Sex

Growing up I held onto the secret regarding being molested by my step-father because I believed John would kill my Mother if I did not.  He dragged me by my hair and showed me the little vials at the top of the medicine cabinet.  “See these?  I can kill her anytime.  I can kill her and no one will know I did it.  I am a doctor.  I know how.”  I believed him, and although I toyed with telling and letting her die, in the end I could not.  So, I kept my mouth shut and the secret buried until I was seventeen.  I held on in the face of everything, and I swore that when I grew up nothing like this would ever happen again.  If someone tried to rape me, they would have to kill me first.

I did not know that some promises–even the deepest ones of all–cannot always be kept.

When I first began to talk about being molested, I would say, “He touched me.”  I never used the “R” word–rape-to describe it.  In fact, I would secretly breathe a sigh of relief that he never had vaginal sex with me.  I would whisper to myself, “At least I was not raped.”  As a Junior at Wheaton College, I went to a meeting of “Christians For Biblical Equality,” where a woman spoke about sexual assault.  She described sexual assault–the real term for rape–as being whenever someone forcibly penetrates another, whether this be by penis, hand, bottle, stick, etc.  As she spoke, a little animated movie began in my head of this dark blackness–all in deep tones of gray–with a motion of a hand in-and-out, in-and-out.  It played over and over to the point I could no longer hear a word she said.  I could make that movie today or draw it for you–it remains so vivid.  This image thrust me into counseling within the week, which then led to a three week stint in a women’s mental health unit the following February.  Once the movie began to play, the truth did as well.  I became flooded with memories of being molested daily at home for five years.  All the images I pushed away in my fierce determination to survive rose up and spilled out like hot lava.  A purge began.  I had been sexually assaulted.  However, the “R” word hung in the air like a suspended universe waiting to fall or explode.  I just could not let the word fall upon me.

I still try to only say that I had been sexually assaulted or molested.  I tell people by saying, “This is not a secret…I was molested as a child.”  I just avoid the “R” word in its many manifestations.  I avoid talking about it…personally…seeing movies where there is a rape…listening to stories about rape…the news about someone being raped.  I try to keep the “R” word out of my life all together.  At one point I did try to let it sit on my tongue.  I leaned up against the word while going to a Rape Survivor Group circa 1992.  I just never could own it as a word to describe me or what happened to me.  I left the group–the women in it were too depressing–and for the most part try to keep anyone who has been molested or raped out of my inner circle.  I never want it to be the point of connection, for rape is not life-giving or hopeful.

I tend not to think too much about the particulars of what happened any longer–the movie does not play.  I dealt with the actual events a long time ago.  In fact, when I was in the women’s mental health unit, I can remember thinking about how the easy task was to deal with the rock thrown in the water–the molestation itself.  The hard work was going to be all those ripple currents of not what John did, but instead what I do to myself as a result.  I feel like I have spent the last fifteen years of my life chasing those down one-by-one and healing them as best as I can.  I keep at it because I want to be strong and healthy.  I keep at it because I do not want being molested to be the centerpiece of my life–I want redemption to be front and center.  Ultimately, I do not want that rock to fuck up not only the past but the future as well.  I do have deep moments of fragility, and in those moments I fear the rock is all there is.  I sink low some moments, terrified that “John won” and got all the good of me and the good possibilities of my life.  Just some…not all, and definitely not most.  But some.

Part of why I avoid any stories about rape is I do not want my own emotional dial to be affected.  I possess my push-buttons, just like anyone else, so keeping rape off of my radar screen keeps me focused on the living in the present, even as I am healing from the past.  I try, but I do not always succeed at this avoidance.  Most times I weather the conversation or topic well, but every now and again my wires become tripped and alarm rings though me.  When this happens, I know something still needs to be dealt with from the deep well of pain and loss in my life.  Case in point: While hitting the elliptical at my trainer’s, I was going through the channels.  I caught a clip of women talking on Oprah about rape in marriage.  I tend not to watch Oprah any longer, but I found myself mesmerized by this one story.  The “expert” on the show talked about how “no” means no–even in a relationship.  I was caught off guard, even as I know that to be true.  I preach it to my nieces.  I will emphatically say it to anyone listening.  However there was one night a couple of years ago where I pretended to forget this truth all together because the actual truth was excruciatingly painful.

The story is simple: I was making out naked with a boy, whom at the time was a new love interest.  This was probably our third or fourth date, and most definitely the first time we had been naked.  No sex…just kissing and cuddling after a great massage.  We talked about not having sex–I was clear I was not ready to sleep with him.  He agreed.  So there we are, in the first throes of attraction, lust and friendship, and all of a sudden I feel this sharp pain.  I thought I hurt my back.*  We shifted positions a bit.  Then it happened again and he said, “Oops.  I’m sorry.”  I repeated that I was not ready to have sex.  He repeated to enter me without my permission.  (I can still see the smirk on his face.)

I did not leave.  I did not argue.  I did not protest.  I just curled up in a ball crying softly while he drifted off to sleep.  About two hours later I woke him up.  I told him, “I did not want to have sex yet, but that cannot be our first time.  Please make love to me.  Make whatever that was go away.”  He did; it did not.  I tried to bury it to the point of never telling a soul.  And then I found myself on that damned elliptical with all my buttons pushed stopping to try and catch my breath that was knocked out of me with those simple true words: “no” means no.

I look back now and see how I needed to get up and get out of there.  I see now that I stayed with him for a long time after that–five months actually–needing him to love me because if he loved me then what happened would not have happened.  I stayed even when I knew he we did not share the same value regarding integrity.  I stayed despite the fact we were so different.  I stayed because I thought he was the best guy I ever dated.  I stayed because of all the other beautiful things I saw him to be, which is not dissimilar from John who was an amazing doctor and a pedophile.  I stayed even as I saw the deep rage within him and his unwillingness to deal with his own demons.  I kept trying to reinvent that moment right up until the moment he left me and left me devastated.   Lastly, I see how I held onto my rage at him leaving me because there was this part of me that could not understand how he could leave me after I stayed even after what he did.  He owed me.  He owed me his love and devotion–yet of what value were either?

(The truth can be so disjointed and tragic when we begin to finally tell it to ourselves.)

I know what happened with him happened because of those places in me still broken from John.  Obi Wan (therapist of all therapists) has really worked with me to understand how we are innately drawn to those who will hurt us in the most familiar of ways.  So terribly sad to think I somehow chose this little power play because deep inside it was known and safe.  (Safe in the way the devil you know is better than the possible devil you don’t.)  I realize now my part in all of this–especially in why I stayed long past the point I needed to leave.  But none of my own responsibility takes away from what happened that night, and the promise I made myself that was broken.  None of it takes away from what he did, which was to violate me and my stated desires.  None of it takes away from the fact that he penetrated me knowing I did not want him to and even after I asked him to stop.

I still cannot say the “R” word though.  I just cannot, although I know it fits.

*I recently read in Dan Savage’s column that the opposite of an orgasm is actually a back spasm, which makes sense to me given these events.

Note: This post took over six weeks to complete.  Secrets can be very powerful, which is why I finally forced myself to finish writing it–to eradicate the power this one has held over me for more than two years.  Frank Warren, who does Post Secret, stamps all of the books he signs with “Free your secrets and become who you are.”  I feel this is one of the messiest posts I have written to date, but also the most freeing.  Sometimes you just have to speak the messy truth in order to become who you really are–a whole and healed person.  If you have been molested, raped or date raped, please seek help.  None of us are innately prepared to heal from these things alone.  Cosmo (of all places, I know!) has compiled a short list of places to get help here.

I find myself on a precipice. The mountain climbed…the sorrow of a broken childhood, of a broken child behind me. The battle scars emblazon my side, my hands, my feet. I carried the first most horrid of crosses. I survived the plunge of the sword, for John tried to take my very life away by stealing my spirit, my youth, my hope. I did not die. I would not die.

I waited a terribly long time to open to the nakedness love and intimacy require. I ventured first with those safe, manageable, less. I thought I met my equal; I was wrong. In choosing to look away when he lied, I pretended he would not lie to me. He did. I almost died, and almost spent the wellspring of my hope on the despair I became enveloped in when he lied and left. I did not die. I would not die.

Hope; she is my constant friend. She stands with me on this ledge between the past and the future, so uncertain but always imagined. I see us standing against the wind, which whips through our hair. We laugh. We cry. We dream the most amazing of dreams for my life. The sun blazes and the sky dances with colour as we put to bed the despair of this last season of my life. How strange I find it that the setting sun seems to fall so much faster than the heat of the noonday sun. Why?

So my dear love, here I come. Are you ready?

Let us be clear about what I need from you, for I am completely clear about what I will offer you. I need fusion. I do not pine for fireworks shattering the sky with a million stars here for only a moment. I do not desire the rapid fast burn of a nuclear love. I survived one of those, and the apocalypse devastates everyone in its path. No. Give me fusion. Give me two whole people coming together creating a fire between them impossible alone. Leave the divided spirit, the divided desires, the divided will, the divided atom behind. Join. Merge. Intertwine with me. Let us be more than we could have ever imagined on our own. Leave the ashes of simple fireworks to fall back to the earth. Let us be a galaxy all our own.

I will give you creativity. Nothing will be boring. I will always find new ways to laugh and play. I will give you integrity. I will tell you the truth. I will be kind. I will be generous. (Shall we compete to see who can be more so?) I will embrace you as you are, and dream your dreams of all you can do and create for this world. I will give to others. I will not forget you. I will write my name on your heart. I will cheer you on towards your prize. I will pray for kindness and doors to open to you. I will place a soothing balm on your wounds when the doors crash into your broken body. I may not pick you up–for you will have to do that for yourself–but I will lay beside you and kiss you sweetly until you have the strength to rise. I will question. I will fold the laundry. I will be my own person. I will have my own life and friends. I will be good to your family and friends. I will forgive. I will believe in you no matter what they say. I will trust you. I will honor the man you are. I will value your gifts and never think you a pansy. I will fight for you, and at times with you. I will apologize. I will seek your forgiveness. I will deserve it. I will love you. I will fuck you. I will lay you down. I will tenderly caress you. I will make love to you and discover your body anew even as the years pass us by. Every wrinkle, every laugh line, every sag, every cell will be counted with affection. I will embrace your changes. You will be mine, and I will be yours.

Are you ready? Here I come.

Please let me into your secret places. Let me see you. Let me love only you. I know we have it in us to do this together and to create something more than we can possibly imagine.

I stand on the precipice with Hope beside me.

Acknowledgment: The inspiration for this piece comes from Sarah McLachlan’s song “Answer.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Philip Brooker

What components make up a “real man?” I hear men talking about not being a “pussy”–i.e. not being a woman–and illuminating the characteristics of being real. These contests often rely more on brawn than the strength of character. You took the dive off the cliff into the ocean’s cool waters. Can you be man enough to leap into a woman’s warm embrace and find solace there? You made the deal of a lifetime. Will you follow-through? You are a good person. Will you live by your word even when it is hard and difficult? Your body can lift the weight of another off the ground. Can you trust another person with your underbelly and know they will not sucker punch you when you are as vulnerable as Atlas?*

I do not think it is easy to be a real man in this unreal world. The weight of the world is firmly placed on men’s shoulders. They bear the burden of protection–physical and financial–from those men and women who utilize their power and brutality to harm the rest of us. Having integrity in the face of a rat race where lying and cheating are expectations, not exceptions, cannot be easy. Working unreal hours must make some men long for the days without electricity, where they were forced to draw up to the fire like Pa Ingalls by seven most nights. How many men do I know who have trouble sleeping? So much to do and so little time. Too much pressure all around to do, to be, to accomplish, to achieve, to surpass. No wonder many of them approach women in much the same manner they would a business deal. What is in it for me?

