the best way to say it?
Where am I strongest?
These are better questions. I don’t have the answers, but these are my current thoughts. This is where I am, today.
Labels: Filed in Age, Art, Choice, Future, Geek, Out, Out and Proud, Past, Pride, Psychology, Queer, Questions, Self-Awareness, Writing, plans | Comments (6)

The Components Of A Lifestyle

Saturday, August 16, 2008

Today I want to talk about lifestyle.

I am having some trouble sorting out changes in my perspective upon the world, and myself. And my New York friends, the lot of them, are trouping off to Floating World this weekend, an instance that has produced a welter of nostalgia as I reflect on the truly marvelous experiences of last year.

I am certainly not cut off from the kinky community. Sydney’s scene continues on around me. My internet connection continues unabated. But as I mentioned in my last post, a shared sexuality does not my community make.

So when we get right down to the nitty gritty, the reality is that I am isolated now that I’ve left New York City. I’m isolated from my kinky friends and my favorite spaces and my comfort zones.

My reaction to this is akin to exhaustion. I ask myself how much effort I want to spend on building a life here in Sydney? Aren’t I just going to pick up and move again? I had never envisioned our move here as being long term, and I know how quickly a year or two can pass. But “in an hour, there are many days.” I have great swaths of time I try to fill with work. I’m writing a novel. I could kick myself for being so cliche.

(As a side note, I have been stalwartly resisting the impulse to turn this into a blog about teaching, understanding, and perfecting one’s writing. I don’t think my readers would appreciate the switch. “What is all this nonsense on teaching styles, Eileen? Remember the kinky sex we come here for? Come on, kinky sex!”)

As a result of this general ennui, my kinky identity has been going through something of a hibernation. I can envision the kinky part of myself, curled adorably in a large fluffy blanket somewhere warm, sucking her thumb and cradling a singletail to her chest. I haven’t stopped having sex, I haven’t stopped thinking about sex in masturbatory ways. But I have stopped thinking about sex in community ways, about the connections in, and advantages of, communicating with others like me.

So, seeing this disconnect in my identity coincide with my withdrawal from public spaces, I ask: How much of my kinky identity is based not around what I do in the bedroom, but what I write and say and do in public?

I don’t actually know the answer to that question. Do you?

The kinky community consistently picks words to push back against. We’re cranky like that. Among the list that garners resistance is the word “lifestyle.”

But I don’t buy into that particular resistance. I like the word lifestyle, specifically because it implies that being kinky is not just a matter of freaks in their bedrooms. Being kinky crosses those boundaries; I am kinky all the time. My sexuality is a part of my lifestyle, and affects the decisions I make in multiple contexts, not just when I’m flipping through my porn stash looking for something juicy.

In my observations, one of the best ways in which queer communities have gained acceptance is the acknowledgment of queer identities as being connected to lifestyles. Having gay neighborhoods, gay bars, gay-friendly merchants, gay-friendly medical centers. Acceptance trickles down, slowly but surely, as we begin to insist that we can’t just leave our sexualities at the bedroom door.

So how do I maintain that lifestyle in a healthy way now that I’ve moved away from the community that supported it? And more specifically, how do I do that without spending four hours of my life every day surfing blogs?

Labels: Filed in Floating World, Friends, Future, LGBT, New York, Scene, Self-Awareness, Sydney | Comments (4)

The Price Of Entry

Thursday, July 31, 2008

Since moving to Sydney, my relationship with the public scene has drastically changed. On the one hand, because the scene I’m finding in Sydney is drastically different to the scene I know in New York. And on the other, because the things I want from the scene are now different than they were six years ago, or one year ago, or six months ago.

Let me break one factor of this change down. Hopefully with some delicacy. I want to talk about money.

Even though I should know it by now, it consistently shocks me how expensive it is to be kinky. Money is one way in which much of the public scene is privileged; there is literally a bar to entry open to a selected few. (Not to mention all the other ways in which much of the scene caters to a particular privilege: age, time, location, race, gender, orientation, able-bodied, to name a few. With a nexus of overlying, unspoken requirements, it’s no wonder the public scene is comparatively tiny.)

Now, I’ve come to realize that the Australian relationship with money as I currently see it is a little different than I’m used to. Namely, they spend more on their pleasures. It’s not just that Sydney is an expensive city, especially with food prices skyrocketed. NYC is also an expensive city; I’m used to this.

Rather, it seems a regular occurrence for the people I hang out with to drop $100 on alcohol in a single night. A weeknight. On a weekend? An American girl I met the other day told me, in hushed tones, that an Australian guy she knows spent $600 last Saturday, between clubs, cabs, and drinks. We stared at each other with our mouths open. $600 is my rent for a month.

So it doesn’t seem like a good enough reason, in this culture, for me to say that something is simply too expensive.