The so-called Men’s Movement attempts to move men towards a more egalitarian understanding of their gender role in life, while also addressing the often forgotten needs of fathers, the mythology of masculinity, and a reclaiming of it, amongst others. The Promise Keepers charge their followers to adhere to a moral Christian code within the confines of a narrow theology based on misogyny and a broken patriarchy. The gift within the Promise Keepers ideology is its focus on men keeping their word to the women in their lives and calling them to submission to God’s authority over their own self interests. The problem–as is often the case–is whose version of God’s authority wins? The God who smites those he hates? The God who kills the first born children of the enemy? The God who affirms women being seen as chattel? The God who commands colicky babies be smashed against a wall? Or instead will it be the God willing to hang on a tree like so many who are persecuted for their beliefs? Will it be the God of the poor and ill? Will it be the God who calls a woman to lead and not just serve? Will it be the God of Love for all persons, or just the God of persons not unlike themselves?

I see so many men who suffer in this world of flux and responsibility as they seek to rise above the patterns of destruction and disenfranchisement. I cheer them on towards the prize of a life of meaning! I also am cheering one of them on towards finding me, for I know I have the gifts, gumption and giving nature to make a real partnership with someone work. I do not aspire to sucker punch the man of my heart like so many women seem to be doing these days–I know, I keep dating their ex’s. I am so very tired of hearing story after story from men about the inhuman ways women treat them out of spite. Women need to celebrate the beauty and the strength of the men in their lives, and stop with the gender assassination every-time “he” does not do what “she” wants. For myself, I consciously work on never saying “MEN!” in response to some bad thing a particular male person did. I also correct my friends on this point, and name all the singular men of integrity I know–all of whom have an uncommon grace, but are not as rare as some might think.

I, myself, am looking for a man of uncommon grace. After recently finishing Kate Braestrup’s book Here If You Need Me, I felt inspired to articulate ten core qualities he will need to possess. Kate is an Unitarian Universalist minister serving as a Chaplain to the Game Wardens of Maine, and her book speaks of so much of what I find to be meaningful about walking beside people in ordinary and extraordinary ways as a Chaplain. She did not set out on that path, only finding it her calling after her husband died. Towards the end of the book, she writes an amazing passage about a conversation she and her four children have casually one day where they describe what the next man in their lives will be like, having been left hurt and disillusioned by the last. Simple words written by a child’s pencil end up on their fridge, and in time a man fitting those descriptors and so much more comes into all of their lives.

Here are the ten I put on my refrigerator:

1. Funny
2. Integrity
3. Smart
4. No children (or ex-wife)
5. Wants children
6. Willing to go to church
7. Kind hearted
8. Left
9. Serves
10. Active

There are some things, however, I “wish” for but did not make my top ten. Some of them include: rides a bike, reads books, loves dogs, never wears tank tops (click here to find out why), and has a purpose. I think being heterosexual falls into the “goes without saying” category! My friends, The Boys, were quick to point out that they would make the cut on my wishes and needs lists, but alas given they are Gay, they would N.O.T! That is the funny thing about lists, they are just starting off places. I am not looking for anything in anyone I do not have to offer, and I am more than mere words on a page. He must be too.

As I look over the list, I find myself surprised that Plant Geek was really the one person I dated who fit these the very best. And The Bean? He turned out to be 60% Guy. No thank you. I want my 100% Man, with all the surprises of what else makes him unique and special meted out along the way. This is what will make him real to me in the end–the aspects I cannot define but will cherish through the joy of knowing him. And in the meantime, I continue to focus on the joy of being me in the world and on the places I need to grow and change. I have a”little life left in me yet.”

Pray God you can cope.
I stand outside this woman’s work,
This woman’s world.
Ooh, it’s hard on the man,
Now his part is over.
Now starts the craft of the father.

I know you have a little life in you yet.
I know you have a lot of strength left.
I know you have a little life in you yet.
I know you have a lot of strength left.

I should be crying, but I just can’t let it show.
I should be hoping, but I can’t stop thinking

Of all the things I should’ve said,
That I never said.
All the things we should’ve done,
Though we never did.
All the things I should’ve given,
But I didn’t.

Oh, darling, make it go,
Make it go away.

Give me these moments back.
Give them back to me.
Give me that little kiss.
Give me your hand.**

*”Farnese Atlas” Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, Naples, Italy

The image and idea of the tenderness of men–like Atlas–comes from Norah Vincent’s amazing book Self Made Man.

** From Kate Bush’s “This Woman’s Work.”

My friend Pixie and I recently began a series of conversations about yummy older men we know. She takes her son to a sexy sixty-something therapist who projects confidence, knowledge and humor in such a way Pixie is more than a tad mesmerized. I have The Scoundrel, amongst others. We agree these men project a kind of allure younger men just do not possess; but why? What makes these men so interesting and intriguing to two thirty-something young women who normally date men YOUNGER than they are?

Now the simple answer might be: You girls have Father issues! I agree we need to consider this possibility, but for myself I reject this explanation. For one thing, spending $100,000 on therapy dealt with the vast majority of my issues. For another, I have been blessed by having a whole series of lovely men serve as mentors to my life in one way or another: Steve Gilchrist, Kirk Whiteside, Tommy Russell, Dennis Nason, Joe Holland, Joe Moran, Raymond Hargrove, Richard Congdon and Bill Koch…to name a few. These men filled the gaps the death of my father and the arrival of John created for me. At all the points in my growing up excellent role models of what it meant to be a man of integrity met me where I was and nurtured me. For me, I reject the idea of my attraction to an older man being equated to unfulfilled Father needs; Pixie will need to speak for herself!

I must admit how surprised I am to find older men so deeply attractive at this juncture of my life, for I have coveted younger men. Feeling I arrived at the Party of Life so late, I really felt owed a younger man with whom I could build the life I thought I might want with the “right person.” I wanted my chance at bat without the already told stories of ex-wives, children, or dreams broken. I wanted my own love story no one else ever had, and I felt I deserved it because of everything I went through to even get to the Party of Life at all. I can remember when I first started dating The Bean feeling like all the shit of the past was somehow more bearable because the path finally revealed a boy who was excited about who I was in the world and who did not seem intimidated by me or my gifts. Appearances were misleading in that regards, but it did fulfill a fantasy of a sort…for a time. In retrospect, I realize his presence also revealed a deep need in me–namely my desire to be with someone who is excited about who I am and what I bring to the world. I also want to feel that way about him.

I think part of why I never thought much about men older than me relates to my mother marrying someone 19 years her senior–twice! In fact, her current husband is her youngest one ever at just 16 years older. I saw a beautiful 39 year-old woman bury her husband, and Daddy being older played a role in his death. My half sisters had him into their twenties. I could not help but think if Mother had married someone younger I would not have lost my Dad at six. I just could never understand what she found so damn attractive in him when she was 32 and he was 51. I did not understand until Maria’s funeral.

At Maria’s funeral, her husband spoke. His eulogy marked her life and his own. He made the comment: “Forty years ago I can remember being a young man and wondering what my life would be–how it would turn out. Now most of life’s questions have been answered…” In that one moment, I got it. I understood how Daddy offered Mother a man who was not lost or searching to figure out who he was in the world. He offered her a man who possessed self assurance and was settled. He had already become. Mother, at 32, also had already become. She had her own money, a career to be proud of, position, clout, and most importantly, Mother knew exactly who she was.

Pixie and I have been dating all these boys who whine and moan about not knowing what they want to be when they finally grow up. When exactly that will be, we really do not know. I read that adolescence has been extended way past where Evolution would place it because of all of our modern luxuries, and I must say I believe this to be true. How many men do I meet who are in their late twenties or thirties who still have no idea who they are, what they want to contribute to the good of the world, or what passion lights their fire? I know plenty of men who have no idea where they stand on any number of issues–other than a cursory “yes” or “no”–and I know plenty of men more than willing to highlight all of the problems in others or in the world but never willing to do one damn thing about any of it or the shit in their own lives! These same men seem to always meet women not up to their standards, calling many of the women they meet “irrational, emotional, crazy bitches.” And–here is the real kicker–they would rather be with the “crazy bitch” who tells them exactly who they are than be with the woman who wants to know them and delight in their dreams for their life coming true!

I cannot help but wonder: Is it wrong to want to be with a man who does not call his friends a “pussy” when they do not “man-up” and do something the Boy-Code demands? Is it wrong to want to be with a man who wants to spend time cozying up to your pussy, but who also does not think you are just a piece of ass? Is is wrong to want to be with a man who can handle listening to your perspective without needing to call you a cunt behind your back when you are right and he is wrong? Is it wrong to want to be with a man who admires you and in whom you can be proud?

No.

But why does it seem these men only come in older packages these days?

I do believe there is such a thing as too old. The widower of a former patient who is in his eighties likes to tell me how he is in love with me and invites me to live in his home. Silly me, but I do not think it is real love. I think he just needs someone to empty his urinal! He keeps saying to me, “Age is only a number.” Yes; if you are an older man and win the Evolutionary Lottery and have a younger woman interested in you. But when she rejects you because you are too old, it is because age is the only number that counts. As I asked my friend Stepford, “Is there such a thing as too young for an older man?” Probably not. But there is such a thing as too old for us younger girls. Pixie and I will keep up the debate about the age threshold, and keep admiring those yummy older men we know. How could we not? They are self-assured sexy personified!

My Dear Faithful Reader,

We have come to the first anniversary of my blog. First of all, thank you so very much for the affirmation of reading my blog (some of you more than my own Mama!) and sharing with me the places my writing touched you and your story. I must say I am rather surprised by all of this! What started as a way to post photos of my then six week-old puppy Emma–who was still living with her Birth Mother at the time–transformed into something I never expected. I grieved the loss of a meaningful relationship. I worked through much of what it meant for me to work as a hospice chaplain. I highlighted the hilarities of my dating life. And, most importantly, I educated you on men in tank tops!

Given Top Ten Lists are so passe I say, “Nine is Fine!” Here are my favourite nine posts from this last year:

9. I Heart Atheists! This post is dedicated to my patient “Hank,” of whom I wrote. I am glad he is no longer struggling to breathe or to find love.

8. Posting My Big Secret This post received the most private email because people were worried about me. In many ways it was the hardest to write. I reveled an important secret, and in so doing found a way to tell my closest and dearest just how much despair (my definition of anti-hope) I felt following the break-up. This post continues to have meaning for me due to my continuing love of Post Secret, and because I hope by exposing my pain–even as a minister–others fearing the only way through is out might feel comforted.

7. I’m Coming Out: Jesus Know About My Vibrator The year’s most embarrassing and second funniest post. I still cringe when people ask me for my website address thinking about them reading this particular post. Of course this is exactly why it is on this list–I am a glutton for embarrassing myself on this blog with the bitter truth. For the record–and thankfully–I have had sex since I wrote this post! (Once.)

6. The Whispering God Where is God when bad things happen to good people? In part, this post contains my answer to this question and my own thinking about God’s intervention–and lack there of–in our lives.

5. 40 Reasons I Make A Great Girlfriend (and her evil twin 40 Reason I Will Drive You Crazy & Am Not Perfect) This was so much fun, and I met my friend in Austria through putting up the “Great Girlfriend” list on craigslist.

4. A Rose Garden Relationship I continue to think about what I wrote in this post. If there is such a thing as your own writing being a gift to you, it would be this post. I feel it helped me clarify what relationship values continue to remain important to me and also what I ultimately have to offer all of my relationships, including the one I have with myself.