I have spent a lot of money on the weapons and gear of my sexuality of choice. I have spent a lot of money on events like Floating World and Black Rose. Thousands of dollars. Thousands of dollars that I, and others in my economic situation, cannot technically count as disposable income. And as half of a couple who travel together and split our expenses, for every dollar I spend, Maymay spends one too.

If we shall speak very technically, it is not too expensive for me to spend $40 to go to a play party. I do have $40 in my bank account, and it could potentially go toward such a thing. So let me be a little more honest.

Unfortunately for the good people I’ve met here in the scene, some of whom host simply gorgeous parties, I have a hard time getting myself out and putting down cash at the door. This, I should clarify, is not through the fault of their parties. This is because, as I mentioned, the things I want from the scene have changed:

Where I used to consider the possibility of pick-up play, I now play only with established partners and long-term friends.

Where I used to feed from the energy in kinky spaces, I now feel awkward and exposed.

Where I used to be willing to manage the social minefield of not knowing anyone on the room, I now feel more comfortable around at least a few people I’m close to.

And where I used to be able to make friends with people solely upon the common ground of shared sexualities, I now find myself unable to do so. This has unfortunately knocked munches off my list, as well as parties.

So the events are not at fault. But the events are no longer right for me. And the Sydney scene appears to be structured in such a way that these kinds of events are the first point of entry.

So when I say that something is too expensive, I am being a little unfair. What I should say is that I’m not, at this point in my life, willing to pay an entry fee in order to be exposed to a number of kinky people with whom I have a slight chance of becoming friends. Because that’s what these parties have become for me; the vapor of a possibility that one of the other attendees might be someone I want to make friends with.

In the end, having complementary sexualities has almost no value for me in forging new friendships. It comes below a laundry list of other factors that must first align: our humor, our interests, our intellectual inquiries, our attitudes toward society and life and ourselves.

Complementary sexualities become a real factor in maintaining a relationship once sex itself becomes a factor of that relationship. To say that I am more likely to find friends among the kinky is similar to saying that if I were hetero, I would be more likely to find friends among men. Largely illogical, consistently untrue.

I have been reassessing the return on my investments, so to speak. Unfortunately, if I go to a play party that does not yield me any kind of good feeling, friendship, or conversation, I don’t just shrug it off. I get upset at myself, a little depressed. And where I get a little upset, Maymay becomes angrily vicious and bitter. It is not uncommon for us to leave play parties that are unsuccessful (by our standards), go home, fight, and end up miserable and crying. So in many ways, an entry fee is not just an entry fee; it’s a gamble.

And as what I’m looking for diverges further and further from what play parties are designed to deliver, the gamble becomes increasingly bad.

Labels: Filed in Choice, Friends, Future, Money, New York, Out, Past, Psychology, Scene, Self-Awareness, Sex, Sydney, [Blank]isms | Comments (15)

31. Presentation Report

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

I should mention the knife play workshop I did this weekend. May and Dee have assured me that it went well. My initial reaction was that it was terrible, but after I managed to calm down and think about that for a little while, I realized I was being dramatic and worrisome. It was a solid presentation. It could have gone better, but it was by no means terrible.

It’s very difficult to recall a presentation once it’s gone from our heads into the ether of collective consciousness. It’s a situation a little like the worst parts of constructive criticism combined: an incredibly tendency toward negative feedback, and absolutely no chance to re-draft. It’s over, it’s done. I’m not satisfied with the outcome, and I have to go off and live with that obsessive perfectionist griping.

I think the makings of a stellar presentation are somewhere in the work I did this weekend, but I didn’t manage to access that this Saturday. I delivered something solid, decent, and raw. Had I been walking into Conversio Virium or a Floating World class, a place I felt comfortable and confident, maybe I could have bridged that gap and really made an excellent show of things.

Unfortunately, I don’t feel comfortable here in the Sydney scene at the moment. For many reasons, most of which are my own: that kink is taking a backseat to my career jumpstarting, that May and I have become increasingly private in our play, that we are focusing on each other almost exclusively. That I still, still, still feel awful and off-balance when I meet new people, that I still feel socially like an actress playing a role that doesn’t fit quite right. That I am lonely. That I miss the community I know and the friends I’m entwined with, and the scene here sometimes makes that worse instead of better. And that I’m having to fight the battles I thought I’d finished long ago, all over again.

I hate going backward in my life. In every other way, this move has been a great leap forward. My career is stronger, my relationship is better, my psyche is thriving. But in social spaces, and especially in scene spaces, I feel like I’ve been knocked back ten steps.

And more frustrating than the feeling of being knocked back is the logical part of my brain that just keeps on asking: Why do I care? Why should I?

Labels: Filed in Drabble, Friends, Future, Knives, Sydney | Comments (2)

27. Making Passes

Saturday, July 5, 2008

Today, after a long waiting period, I got new glasses. I usually wear contact lenses, but glasses are brilliant things to keep around for all those little moments when sight is immediately necessary. For example, if one were to roll out of bed at 4:38 am to investigate an odd noise of breaking glass. I would want to be able to see past my two-foot-fishbowl if such an unlikely thing occurred.

I stood in the optometrist yesterday with two different frames in my hands. One pair was slender, black, square lenses. Very simple. Very sophisticated. The others were thick and shaped on the sides with sleek silver lines over matte black metal. Very modern. Very bold.

I stood there for fifteen minutes looking at the two damn frames, realizing that they curiously represented one of the constant decisions I make when representing myself. I bounce continually between portraying myself as a mature, clean-cut and put-together young intellectual, and a quirky young artist with strange taste and bold decisions. I swing between blazers and denim, plastic and pearls.

Fuck it, I thought to myself. I put the silver and black frames on the counter and clicked my card down. I am only young enough to do this once.

And that’s true. I am only young enough to wear these glasses once. I am only young enough to shave my head and dye my hair blue once. I am only young enough to dress like a schoolboy once. I am only young enough to wear my heart on my sleeve once.

And if I work on it enough, I’ll be young enough once to do whatever I want to, for as long as I want.

Labels: Filed in Drabble, Future, Pride, Psychology | Comments (4)

Fin

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

For Christmas this year I was given a Border’s gift card. The thought behind the card was that I would use it to purchase an Australian travel guide. I already have an Australian travel guide. Instead, I went home with the newest PostSecret book, A Lifetime Of Secrets. This remarkable art project asks people to send in anonymous postcards with their secrets on them. I find it enormously touching, and often poignantly sad.

I leafed through the pages of the book on the subway, headed home with Maymay on New Year’s Eve. On the lower right-hand corner of one page, written in blue ink above a snapshot of a couple clapping, were the words I miss when you were just proud of me.

I started sobbing right there on the subway. I had to laugh at myself, I felt so foolish.

I spent eight days visiting family members during the Christmas holidays. I had enormous trouble organizing my thoughts while I was there. Much of my time with my family was nourishing, and content. I enjoyed Christmas. I ate cinnamon rolls and watched my cat pounce on wrapping paper, high on catnip.

I spent some time alone with the family member I shared that painful conversation with back at Thanksgiving. Seeing them was both relieving and difficult.

We did not have the beautiful, moving conversation one might have thought we’d have. I was not expecting us to. There’s a part of me that is amazed we talked at all. We sat in a crowded lunchroom over chili and hot chocolate, and built a small, sparse bridge of words.

“I’ve put passwords on my blog,” I offered, uncomfortably.

“That’s good, I suppose,” they answered. “I know you’ve been writing, but I haven’t read it.”

I wasn’t sure what to think of that. I turned a spoonful of chili over, contemplating. Eventually I answered. “You don’t have to read what I write, you know.”

“I know that,” they said. “But I’m always going to want to read what you write. You’re a part of me, what you do is going to last.” They paused a moment. “Your dust is going to be my dust too.”

I smiled at that.

“It was very painful for me, saying those things to you,” they said.

I teared up a little. “I know it was. I wrote about that.”

“This isn’t a good place to talk about it,” they said.

“I know,” I answered.

Later we drove home together. I watched the trees meld together in blurred shapes as we passed.

I drew a helpless gesture in the air with my hands. “I don’t know if you want to talk about . . . all this, if you want to learn about it or have me explain things to you.”

“I don’t think . . . I’m never going to think that violence is okay,” they answered. “I told you what I think, and I know you’ll do what you want.” They paused, staring at the road ahead. “I’m trying to let you go,” they said.

I thought about that for a little while.

Finally they spoke again. “Is there anything you really want to say?”

I turned the question over in my head. Was there anything I really wanted to say to them? About violence, or kink, or being an adult? About decision making, about work and energy and dedication? About criticism, constructive or otherwise? About Maymay, about how much I love him and how good he is for me?

I’m trying to let you go.

“I really think you could have handled the situation better,” I said at last.

“Maybe,” they answered.

We drove on, for a little while, in silence. Eventually I fell asleep with my cheek on the window.

Is that it?

I don’t know.

I think I’ll always disappoint my family in ways, and there will always be things we just don’t talk about. I think I will always live, as I have always lived, with this undercurrent of criticism and distance, and love.

I think I’ll relish the day I can see in the distance, the day I make decisions without my family.

I think that right now, just in this moment, that’s okay. I think that it will still hurt. I will cry on subway cars sometimes, and then occasionally, and then, hopefully, not at all.

Like I have been every other time my life was broken, in the end I will be okay.

Have I brought this painful span of words and weeks to an end?

Perhaps I have. I don’t know.

I do know that for the first time in weeks, I want to write again.

Labels: Filed in Attacked, Choice, Contentment, Emotional Orgasms, Future, Out, Pain, Past, Psychology, Self-Awareness, Vulnerability | Comments (7)