3. You Play, You Pay This post about my prayer for my Aunt Charlyne to come to terms with her cancer and still remains at the forefront of my thinking about her. She finished her second round of chemo, and she will find out next week the results of her latest PET scan. She told us at Christmas she feels the cancer is spreading.  All my work with patients has taught me our bodies tell us the truth–even long before the tests and doctors do–so I cannot help but wonder if hers is telling her a truth now. I do not know what will happen with her body, but I know she will be surrounded by love regardless of the outcome. This is what matters most.

2. Tank Top Wearing Man Candy? The single funniest thing I have ever written! I cannot see a man in a tank top without thinking: “Baby, if you only knew how I felt about THAT!” If you love it too, please go out to Urban Dictionary and suggest “The Tribble Factor” for a word/definition.

1. The Mango Tree My homage to my father and the continuing bonds of love death cannot separate us from and how these bonds continue to inform our present and propel us into our future.

Here is to a wonderful Year Two!

The first time I can ever remember feeling that I loved someone just because they existed and because of who they were to me was when I was three and thought the preacher’s son was just soooo cute. He came to my fourth birthday party, and I knew it was love. The kind of love I practiced with my Barbie and Ken or between Snoopy and every other toy I possessed. He played the Toilet Paper Mummy Game with me, lurking quietly most of the time. In retrospect, the boy had to have hated being forced to go to some younger girl’s party. I was oblivious to this, and only thought he was soooo perfect to marry one day. I cried the day his father announced they were leaving the church. I only saw him one more time–on a visit back to Miami when I was in the eighth grade. I felt relieved that the love one feels at four can be gotten out of at 14! My first love–who never really knew I or my love existed–morphed into a jerk in a military school uniform! What was I thinking?

me at four

Falling in-love and wondering “What was I thinking?” seem to go hand-in-hand sometimes. We humans spend vast quantities of time, money and attention trying to sort out just why it is we fall in-love. Whole forests have given their lives for this exercise…with us waxing poetic, writing and re-writing love letters, and making music for some love who just has to know how we feel about them or feel about their departure from our lives. Whole blogs too! (But I am not naming any names here…gotta have some self-respect!) Yet we still seem at such a loss. Why is it after all these years we still don’t have a clue? Maybe it is because Evolution is such a slow and painstaking process? Or maybe we really do not want to know–it would ruin it for everyone!?

My friend Paulina Ballerina differs from me greatly when it comes to love. She believes that you fall in-love first, and then over time you may find the person worthy of your deep true love. She has been with her current beau for almost two years, and she readily admits she is “in-love” with him. She also says she could love him, but she does not–yet. After two years? I find her position amazing and a bit ludicrous as well. No wonder I am her opposite. I tend to love first, and then if I really love someone and trust them I may begin to allow myself the luxury of falling in-love as well. In my relationships of any sort, I love easily. I look to the good in those around me and value who they are right from the start. “Love” seems the only word fitting for what I see in them and cherish. Opening up my heart to fall in-love, well…that is a whole other matter. For me, falling in-love is a byproduct of trust and quite honestly I never have been in-love.

I find no small measure of shame mentioning this given my age–36–and general sense that I am in fact not the kind of girl boys like, let alone fall for. Dave The Porn Guy (don’t even get me started on how the minister knows the porn producer) put it to me this way: “Just cause a girl is a ten in the categories of personality, intelligence, generosity and success, does not mean she will find a man. She has to be at least a seven in the looks category to get a man of equal or greater value. So, if you are a one or a two in the looks category, and you are a ten in the other areas, you have three choices–1) Give up on finding a man who is your equal emotionally and intellectually. Those guys can get any girl they want because women do not put the same emphasis on looks and so even if they are butt ugly they can land an all-around 10; 2) Become a lesbian; or 3) Go for the loser who works at McDonald’s and who feels grateful to land any girl, even one smarter, who makes more money, and who has a better background than he does. He is a one and won’t balk at dating a one.”

So falling in-love has to do with being a one versus a ten, instead of being “the one?”

I do not agree with all of Dave The Porn Guy’s assessment of the situation–consider the source after all. The guy left his PhD program to make porn, find easy “hott” ass, and avoid depth at all costs. He also refuses to be with the woman he calls the “love of [his] life” out of what seems to amount to just old fashioned fear. However, Dave The Porn Guy did hit a nerve with me reminiscent of how I felt about myself when I was three and four. Even at that young age I felt embarrassed by my feelings. I also felt out-of-control. The little boy did not like me, and I had all these feelings for him. How could I feel something for someone and they not feel it back? These feelings left me vulnerable to ridicule and to others having power over me. How easily my little girl friends could shame me with a few teasing comments! Somehow I equated this vulnerability to my not being worthy of him–or anyone else for that matter–falling in-love with me. Listening to Dave The Porn Guy punch me in every soft underbelly spot of fear I have posses woke me up a bit. Maybe no one ever falls in-love with me because I walk around certain they never could?

No wonder I look for all the good in someone and have to trust them deeply before I can ever even ponder falling in-love with them…it is just too risky otherwise.

I often think of the themes in my life as acting like boomerangs. Something may happen to me–a great pain or loss–that sends out the very best of me scatted against the wind, but eventually they all return to their rightful home within me. This last year has been full of this kind of scattering, and if you have ever read my blog, you know what I am talking about. A year of more challenges and stress than my body, mind or spirit could handle, and a heart so broken I thought it was beyond repair for most of this year.

Now there is just something about a list that I dearly love. Lists organize my life! I have running lists for the things I need, the things I want to accomplish (like having more sex in the coming year–twice in 12 months is just not enough!!!), lists of places I want to experience, lists of problems I am facing, and, well, the list goes on and on and on… This blog has been full of some great lists:

• A list of my experiences right up to my blindsided break-up: Post-Mortem: My November
• A list of the reasons why I am a good girlfriend: 40 Reasons I Make a Good Girlfriend
• A list of all diseases, losses and freak-outs of the last year: The Stress Mess
• A list of why I don’t trust men in tank tops (and my personal favourite post): Tank Top Wearing Man Candy?
• Not to mention the list of all the men I loved before (go on and hum it, you know you want to): The Dating Game

So in honor of my little list making fetish, I offer up on my one-year anniversary since this unbelievable year began with my emergency root canal the following list of all my gratitude for what this last year gave me–in no particular order:

1. My Ordination. This day was full of more love than I could have ever imagined, and I have drawn deeply from those waters this year.
2. Surviving This Year! If you read “Posting My Big Secret” and “Shift Change” you know that this is an ACCOMPLISHMENT all by itself! Not only do I feel I survived, but I feel stronger, happier and more at peace with who I am than at any other point in my life.
3. EMMA! Gotta love Miss Puppy Girl. She is my joy. We have really fallen in love these last few months, especially after her mean cousin Morgan left! Morgan, my niece, is part of the Puppy Gestapo. Her departure turned on the “My Mommie is not a meanine.” light over Emma’s head. Plus, she is FINALLY growing up…a little bit. She still has to wear a leash in the house–all the better to catch her and take my stolen bra out of her mouth with!!

   

4. Paparazzo. I have said it before, and I will say it again: I do not know how I would have made it through without him. I tease him that he is always “pulling my pigtails,” i.e. driving me nuts just because he can. Yesterday morning while doing crunches on the living room floor, Emma bit my ponytail and pulled hard. The more I would go to stop her the more she would pull. I ended up in a pool of tears and laughter! No wonder the two of them love each other so much–they are cut from the same cloth!
5. Casa Derby. I lived for 2.5 years without my own belongings, so coming home in February filled my heart in ways I cannot even describe. I missed my Red Turkey Rug! I missed my books, music, bed, sofa and enough dishes to host a party for an army. How sweet it is to be home again. Moving home also brought new friends and neighbours. They met me mid Apocalypse and adopted me straight away. I needed the affirmation of new friends, and so I am grateful the latest incarnation of Casa Derby came with some.
6. My Mama and My Sista. These two continue to show me love, love, love, even when I am only full of fear and despair.
7. My Work and Team. I get unbelievable joy knowing I am doing the kind of work that crosses the religious divide and finds people right where they are and ministers to their hurting hearts in that place. My patients and their families are my teachers, and I value their lessons. Ministering to my atheist patient this year, and the work in general, has given me my inspiration as I apply to Vanderbilt’s PhD program. I also have a wonderful team to work with, but especially my manager, my social worker, my secretary, and my nurses Wendy and Lisa. They all make each day a worthy sacrifice. (Trust me! At what I make, the word “sacrifice” is perfect.)
8. My Bereavement Group. If I ever have a friend go through a crushing break-up, I will immediately buy them Alan Wolfelt’s book Understanding Your Grief: Ten Essential Touchstones for Finding Hope and Healing Your Heart . Working through this book with my group, and the group’s grieving processes in general, helped me to identify that what happened to me was just the normal grief one experiences when someone you love dies. I suddenly no longer felt so isolated in my grieving, and listening to them give voice to their mourning, gave me an opportunity to accept my own. Once I got that the person I knew and loved did in fact die–metaphorically and literally, in as much as that person was no longer real or real in my life–I could finally find the courage to accept the past as it was, accept the me that I truly am, and move on towards my own best future.
9. My Bike. My Bike. My Bike. I love my shitty bike, and I am accepting cash donations (through PayPal of course) towards my next ride. It may just be one of the crappiest bikes on the planet for someone to ride 50-70 miles a week on, but she keeps on going strong. I love waving to the guys mowing my golf course at 6:30 in the morning with their headlights shining out in the dark. I love riding with Emma! I just love riding her period. Giant, Specialized and Cannondale may get quite a bit of my internet window shopping, but she gets my attention day-in-and-day-out. I would have gained a TON of weight without the bike given my knee, so I am so appreciative to have this bike even if it is not all that good of one or all that cool. She does what she is supposed to do–for the most part–and I am grateful.
10. My Blogs. Writing has given voice to my despair and to my hope, both of whom are constant partners in my dance of life. The affirmation of my faithful readers and the new friends I have made as a result, gave wings to the fact that I did in fact have a meaningful future without the one I had loved. He and I began a conversation–an important one for me personally and one of importance for the world in which we live–and when it ended abruptly I feared the conversation died too. In working on this blog and Don’t Be A Christian (which will be more fully operational January 2008), I found new partners in that conversation, found I could do it on my own (dammit!!!!), and the impetus to be bold enough to go after a PhD. I was once sent an email from someone wondering if this blog was the beginning of something else because she could sense something brewing in me from my writing. The truth is the blog began as a way to show photos of my new puppy! What it has become astounds me, but I also know it has been central to my healing and to my reaffirmation that indeed my middle name is hope.

There are certain songs that have supported me too, but especially the words to two Bjork songs: The whole of “All is Full of Love.” I keep reminding myself that I am full of love to both give and receive, and although it may not come from the places I expected, it is always right there within me and for me. The other song is “It’s Not Up To You.” The lyrics are amazing. She sings, “I wake up and the day feels broken. I tilt my head. I’m trying to get an angle…if you wake up and the day feels broken, just lean into the crack…notice how it sparkles.” This has been a year of leaning into the crack, and much to my surprise it has sparkled in ways unimaginable last year. Me too. I still sparkle.

With gratitude for the 525,600 minutes of this last unbelievable year,

Rev. Jacqueline Hope Derby

Photo Credit: PAPARAZZO

Studying for the GRE–the Graduate Record Exam–has created a crushing pain in my spirit. This pain envelops me and leaves me paralyzed at times. Why? Now I do like to call the GRE “The Graduate Retching Exam” because of all of the math, which I worked hard (okay, not that hard) to forget as promptly as it was no longer needed, but that is not why. The reasons why have much more to do with feeling I am putting my feet on a path that will take me away from a dream for my life…the dream to be married and have a baby. I feel I am choosing to give birth to ideas instead of a family, and I am afraid of the loneliness this path might bring.

I did not date for all of my teens and twenties. I never kissed anyone. I never felt anyone was even interested in me as a girl, let alone as a girlfriend. I got the message very early on that I was not in-fact, “girlfriend material.” Oh sure, I had guy friends. They love me! But I was never enough…not pretty enough, not thin enough, not cool enough, etc. Or I was too much. Too smart. Too opinionated. Too radical. Too fat. Too fucked up by my past. I kept getting the message that if I could just be, well, not me, then and only then would I deserve the love and respect of the men I liked or was involved with (after my thirtieth birthday).

Much of why I did not date for so long had to do with me and only me. I was just terrified of anyone coming near me. Terrified they would get close and see how fractured I was from being molested. I did not want anyone to see me naked. Shit! I hardly let anyone see any skin when I was fully clothed, always in long shirts buttoned way up even in the Miami summer. I felt so unsure of who I was as a woman. What did that even mean? I was asexual in many ways. I never looked at a guy and thought about sleeping with him, actually that still takes a lot of work on my part. Those feelings never come easily because even my fantasy life is cautionary. The one place where I could have a real mental free-for-all, and I judiciously practice safe sex with only emotionally well-known partners, who I actually do not know because I refuse to fantasize about people I know but am not dating! In other words, in order to get it up for an imaginary boyfriend I have to create a whole back story, emotions, etc. It is a whole hell of a lot of work!

Somehow I made it though that wilderness and found a way to be naked physically with The First, but I kept much of my true self to myself. I can see now that I only slept him because it was safe and controllable. Well, those and the fact that he would sleep with me. I was thirty-one after all and a virgin. I just wanted to have sex because I was afraid that if I did not at that point I never would. What a terrifying thought, but also a real one. I see that other than The Bean, everyone I ever got naked with had some element of safety to them. My biggest safety net being that if they were fucked up in some manner, then I felt it would be okay if I was a little too.

You get what you pay for; right?

After Plant Geek broke up with me because he “could not be attracted to someone like me” and just went out with me because “I was so healing,” I called Tammy Wayne to pour out my heart. I felt like I worked so hard through therapy, getting up at six in the morning to work out and drop some fucking weight, trying to accept my body, my heart, my mind, etc., and to actually trust and be naked with someone. I worked so hard, but no one was going to love me. I still was not good enough. I still was too much or not enough. I got all “dressed up” for the love party, and regardless got stuck against the wall with the other “flowers” nobody wanted. I came away from that conversation feeling like I poured it all out and maybe could just accept that it was not going to be my destiny to be loved in time to have a baby. Yes; it might happen, but it was unlikely.

Then I met The Bean and really trusted and loved someone for the first time in my whole life. I was thirty-five, and it finally happened to me. But only to me.

Here I am. I am thirty-six now, and I walked, crawled, dug, scratched, ran, swam and Tae Bo’d my way out of the hell of my first twenty-five years. I made it, but I still have never been loved by a man. I have never laid against someone in the dark and heard them whisper “I love you.” in my ear. Maybe the me that exists is not “girlfriend material?” I may be the “exception to the rule” girl, and as much as guys might want that in some ways, the truth is it scares the shit out of them. Scares me too sometimes, like right this very moment. I see what a fucking challenge I am! I take life seriously. I take my life very seriously. I am passionate to a fault. I insist on being me. I do not let myself get away with much, but I especially do not let my emotions go without investigation. Need proof? Here I am, up from bed, writing down all of my feelings on this topic well past my bedtime, with a stack of wadded up tissues on the desk from crying so hard as I write this.

I started this particular thread months ago and called it “Baby Blues.” I wanted to articulate a deep understanding about who I am fundamentally and my own acknowledgment of the price I might pay for being me. I am me. Just me. I only want to be me, but the message I get from most men I know or have known is: “Could you be a little less?” Often men tell me how “silly” I am. This “silliness” is usually over “thinking too much” or giving a rat’s ass about something they feel is a ridiculous waste of time. I often hear Madonna’s “What It Feels Like For A Girl” playing in my head during those moments of confrontation over my “silliness.”

Hurt that’s not supposed to show
And tears that fall when no one knows
When you’re trying hard to be your best
Could you be a little less

Do you know what it feels like for a girl
Do you know what it feels like in this world
What it feels like for a girl

Strong inside but you don’t know it
Good little girls they never show it
When you open up your mouth to speak
Could you be a little weak

I made it this far in my life because of my own inner strength. I made it because I believe in a Love greater than my own comprehension that weaves us all together. I made it because of all of the love from those in my life who never want me to be weak, or less, or other. In large part, I loved The Bean because he never called me silly or gave me the impression that I was not enough or too much. (Granted, he did feel this way and told me so after we split.)

My mother really valued what The Bean brought to my life because she understands how lonely and isolating being smart in my way has been for me. Sometimes I wonder if during my life she has felt ill equipped to help me with these feelings? I think her own pain at his leaving had a lot to do with feeling like finally there was someone in my life who not only got me, but also genuinely was excited to discover all my inner nooks and crannies. She sees me, but does not always get me. And it is the “getting me” part that is difficult to do and difficult to accept without wanting me to “be a little less.”

So when I think of my own “baby blues,” I realize I could get married and have a baby. If it was THE most important thing to me, I would allocate all of my resources to it. I would be willing to give up certain things that I consider paramount, like my career or calling. It would also require a willingness to dumb myself down in order to find someone who might consider me both girlfriend and wife material. I am not saying all men would require this, instead I offer that if marriage and a baby are the most important thing to me I would do anything to get them, even that.

Marriage and a family are not that important to me. I will not give up on who I am or what matters to me in order to have them. At thirty-six I must acknowledge the time reality of finding the right person to add to who and what my life is already about is not in my favor. And then there is Grad School. My mother is right when she tells me how she hears how lonely and isolated I am right now intellectually. She kicks me in the butt over the GRE because she knows I need what a graduate program can bring me, and what I have sorely longed for since The Bean left.

I will be the first to admit that I freaked out when Mr. Joy  told me that he did not see himself leaving South Florida or having a child. I freaked out because I feel like that desire of mine is just a small thread in my hands. I can feel the weight of the world and my own sense of calling pulling against that fragile thread. One day it might very well be fully un-spooled and gone forever. We parted ways given the heartbreak destiny we could see awaiting us, and I am still a little bit sad. The worst part was the wanting to stay in South Florida, not the baby part, in my final analysis. I do not want to give up the dreams I am in fact willing to do anything difficult or painstaking to achieve…not for anyone. I am only “Jacqueline Material” after all, and if Jacqueline finds herself a girlfriend, or wife, or mother, then great; but I must remain Jacqueline regardless of the roles and responsibilities of my life.

I would not want to be anyone less.

After writing my last post about my sexless love life and dating disasters, I felt inspired. I put up my list (basically–I did make some small edits) on Craigslist to try and dip back into the dating pool. I received many interesting responses, including quite a few lists from men of their own Top 40 Reasons to date them! Some of which were really beautiful. Although I did get a bit offended that this one guy thought I was too much of cow to date, but did use my list to create his own list and then posted it on CL to attract the skinnier girls. WTF? I am too ugly, but my list is too good to pass up copying? PLAHHHEEESE!

I also got quite a few men saying that not only was a the “perfect” girlfriend, I would also make the “perfect” wife, partner, etc. I found myself always writing back to them to let them know how un-perfect I really am. Too much pressure to live up to, in my estimation. I was also totally flattered. So, in the spirit of full disclosure and imperfection, I offer to you the following list…with many thanks to Janeane Garofalo for the perfect quotation to start off my own thinking about what it means to be imperfect me:

“Many people feel that mass acceptance and smooth socialization are desirable life paths for a young adult… Many people are often wrong… Don’t bother being nice. Being popular and well liked is not in your best interest. Let me be more clear; if you behave in a manner pleasing to most, then you are probably doing something wrong. The masses have never been arbiters of the sublime, and they often fail to recognize the truly great individual. Taking into account the public’s regrettable lack of taste, it is incumbent upon you not to fit in.”

- Janeane Garofalo

1. I do not want to think or be just like everyone else.
2. I hate the suburbs. Architecture should be interesting and diverse; it should surprise you. Most suburbs are based on the idea that everybody wants basically the same thing.
3. I prefer old to new. I would rather recover an old chair fifty times than buy a new one. And if I buy a new one, I want to make sure it is well made so my grandkids can recover it fifty times.
4. I do not want my children–if I ever have any–to fit in completely at school. I want them to have it tough. I want them to have to build emotional muscles and empathy, which only comes from the school of ridicule.
5. I will judge you based on what kind of car you drive. If you have a gas guzzling SUV in the city, I will look down on you. If you are a man in your forties with three hundred dollar shoes and an expensive haircut and drive a Cadillac convertible, I will think you are the scuzzy Sugar Daddy type. If you drive a Mini Cooper, I will think you have a clown fetish.
6. I hate the words “nice” and “fine.” They mean absolutely nothing. My acronym for “nice” is: Not Into Connecting Emotionally. And from the movie The Italian Job, fine stands for: Freaked-Out, Insecure, Needy and Emotional. Let’s use them in an exemplar sentence: Only really nice people ask you how you are doing and when you say “fine” are satisfied.
7. I will freak out about the emotional strain of working with patients who are gravely ill, dying or dead sometimes. I will be bouncing off the walls and need copious amounts of holding to settle down. Sex and sleep help too.
8. I cry when I am exhausted, feel like I cannot express my emotions, or feel overwhelmed by not meeting my own internal high marks for myself. You are not responsible for this, but I appreciate it when you do not make me feel like shit for crying. I cannot handle the pressure of whatever is making me cry and then the added pressure of trying not to cry because you do not want me to, with the bad feelings that you cannot allow me to cry and just be there for me, which lead to the subsequent feelings that you must not even care about me.
9. I hate moving the laundry from the washer to the dryer. I hate it if anyone else folds for me. I am a total weirdo about folding. I love. I need it. I gotta do it for myself.
10. I will talk and talk and talk when I feel lost, happy, excited, overwhelmed and/or needy. If I can just be quiet with you, know that I finally trust you enough to do so and love you deeply.
11. I am skittish about opening up my heart to you and begin to question how I can make it if you leave me and break my heart. Stick with me, and I will sort it out and stop holding on too tightly. This gets really bad between the fourth and fifth month, and finally gets better after the sixth. Can you last that long?
12. I will try and run away between the second and third month. See above.
13. I love giving head and might make you pass out from my ministrations. You will go nuts!
14. When I feel insecure I will pay for everything, even though I will never make more money than you do.
15. I will remember everything you say. This can be a really good thing, because if you say you love Cookies and Cream Ice Cream, I will not only remember but get your favourite kind for you as a surprise. If you say you will do something for me, I will remember when you do not. You will not be able to get away with anything.
16. I have integrity about everything I do. I even obey the rules at the dog park! You will not be able to get away with shit.
17. I will put my dog before you if she needs food, walking, etc.
18. I go to bed early and get up early. I hate waking up though, so I will hit the snooze just enough times to make you want to throw the clock right at me.
19. I will make you an amazing dinner and expect you to clean up the dishes. If you do not offer, I will resent you for thinking I should do everything for you. If you do offer and I say “no,” I mean it.
20. I am both super analytical and super emotive. I think logically about everything, including my feelings.
21. I ask tons of questions.
22. I will talk to anyone.
23. I will challenge you and all of your assumptions.
24. I will not allow you to criticize faith traditions from a strictly anti-fundamentalist standpoint. You will have to dig deeper than that.
25. I narrate my life through the lenses of loss, hope, despair, faith, logic, creativity and curiosity.
26. I will laugh until I cry, and cry until I laugh. You may feel like you are on a roller coaster!
27. I will be fatalistic sometimes and sit down (metaphorically) and not want to get back up.
28. I will get back up, and I will not allow you to not get back up too. If you try to hide the shit of your life and say it does not mean anything, I will force the issue as it pertains to us or your wellbeing. I will leave you if you refuse to help yourself grow the fuck up and deal.
29. I never get my car washed enough!
30. I will try and find an explanation for everything.
31. I will not allow you to make racist comments or jokes in my presence. I won’t let your family or friends do it either. If I think you do behind my back, I will leave you.
32. I will not like it when you refer to not doing something as being a “pussy.” The worst insult to most men is to call them a woman. I hate that.
33. If you tell me your definition of what it means to be a “real man in the world” but then you totally disregard that and act like a self indulgent boy, I will see your crap and call you on it.
34. I know how to use power tools.
35. I will want to do it on my own, even when I really need your help. I will hint at needing the help and hope you offer. Then I will say “No, I can do it on my own.” at least once before accepting your help.
36. I am on time, almost always. When I am running late, I am so late I will want to cancel.
37. My body will never be what it would have been if I had not gained 40 pounds in fourth grade, and learned to protect myself with food and fat. I keep working on this one.
38. I freak out about feeling the overwhelming weight of scarcity–of which there has been a lot in my life–but will still try to find ways to be generous in the middle of that. If you looked at my check book at any given moment, you may find that I spent my last $20 on you or doing something with you so you would not know just how bad it really is to be a poor chaplain. I walk around terrified about this much of the time.
39. I will explain when I do not have to because I will be afraid you will not love me for being human, needing things, or needing human kindness too.
40. I will analyze everything. E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G. I am working on letting go more and just being. This is hard for me, but I want to change so my life can have less anxiety over trying to figure everything out. I do not do well with emotional messiness, but I have plenty in my own spirit. I am sure that once I figure this out I will no longer need to analyze everything quite so much. (Irony intended!)

Can you handle Little Miss Imperfection?

So, I had to cut the latest date loose. Dear Lord! What is up with a guy being in his thirties and having “fish mouth” when it comes to kissing? (Think guppy or bottom feeder in the tank.) Ewwww. First, there was Woody Woodpecker with all the in and out, in and out of that jack hammer of a tongue, and now Fish Mouth! What is the dating world coming to?

I told Paparazzo–after properly grossing him out with a full on description of Fish Mouth–that I sometimes feel like I ended up on the Clearance Rack at a bookstore. All the best sellers have been scooped up. Some returned, mind you, but the best of the best were bought a long ass time ago. I somehow ended up next to: From Guy to Guru: Divorcees Do New Delhi and Accept Your Fetish: A Guide On How To Braid Your Nose Hair. Am I the rare first edition tucked under all the trashy novels and travel guides to Siberia? Or am I just sad story of yet another 30-something “great girl” who cannot find a good man gathering dust?

My thirties have been rough in the dating department. Let’s see: I spent the first 497 days a virgin. Not that good of a start, but also just the way my life unfolded. Thank God for day 498!! I loved three people these last five years, but only totally loved one of them. I have had sex with three people in my whole life, and made out naked with another 2.5. I realize I cannot put “2.5″ without some explanation…oh wait! Yes I can! This is my blog and I can do whatever I want! Let’s just say that only one of us was nakkid, which is why it does not really count all the way. I also have spent 61 of the last 76 months without sex at all! What is a girl to do? From a strictly statistical standpoint, these numbers do not bode well for my sexual future.

(Please do not post the statistical results of my sex-less future based on these numbers in the “Comments” section of this post. Give a girl a break. I will not be able to face myself in the mirror, let alone my destiny if I knew THE TRUTH. Ignorance is bliss after all.)

Now, let me just tell you: I make for a great girlfriend. In fact, I have been known to be the “exception to the rule” kind of girlfriend. I zig–in a very peaceful and understanding manner–when a guy thinks I will zag just because of my chromosomes. Need space to play video games naked? I understand. I need space to pluck my eyebrows, fold my sheets (I get too much pleasure from being able to fold a fitted sheet.), and blow fart kisses on Emma the Puppy’s belly. Not to mention, how can I talk about you behind your back if you are always around!?

I have a lot of compassion, creativity, humor, understanding, fun and intelligence to offer. And I cook too! I am never above helping–although I will resent you just a tiny bit if I Magic Erase your whole fucking house a couple of days before you break up with me–or too snitty to laugh at my own ridiculous behavior. I will even try and–brace yourself–change! Yes, that is right folks. I, Jacqueline Hope Derby, will change and grow the hell up if need be. I also practice forgiveness and unconditional love towards others and self.

And did I mention that I have only had sex 15 of the last 76 months? I am always down for making up for lost time.

How about those 40 reasons? Feel free to pass them along to any completely single, completely heterosexual man who reads books, eat vegetables, likes to go bike riding, enjoys witty whip smart women, and is willing to consider a woman who owes the price of a Ferrari to Duke Divinity School (oh and younger than 36–my age–is always encouraged). Here they are:

1. I think really fast.
2. I give Diana, Gladys and Roberta a run for their money in my car!
3. I own my share of sexy heels, but I am almost always in flats or sandals.
4. I will do the right thing even if it hurts to do it.
5. I can cook most anything I try, but I really should not bake.
6. I’ll laugh with you but not at you…okay, maybe at you sometimes.
7. I have a dog who can make a room warmer just by panting.
8. I can do puzzles, but I cannot park worth shit.
9. I color coordinate my bra and panties to what I am wearing.
10. I am honest and kind.
11. I would rather go for a walk or a bike ride than watch TV all the time.
12. I love to give massages.
13. I kiss like I mean it.
14. I am pretty much happy wherever I am.
15. I am weird and entertaining…at least that is what my friends say.
16. I once fed a boa constrictor a live chicken.
17. I over tip.
18. I like ice cream, but not too much ice cream. I will share.
19. I went back to finish my degree after flunking out the first go around, taking a 3.5 year break and changing majors–again! I also got my master’s from “The Harvard of the South.”
20. I know how to pop pop-corn on the stove.
21. I never sleep with homeless guys or idiots…call it my anti-fetish.
22. I dream of being a published writer.
23. I take imaginary vacations on the internet.
24. I love cooking for my friends and having dinner parties, but not a party girl at all.
25. I pump my own gas.
26. I like it rough and gentle…and gentle and rough…and then rough and gentle. I like it. I like it a lot.
27. I set goals and write them down. I make lists. I always put “have more sex” on both.
28. My mother says I am her favorite daughter. I am an only child.
29. I don’t chew with my mouth open…but I will laugh.
30. I am really good at listening, even though I love telling a good story.
31. I can order dinner without freaking out about needing to make a decision.
32. I am spiritual, not religious and super liberal. I am a minister.
33. I work stuff out over throwing temper tantrums.
34. I love good books, baths, and boys.
35. I rarely have too much to drink.
36. Everyone calls me “sweetheart.” I guess it is my vibe.
37. I like (this week) Damian Rice, Stevie Wonder, Sia and Bjork.
38. I never mind doing it myself, but I also will ask for help. I believe in Relationship Chi.
39. I love boy films over chick flicks.
40. I am game for anything.

A recent post of mine contained the story of the first time I had sex at thirty-one, and some of my complicated past that contributed to the long period of abstinence in my life. I worked on this particular story for over a year given it will appear at the bottom of a photograph of me fifteen feet high in Paris later this year. I worked hard, but I never could seem to capture all of what I wanted. The story is complex for me with many different currents running through.

I was raised in a fairly spiritually conservative environment, although with my stepfather being a physician and Mother being a nurse, science was never downplayed in my home as irrelevant. In fact, quite the opposite was true. I like to joke that although I was not allowed to read anything I considered important during dinner–say, Nancy Drew–my parents would allow the Bible, the Journal of American Medicine, and Science magazine to be read…their only exceptions. They wove together science and Christianity to help teach me about my sexuality. Anatomical drawings on the back of Burger King placemats detailed every falopian tube and prostate gland. “Wait to have sex until you are married in order to be safe,” their spiritual message.

The irony, of course, was the same caring physician sitting across from me and quizzing me about ovulation cycles also went home and molested me day-after-day. A wonderful doctor and a terrible father rolled into one human being. I received all sorts of education from him, some of which I still work to process and heal from. I can remember being in the hospital at twenty-one and seeing my name on the psych unit’s Team Workroom dry erase board. Beside my name were the words “violent abuse.” You’re telling me.

The year of my going into this hospital for three weeks became the major turning point in my whole life. The staff taught me coping skills I still use and practice. I know I would be dead by my own hand without all I learned there. A seminal moment for me came when the therapist working with me took my hands, placed them in my crotch and said, “One day you will want a man to touch you there, and that will be okay.” I did not believe I would ever want to be touched, but I did know I wanted to want to be touched. She lit a match.

The fire of my own sexuality burns within me fifteen years after her words. Christians, ministers, faithful persons, etc. do not talk about these fires unless forced to speak of our own limited understanding of sexuality or when we are trying to put them out in another. How much disconnect and fear have the so-called faithful roused up against homosexuality? I often think the real problem is not with anyone else’s sexuality, but instead the problem lies in our not being able to deal with our own. Christians historically look to scripture to teach them about sexuality, even with its limited understanding of human relationships, genetics, reproduction and the equality of all persons, male, female, trans-gendered, gay, straight, bi-sexual.

I must say I possess a bit of trepidation speaking about my own sexual identity and exploration because of both the shame of being molested and the imposed upon shame of my historic religious tradition. Christians are really bad about making the body and its desires something “ungodly” and despairing anyone who dares to embrace what God gave them. We have whole churches where membership requires a myriad of lies in order to participate. I grew up Southern Baptist, and the inside “joke” is not if there are any gays in the church, but if there are any choir directors who are not. I do not find this funny; I find it tragic and fundamentally against everything I believe following Jesus ought to be about. For me, following Jesus requires that we speak the truth of who we are and practice radical difficult love and inclusion of those in our midst. I cannot help but wonder what amazing things would happen in our congregations if we embraced the GLBT community in such a way as to help their gifts flourish in our midst, instead of insisting they hide their God-given lights under the proveribial bushel/closet?

So, I am coming out. I, Jacqueline Hope Derby–wait!–REVEREND Jacqueline Hope Derby own a vibrator, and I love it. Jesus loves me and my truth. I know the Jesus of “do not fear” would never want shame in any form to fill me because of the truth of who I am. Here is my truth: I am a woman. I am a minister. I am a sexual person. I know my own body. I would not survive sexual dry spells without my vibrator. I am not married, nor have I ever been. I love men and love having sex with them. I chose to do this one at a time and in a relationship. This is me.

Writing this story for my artist friend has pushed me to uncover some old shame left in my heart. In the end, I tossed out the prior version and re-wrote my piece for him. This time I left behind the fear of being “found out” and said just want I really wanted to say. I hope when you read these words you will feel provoked, comforted, inspired, angry, and mostly curious about your own God-given sexual self. Here is the final story that will appear with my picture:

When was the first time I had sex? Was it at seven? Twenty-one? Thirty-one? Thirty-five?

Was it the first time my stepfather molested me? He would tickle me on the outside of my clothed private parts until I would pee all over his hand. As my tiny breasts began to poke out, he would tweak them under my shirt or point to them. He played with me never pushing me to act too much like an adult; it was all a dress-up game in high heels and shorts. His hands ran up my thighs while we watched cartoons.

Did I lose my virginity the first time I had an orgasm? Finding a book on female masturbation the summer I was twenty-one taught me about my body. The book inspired me to explore my own body and sexuality, but I still felt shame. My self-exploration a secret; my sexuality known only to me.

Was it when I first had sex at thirty-one? I still covered my real body with layer upon layer of fat, but I allowed certain parts of me to be seen, touched and explored by a good friend. I kept most of my heart locked away from him though. Sometimes it felt like I was watching us have sex and not really present in the moment. I slept with him because I could and because I knew nothing real and lasting would ever happen between us. He was safe.

Or did I lose my virginity last year when I fell in-love for the first time? Many of the layers of fat gone, I let him touch, taste and see every single inch of my body and my heart. Sometimes sleeping with him would cause me to laugh hysterically, the waves of bliss overwhelming me. At other times, I would cry without understanding the deep wellspring of complicated emotions pouring out. I imagined door-after-door in my locked soul opening up as the pure light of love poured into the rooms and illuminated them. Shame melted away. I found my heart and body capable of things I thought the abuse stole away from me forever.

After six months he left me saying he only dated me because he was lonely. I almost died. Am I a virgin again?

I sat yesterday for a photograph that will be fifteen feet high when the show opens in Paris later this year. Under the photograph of me will be the story of the first time I had sex. Here is what I wrote:

June 2002

I had no idea how people went from dressed to naked and fucking. Thirty-one and a virgin. I did not even know what I looked like naked! I stopped paying attention.

I spent my thirtieth year looking hard in the mirror at my naked form. Imagine my dismay to learn that my breasts fallen down after years of ignorance and lack of care! When did my belly become so squishy? I hate my arms. This is me? My skin glows! I have beautiful shoulders. I love the turn of my chin and full lips. The small of my back has a tuft of wispy blond hair that calls out to be caressed.

I will admit I had phone sex prior to having real sex. The phone sex did nothing to keep us from being shy and anxious; it did not last long. Soon we found ourselves naked, kissing, holding and fondling. He touched me where I wanted him to touch me. We did not have sex right away, but when we did—damn. I could not tell up from down or left from right. I was taken completely unaware by what it felt like to be touched by a man. We made love; we had sex; we fucked. My first time with him was sweet, passionate, lovely but not tentative. I remember that, but it was not the best sex we ever had. The best sex came one night when he and I made love at four in the morning, and I could see this orange glow in my room even though it was pitch black.

June 1977

I was six when my father died. It was just my mother and me.

March 1978

After my father’s death, more than anything I wanted to be normal again and have a Daddy. The first time John put his hands on my crotch and fondled me, he asked me if it would be okay if he married my Mother. I happily said, “Yes.”

He would tickle me on the outside of my clothed private parts until I would pee all over his hand. As my tiny breasts began to poke out, he would tweak them under my shirt or point to them. He played with me never pushing me to act too much like an adult; it was all a dress-up game in high heels and shorts. His hands running up my thighs while we watched Little House on the Prairie.

January 1982

I threatened to tell on him and what kind of person he was. He pulled me by my hair into his bathroom. I remember how tiny the little glass bottles with metal lids lined the top shelf. He pointed to them and told me that he could kill Mother any time he wanted. He was a doctor; he could do it in ways no one would suspect. Then it would just be the two of us. I needed to “shut my God damn mouth.”

He kicked me on the floor when he turned to leave.

July 2007

I fell totally in-love last year. The woman I saw reflected in his eyes was the same one I see in my own. He left me, and I almost died.

But I did not die. I am stronger than that. No more games of Hide and Seek for me. I still get scared that I will not survive Love’s brutality, but I also know the walls must never be stronger than the woman I truly am. My beauty comes through. I see me, even when men don’t.

After a really funny conversation with Paparazzo last night, I thought I would share with you, my dear readers, my thoughts on the importance of a new boyfriend to help get over the last one. See, I am now in that place where I realize that although it is always possible that The Bean might gets scads of therapy, deal with emotional integrity towards himself and others, and actually apologize for all the cruelty towards me at the end of our relationship when he bailed and most likely had sex with his ex-girlfriend while I was at home praying he would finally be able to put her rejection behind him, I also realize it is highly unlikely. * I also think it is possible I might one day be a size 2, but only after being put away in the Internment Camps and starved for my beliefs…if I make it that long! I am built for a camp-fire roast, literally!

Being a realist–such as I am–I do not sit around and think The Bean will come back to me in any way shape or form. I also still miss him. I wish I never met him, and I miss him. As I said before, being smart and thinking about the things I do has been lonely in my life. The Bean has been the only person I ever met to really “get me” and want to talk about those things with me. I felt like my whole life opened up with him, and being so wrong about him left me devastated. Shit! Friends and family alike would come up to me and say, “He’s a keeper.” I did not know we would make it in the long term–he is an Atheist; me a real live Reverend–but I agreed with them from a character standpoint. I knew–just knew–in my heart that regardless of our love story, our friendship would be lifelong.

I was wrong.

So, I feel I finally have arrived in that place where I can see myself with someone else. I feel ready for New Boyfriend. I also know, there is nothing like New Boyfriend to help me get over the last lingering longing and thoughts about “That Bastard!” When I first started dating The Bean, I can remember thinking, “Oh. My. God. He is so wonderful. Thank you JESUS he is so amazing and different from Plant Geek!” I think the Number One Expectation we have in a new relationship comes from the place of our greatest pain with the last one; we want the new one to act as the total opposite of the old one in one key way. This proved true with The Bean. I never felt more beautiful or sexy than when I was with him. With Plant Geek, I never felt more ugly and undesirable.

Over time and while dating The Bean, I would think of Plant Geek and miss the fact I could cook for him and he would eat the vegetables off the plate without complaining or looking like he was about to throw-up. Never wanted to get back with him, but I could value certain aspects of him as he moved from “That Bastard” to “A Guy I Used to Date.” The Bean is still in the place of “That Bastard,” and only New Boyfriend can help move him along. Call it Relationship Physics. The only other force great enough to move a guy along in your heart–and not always–is for them to be arrested for a crime they committed. I think it is key for them to have actually done the offense, otherwise feelings of protection and defense for “That Bastard” will rise up and over take all the hard emotional work you did to get over him already. Nothing like a wrongfully accused ex-love to send a girl back to the Mint Chip, her therapist, and tissue box of tears while listening to “Stand By Your Man.” Now a good armed robbery, and the lingering feelings for “That Bastard” are gone!!!

I may have turned to Mint Chip Ice Cream to help me deal with “That Bastard” in the beginning, but I am now in a place of riding that shit off every morning at six on my Relationship Swag, aka my bike.  Now I am in a place where I choose New Boyfriend over the armed robbery. I do not get to have sex with the robbery scenario, but with the New Boyfriend…oh yeah…chicka bow wow.

I must take some responsibility for dating these bastards, otherwise I am destined to repeat the offense and be back here writing about it AGAIN in a year’s time. As entertaining as that may be for you, my poor heart needs more kindness than another round with an emotionally unhealthy guy. Of course the fact that neither of them were as emotionally healthy as I thought (or decided to perceive) is all on me. Plant Geek admitted he dated me because I was “so healing” given both of his parents are dead. The Bean admitted he dated me because of “being lonely.” My fault for dating both of them!

I realize I looked for men who had been through something because I have been through so much. I wanted it to be okay to have a complicated past. My niece, Morgan, lives with me right now. She said almost the same thing to me at the pool last night about her ex. She thought he “got her” because he had been through stuff. She said, “None of the guys in school are attractive to me because they have had it too easy.” Uh-oh. She too has been put through the wringer by her father, so she looks for the guy who won’t judge her for his actions. Just like me.

Maybe the right New Boyfriend is the one who will really think twice about all the shit I have been through, and the one who will really look at me hard to see how well I dealt with it, deal with it, and have a plan to deal with it, before offering his love to me. Someone who puts real value on emotional health and does not want to try to rescue me or teach me how to trust. Someone who expects me to do those things for myself. (See Red Flags on the Field of Love for more on this topic.)

And can he also read books, talk about real things, be kind, be funny, have a good job, want children, have beautiful thick thighs, AND eat vegetables?

Nahhh….that might be asking for too much…vegetables and funny???? What am I thinking!?

* One problem with dating is that I get asked “Why did you and The Bean break-up?” I still do not have a good answer for this, but given how badly saying “We were closer than ever, and forty-eight hours later his ex of fifteen months called and he left me.” has gone, I now have a new line. “It just did not work out because we are too different.” Every single one of these guys, plus some friends, tell me that he slept with her. The only explanation that fits. I actually asked The Bean the next night if he had slept with her. He said that he had not, but he also was pressed up against a wall (literally), looking at me with this look of horror, and telling me that he hoped I could remember who he really is because he could not. Not really understanding how all this happened makes answering the question bewildering as well. When I confronted him in the parking lot, he actually said, “At least it was not like I left you for greener pastures.” Uh-huh.

Everyone is just a little bit prejudice, and one of my BIGGEST prejudices is against men who wear tank-tops. I see a man in a tank top and I run the other way. Men should not wear tank-tops, but if you must wear one, please be gay. The Gays can carry it off–sometimes–but I have yet to see a straight tank top wearing man rock the sleeveless wonders. Here is why:

• Many of the guys who wear tanks, especially to the gym, do so to show off their muscles. I understand this. I like to rock my best features, which is why the boobs are always pushed up to where God intended and my hair shiny and soft. Tis’ human to highlight and accentuate, however, when a guy highlights his arms I immediately (remember, I told you this is a prejudicial issue for me) think, “Buddy…not too smart, are you?” Can you believe how pedantic I can be about appearances? I figure a guy showing off his arms like that has to do it to make up for being a complete idiot.
• I also find the guys with the tight workout tank-top cannot get enough of looking at themselves in the mirror. They go to the gym to show off their bodies and announce how hot (which I think means “fuckable”) they are. They want hot girls to see them and want to sleep with them. If my former roommate is a good litmus test, this plan usually works for them. Now you probably are thinking, given my own confession of not being a “hot girl” previously, that I am just jealous. Two amazing bodies see each other across the room and instantly want to fuck like rabbits never happens to me. The wallflower in Nike capri’s and her Duke Divinity tee-shirt does not get the “fuck me baby right after this rep” look ever! You are right about that! Jealousy though? Not on your life. Again, if my former roommate is any indication, these guys also have more drama wrapped up in them then you can find on a Telenovela. Do not even get me started on the insecurity issues either. They pump up for more than just health for damn sure!
• I find myself staring at the guy’s arm pits. The shirt stops right there! I never swoon over the muscles bulging, but instead find myself mesmerized by the little hairs sticking out. Now, when I guy is naked (really the best way to size a man up) I embrace the underarm hair. I will even embrace it when he is naked from the waist up–most of the time. However, standing next to a guy in a tank, I find myself totally grossed out by the underarm hair. I want to scream, “Cover that shit up man!” Sometimes, a guy will look all cute and athletic until you see the little Tribbles poking out their heads.

Dear Captian Kirk Up to His Pits in Tribbles.

• On the topic of not being mesmerized by a guy’s muscles…the WORST case scenario is when there are no muscles at all to size up! I speak from experience here. My arms flail in the wind. I know not to wear tank-tops in public unless medically necessary, by which I mean I find myself in the midst of a peri-menopausal moment and coolness wins over “Cool Factor.” Flabby arms on a guy, plus one tank top, equals REDNECK. Sweaty, stinky, beer can tossing, tractor pull going, NASCAR lovin Redneck. And for the record: A wife-beater is a tank top.
• Add some zits to the above and the ick factor quadruples.
• Lastly, and most importantly, when I see a good looking guy, well-groomed, athletic, etc. in a tank I a.l.w.a.y.s. sigh and think to myself, “God bless the Gays.” In fact, I discussed this whole Tank-Top Man Hating Thing with The Boys (a totally fab gay couple and good friends of mine) and Bubbie piped up saying, “But I have a tank-top that I work out in, what would you think of me?” With that The Joker hit him over the head and howled, “She would think you are GAY!” And she would be right.

In summary, boys if you have the muscles to highlight in a tank and are gay, feel free. I still find it a bit weird–Tribble Factor and all–but who am I to judge? (HA!) If you are not gay, keep those biceps under cover and let me use my imagination. I especially like the imagination part where I run my hands up your arms…wait! I do not write that kind of blog…

I keep going over in my mind the differences between “burying the past” and “letting go of the past.” We all do both, but one–letting go–somehow gives more life to us than the other. One puts more cellulite on my ass, the other helps it come off. Why?

I never try and pretend I was not molested. I was. I also recognize its indelible mark upon me. My DNA changed the first time John touched me. The boundary between the girl innocent and unmarred and the one raped crossed once and for all. I will always wear my scarlet “I” for incest. I could not run away from it, although I tried. I ate and ate ice cream all day long to make my body as unattractive as possible so John would not touch me. Then I found out he still would, but by then the binging comforted me too much to go back to the thinner version of myself. Plus, once I grew up and away from his terror I insulated myself from the panic another man would touch me–even one I might want to touch me–by keeping a hundred pound wall around me. You could not look at me and pretend something bad did not happen. I wore it from head to toe.

I did bury my feelings of loneliness, isolation and general grotesqueness in the weight. With each pound I gained I sank further into a world where all the true dreams for my life mattered less than the all consuming fear in the present. I flourished in the areas I could control–school, friends, family, church–and floundered terribly in the one place I knew no one could ever love–the whole me. See, no matter how much love and intimacy the love of family and friends brings, without sex it only goes so far. Thankfully. I would not want to have sex with my family at all, and a good 99.9% of my friends! I really only want one person for sex, and one who really loves me, the whole of who I am and who I will become with life transformations.

The first time I slept with someone–The First–I weighed over 260 pounds. I let him bore a hole through all those walls and find me. He felt safe because of his status as a good friend and because I knew I would never be with him for the long term, even as letting go later proved difficult. I found sex allowed me to un-bury the past in my cells and begin to let them go. Ounce by ounce the weight dropped off my body. I worked hard at it, of course, but the inner work let the outer begin to reveal itself from its mask.

The inner work of my life consists of over $100k of therapy and an utter determination to face the shit of my life. I know if I do not face things, the only one buried in the past will be me. I practice complete honesty. I say “practice” because I realize how similar to playing an instrument or a sport truth telling really is. I find I must apply myself again and again, and I can never rest on the truths I told before. I understand the truth of yesterday may not be life-giving to me today. Today, I must find and tell the truth again.

Today’s truth is that I keep gaining weight here recently. I talk to myself about it over and over again. The Mono back in November took me down to within six pounds of my birthday goal, but by my birthday I regained six additional pounds. I probably am up ten all together now, but I do not see the end unless I find the truth of why I need to gain. Yes…need…I need to gain the weight.

I feel all the ways I am free from the pain of The Bean. I know he is not the reason, although I also know the truth about why I needed comforting food at Valentine’s Day and my birthday had his name all over it. I am a thirty-six year old woman and no man has ever really loved me. Not even for a minute. I never received a New Year’s kiss or a Valentine, and I guess I thought this year would be different back in November when my heart flowed with love for The Bean. I really believed he loved me too, but he did not. I allowed myself to dream and expect in places where I never let myself. Year after year of disappointment–in myself as much as anyone else–teaches a girl not to use her imagination in places dead to her. I never begrudge anyone any silly holiday because being on the outside of all of them creates a longing so deep I would never want to take away one precious moment of happiness from anyone else.

I think the trust it took for me to let The Bean into my life fuels the current weight gain. I trusted and lost. I feel like I wasted my heart on someone who took it, saw it for what it really really contained and could become, and then threw it away. He threw me away. I do not want to trust again like that. I need to hide. I can feel still–feel all sorts of things–but it kills me. I keep trying to push away the moments of trust, curiosity, desire and longing I feel. I want to hide behind my thighs again so I will not be in a position of trusting someone else who will automatically possess the power to destroy me.

I also know I must practice risking this again. If I do not, The Bean will be buried on my thighs and forever written into my DNA. There will be no room for anyone else. No room for loving again. No room for sex, with all its glorious fucking and making love. No room for my desires. No room for my dreams. No room for me.

I guess letting go is that moment when I risk just a tiny bit towards the future instead of holding onto the pain infused past. My run this morning contained more than a few steps in the right direction, but I do not know if I will find my footing and momentum today.  I guess I will just need to practice again and again.

After one month I deleted The Bean’s phone number out of my cell. Of course, I made sure to write it down in my Address Book, but not on the front page with all the other folk with last names that began the same. I guess I figured if I wrote it on a page rarely seen, it would not count.

After two months, I returned all of his things to him. Meticulously. I made sure not to keep anything, even the first gift he ever gave me because throwing it away seemed too cruel and keeping it too painful. The gift was this little ceramic wall hanging of a guy zip-lining in Costa Rica. My “Flying Bean.” When we first started dating he robbed a bank there and went down the line, video on You Tube and all. He brought me the “Flying Bean” back from his trip, and I cherished it. Letting it go hurt like hell.

Keeping the Mac Mini, desk, chair and bike also hurt. I really wanted to give them all back–preferably by throwing them through his front window–or at least pay for them. Deep inside I get all wicked about any man buying me anything. Old shit from John given how I would manipulate him into purple bathing suits from Burdines and extra Hello Kitty for keeping my mouth shut. I hate feeling paid for, so when a man breaks my heart I want to throw up every meal, scrub off every caress, sterilize my mouth and pussy, and return every fucking thing he ever thought to give me. Fortunately for me, most men I date never give me anything. Unfortunately for me, The Bean did.

So, I sit here writing this on the Mac he bought me off a truck through Craigslist, at the desk he bartered for, in the chair he got for free, with the bike in the storage unit that he bought for his sister, but then gave to me to ride. I guess they are mine now. I would have liked my actual stuff back, because unlike when I gave him his things, I never got back my things I did not think to take with me on the way out the door. During the Parking Lot Confrontation I did manage to get back a CD he just happened to have in a case in the car–The Bean I knew only used his ipod in the car–and forking it over was not too much of a problem. The case is probably in the bottom of his closet somewhere. He denies having some things, flat out kept others, and then offered to write me a check. Fuck that noise! I wanted them given back to me because he knew they were mine, but I settled for him knowing what a thief and wimp I found him to be after it was all said and done. I wanted to make sure he knew the score. “Jacqueline was more generous,” which is a lie–neither one of us really was there at the end–but given I tried and he never did, I win.

I work hard to make sure the score favours me when my heart feels at stake. Maybe some times I really am more generous, however, when I find myself so very low I will scrape your eyes out to be on top. Case in point: Right before the break-up, and during a time that turned out to be really really tough on me financially (although I did not know how bad it would get when I did this), I paid for the tax on The Bean’s fantastically expensive bike as his Christmas gift, got him monogrammed towels (a joke, but not a cheap one), got him some more long sleeved shirts for riding, and bought him “Nacho Libre” on DVD. WHAT THE FUCK WAS I THINKING? Oh yeah! I thought I loved him, and sacrificing for him made me feel good inside. The night we broke up I gave him all this loot–which were to be his Christmas gifts–because in my crazy heart they all had “The Bean” stitched to them.

In the third month, I deleted all his old emails–except the first ones–I need to go do that now. I also tried to have casual sex with Frenchie. What the hell was I thinking there? Twenty-eight and looking like a member of Depeche Mode was not such a bad thing. But! Between the smoking, weird silences, not really liking anything but oral–and I only like oral with the one I love, not the one I fuck–and then…well…imagine a pencil…

I never fuck someone for the sake of fucking them, so I figured why start now?

Here in the fourth month, I deleted everything about him off my computer. All the beautiful pictures of he and his mom in Vancouver last Fall. Gone. All the angry, loving, forgiving, painful, pain-filled, longing letters deleted. All the photographs thrown away or lost in an envelope somewhere. All the disappointment over him missing out on Emma. All the sadness he never sat at my dining room table. All the hope he might change. All the dreams of what might have been. All of what I once was with him, but I decided to keep the really amazing parts of whom I transformed into.

What else remains? My Ordination blog–I just cannot delete him because it would be all wrong without any pictures with him, but it now looks like this photograph book found tucked away in a lost piece of luggage from the Titanic. The tears I weeped into the blue paint on my walls. Catching my breath sometimes when I awaken in the middle of the night gasping for breath after dreaming again of making love to him where I see his face just as it was before: pure bliss. Then there are the nightmares of running, drowning, killing, melting, and being abandoned just one more time by him, usually with a baby in my belly. The random thought of “Oh, I need to tell The Bean that.” when I hear something or read a thought he would connect well, but then I remember. I still steel myself a bit in his neighbourhood, which overlaps my own in some places, but the energy got let out of that with the conversation last week.

Of course there is the Mini, the bike, the desk and the chair. My Mini, my bike, my desk, my chair.

I do not know how we became a culture obsessed with “closure,” but I admit I love the damn thing. I hate the feeling of unrest in my gut from awkward, ugly and hurtful endings, especially where I feel my heart never fully heals due to the love cut off at the quick. When The Bean left, I reeled from the swift and unexplainable exit. I could not fathom how it seemed to me that we were just getting to the good stuff, and he “imploded” (his word) and left body, mind and spirit. I needed closure and answers to my questions, but if someone does not acknowledge that you are alive closure tends to be elusive. Well…at least until I saw him driving to the Bike Shop.

As I turned my car around I cried out to myself, “What I need matters too!” So there we were in the parking lot face-to-face for the first time in four months. I just wanted to know from The Bean, “Do you know why you left me?”

He kept talking over and over again about when he did the “Post Mortem” on our relationship. I found strange comfort in his words given the pain of losing him set me on fire like a death. I led one of work’s Bereavement Support Groups the day before, and I kept thinking to myself, “It is okay that I have been so lost and incapable of almost anything–I just have been grieving.” Grieving like death. Something died between us, but I never wanted him out of my life, so maybe I would be better served to say something died in him. Maybe.

He told me that the reason why he had to leave immediately and cut me off fully centered on his feeling judged for not wanting to look at the effect his past might be having on his present. He said, “I learned everything I could back when those things happened, and I never want to think of them again. The longer we were together and the closer we became, the more pain I found myself in with you. You live in your past, present and future all at the same time. This way works for you–its what makes you so good at your job–and I know you were not intentionally judging me, but you require the person you are with to look at things, and I did not want to. I did not need to. I already got what I could out of them and want to leave them buried in the past where they happened.”

Figuring that I had already been pegged correctly, and that it was no time to stop being my own damn self, I said to him, “But when you saw Ana (THE EX), you said that the shit of her life was weighing her down even more because she refuses to deal with it; yes?” He agreed. I went on, “So, it seems strange that you would want others to deal with their stuff, but you do not want to deal with yours. Plus, I did not set out to root around to find your past pain, I brought up these things because they were hurting you, and us, in your present.”

When telling all of this to Paparazzo, he asked, “What was his major in college?” I told him what he already knew, “HISTORY.” Paparazzo replied rolling his eyes, “Just checking.” Irony. Irony. Irony.

Now granted, The Bean could have just been blowing smoke up my ass with all of this, but I do not really think so. He left me because I got inside the facade and that is not how he does things. He is the one who gives and never receives. He is the one in control. He is the one there for the girl–and he does love to date girls who have been molested–and all her problems. I brought disorder to the delicate balance of chaos and control he exerted over his life, but the disorder possessed a rightness to it because it centered on his needs being important.

Remember those drawings he did? Ours was an equal relationship. He could not be in control with me given the pain of my past. Not this girl. Not this time. I am the fucking poster child for recovery. I deal with the shit of my life. And he is right; it does work for me. The problem is that even if my way does not work for him, neither did his.

Given how this is my damn blog and I can say whatever I want, you would think I would bash him royally. You would think. I just cannot do it because I know too much. Too much about him and too much about adult children of alcoholics. I bought a book. I read up, which is another point of irony given my being a well-trained chaplain that I never really thought so much about this issue when we were together. One thing I read turned on the big light bulb over my head. In Children of Alcoholism: A Survivor’s Manual by Seixas and Youcha I read, “The inability to trust [their] own feelings and perceptions puts [them] in a precarious position. Trying to do away with uneasiness by hiding it and hoping no one else will see is exhausting…” and as a result “secrecy, evasion, and deception all [become] as acceptable as the truth.”

I kept seeing The Bean over and over in the pages of the book. I did not want to see him. I wanted to believe he would be the exception to the rule. I wanted to believe he would be the poster child for figuring it out on your own and getting it right. I wanted to believe he would not be just plain typical, but I kept seeing him over and over again.

The book put new light on why he lies to his parents all the time, why he has no real idea what he likes to receive–he can never trust anyone would take his desires seriously–and why all these things came up for us when they did.  The book talks about how real intimacy will cause the adult child of an alcoholic to fill with panic, which is actually a good sign of new life being right around the corner.  They do  best to face their past while being supported by love, especially intimate love, in the present.  I understand that, for being with him helped my whole being to heal in ways I could never approach without the kind of connection and intimacy real trust with sex can only bring.

I do not know what it was really like in his house as a kid, but given my own history with incest my imagination is probably pretty damn close. Even with all the really hopeful and helpful information contained in the book, I realized just how painful and distorted growing up with an alcoholic really is. Who can you ever trust if you cannot trust your parents? Yes. Both parents. The one who drinks almost ends up making more sense than the one who stays and allows all the craziness to continue. Nothing is real. Your perceptions are not real. You are not real.

So I stood talking to The Bean thinking,”You did the best you could.” I felt so sad. Sad. Sad. Sad. Here is this amazing, beautiful, brilliant man who just cannot go the emotional distance right now. I still hope he will one day, but I know I will never see it. He has been practicing and perfecting burying the pain for a long ass time. He will have one hell of a journey if he ever makes the changes necessary to accept and give real love. I know. I have been practicing them for years.  That is why I walked away thinking how good it was for me that we parted, and maybe not the best choice for him.  Maybe.  Or maybe I started something - planted a seed in a fertile garden perhaps - that will grow and flourish one day when he can go the emotional distance and not keep reburying things over and over again.

I am reminded of Robert Frost’s first lines from Mending Wall:

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.

So I stood there knowing how much I could go the emotional distance. I told him how angry I became over him leaving just when things got interesting. I got to the core fears and wanted to face them head on because of how much I wanted to be with him healthy and whole. I wanted to give him my very best and keep raising the bar again and again. I wanted to be more real, more loved, more loving, more giving, more free. I could see how we challenged each other in every single way and were on the verge of something great for ourselves as individuals and together as a couple. (Check out this great article about getting to the good stuff.) And then it was over. Sad. Sad. Sad.

I found closure to the most important and devastating chapter of my adult life standing in a parking lot. I found a way to bless him and our time together. I found a way to voice my anger and disappointment in him and the way he cut me out of his life. I told him about the destructive path of his verbal rage and emotional extinction. I told him how profoundly sorry I felt to find I caused him so much pain. I found forgiveness again.  I found a way to say goodbye to my first real love.

I found closure.

November, the month prior to my break-up with The Bean contained more emotionally, physically and spiritually intense–let  alone draining–events than we ever could prepare for.  So many things transpired that even now they do not seem real. It is almost as if the whole month happened in “super-slow-mo” and the tape playing in my head only makes the “waahwaahwahnan” sound over and over. Writing it down still stuns me.

The arduous rundown:

1. I broke a molar and had root canal the first few days of November, just before…
2. I was ordained on November 5th. Now The Bean continues to have major issues with any sacred or religious space (Let’s be sure to keep the two separate, because not all religious spaces are sacred or vice versa.). As a kid, his parents–one an atheist Catholic, the other Jewish–were blackmailed by the priests running the private school into having him baptised. The Bean did not want it, nor did his parents, but it allowed them to keep their illegal immigrant child in school. I have issues with baptizing any child, but against a grown child’s will and that of their parents and demonizing said child is abuse. Period. So, when I looked out and saw my dear sweet Bean sitting in my church I came undone with love for him. I knew what it took for him to be there, and I knew how much he cared for me to cross that threshold on my behalf. Pure selflessness in the place of pain for him.
3. I told him, in the throes of Ordination Bliss, the night of my ordination, that I loved him. He held me closer, and we fell asleep at the hotel.
4. November 7th we went to dinner. He said something to me over dinner about how he did not remember anything after we got back to the hotel due to being so tired. It turned out that this included what I said, which I repeated (feel free to judge me now). He replied smiling, “As if I did not already know that!” I said, “Right back at-cha.” The conversation brought up so many fears for me, especially the Big Kahuna: abandonment. I also talked to him that night about how I felt I had gotten really “busy” in our relationship due to my own fears of him leaving. Overcompensating. I told him about how I would drop yoga for him week after week–wanting him to keep my boundaries–but never expected him to not go on his weekly ride. I told him to expect some big changes from me in the coming weeks, not because I did not care about him, but because I realized I needed to take a step back and care for myself. I apologized for making him responsible for what I needed.
5. November 8th, The Bean called me at work to tell me how upset he was. I felt like he might be experiencing a panic attack and urged him to leave work “sick” and go to the doctor. He desperately stated how he needed a break and all of the pressure seemed to be too much. I got it and took him seriously. I also urged him to consider therapy, if that might help his anxiety coupled with all the really smart and hard physical workouts he already incorporated into his life for stress management. I heard a great deal of anger–rightly so, I might add–that I thought a therapist could help him with processing in ways that empowered him more than leaving him feeling helpless. He listened, but he never went further.
6. I took a terrible fall off my bike on my way to The Bean’s house on November 9th. He rode towards me but was on the opposite side of the road. Even after not finding me, he never thought to cross to the other side. Given my “safety first” alarm bells, I never would ride on the side where he rode due to there not being any street lights and it was at dusk. He found me, patched me up, and took me home following dinner. I felt just awful, in part because I wanted him to care for my boo-boos (only fair given how I had nursed his from a bad fall in August that he took), but I also realized that–for whatever the reasons–he needed to be alone that night. I told him later, “My wants got trumped by your needs.” I felt really grown-up for getting the difference with him that night.
7. I woke up at his house on the 11th with the worst sore throat of my life and a fever. By the end of the day, I was up to 103.7!
8. I went to the doctor and found out I probably had Mono on Monday the 13th. By Thursday, I had the confirmation. My official first day off Probation at work was the 13th as well, so I used my Paid Time Off on the first day possible and until I ran out. In the Month of November I worked only six days and out some of December too. This left me one whole paycheck short, not to mention all the medicine, doctor visits, etc. November would have completely ruined me financially if not for the money people gave me at my Ordination and some help from my congregation.
9. The next week I developed Thrush in my mouth. So, now I had the most exhaustion I ever experienced, could hardly go downstairs to get food, and now could not put anything in my mouth. Add to this diarrhea and nausea. The Bean planned a bike trip with a friend the day of the 18th. I felt so disappointed in him for planning that trip while I was not only so sick, but also because my Aunt Charlyne had just been taken to the hospital with life-threatening lung problems and Miss Audrey and Baub were up in Ocala for her that weekend. I never asked him to stay; I only told him that I was hurt he would plan to leave. In the end, he did not go due to spending the night with me in the ER. I could no longer speak or open my mouth, finding myself in terrible pain, dehydrated, not able to keep anything in me, and trying to throw up. That night still shines out to me for other reasons as well. The Bean told me of how he drew up these schematics of all of his relationships that day while at lunch. In the end, he drew them for me. He showed me how all of his other relationships were so “out of balance” with the relationship overshadowing him and his needs. He had no life outside of whomever he was dating, other than work and his own family–although they were enmeshed there too. When he drew out how he saw us, he drew equal circles placed beside each other, but with some distance between them. He said, “I see us as individuals now and always, but I can also see that we are moving closer together…not to overtake one another or become ‘one’ but to be right up next to each other as full partners.” He showed me how he had balance in his life for the first time. He had his own friends. He expressed concern about how large and dominating work had become. I asked him, “Is there anything you need from me or need for us to work on to help you in this?” He replied, “No. I would not change anything about us. What we have is really working and brings me a lot of happiness.”
10. The night of the 18th, we lay in bed talking until five in the morning. The Bean needed to talk about the pain his most recent ex (from over a year before, and the one who will call him December 1st) caused him when she left saying, “I do not love you.” He told me how he could not think of her without “feeling searing pain,” and how this applied to the good times as well. We held each other. He cried. I cried. I told him I knew he could find his way to holding both the pain and the good times in such a way that the pain no longer robbed the good, but also where the pain no longer robbed his present either. I must admit I feel as though I am betraying him for saying this at all, but I also know that I still protect his identity from most and how important this moment felt to me. I firmly believed that until he could let go of the pain she caused him, he could not fully open to the love I wanted to give him or receive from him.
11. Thanksgiving night he surprised me by coming back early to see me. He told me of how he shared with his family his deep thankfulness for me because I “challenged [him] in every way.”
12. Saturday the 25th, he went on his ride. I suffered the effects of a new colon infection IN PUBLIC, but I did manage to buy the plants for re-doing his front garden. We wanted to get it in last Fall, so it would be beautiful and ready if he tried to sell this Spring.
13. Sunday we worked and worked and worked on his front garden. By dusk, it really looked amazing. He asked me if I would help with a work thing, which ended up taking almost four hours but gave him some sleep he never would have gotten otherwise.
14. We worked on getting his resume ready the next few days to send to a personal friend of mine for help in finding The Bean a new job. His work life had become unbearable and his boss utterly unkind and unprofessional, in my opinion.
15. Wednesday the 29th, we sent off his resume. The Bean lay down next to me on his couch and told me, “Baby. I needed you. I never need anyone, but you were there for me. Thank you.” I told him how I could not believe my ears, but “thank you” for letting me in to help you. I also thanked him for all the amazing ways he helped me during my illness.
16. This is as good a place as any to mention the last time we had sex was in November.  Due to the contagious nature of Mono, we just would look at each other with longing.  God!  How I missed him!  Every single part.
17. I tried to go back to work on the 30th, but my boss took one look at me and sent me back home. Thankfully.
18. December 1st: The Bean and I sat in the car driving to his parents’ house to pick up something and then out to dinner. His ex called him, which he called “disturbing.” She called again. He did not answer. He became very silent and upset. I wanted him to go and see her. I wanted him to forgive her–something he told me in the Summer he wanted to tell her–because I felt we could not go on until he had full closure with her over the past. He was to call me when they were done talking, so I would know he was okay, even if he could not talk about it. He texted me at 2:30 in the morning.

We never really spoke about that conversation with the ex, other than him telling me that “the shit of her life is weighing her down more now than before.” He told me that he was “imploding” following talking to her, and after a week of time in his Man Cave, I went to see him. He told me that he did not love me, only dated me because he was lonely, and we were done. Two days later, I went back to him and told him that I did not know if we were doing the right thing–if I was doing the right thing–and how mad at him I was. Then I got the “your star is extinguished from my sky” email, and I was officially dead in his world.

Funny thing is, I was not dead in mine, nor was he.

So, when I saw his fucking car–for the first time ever since we split–on the road last week, I followed his ass to the local bike shop (I just knew where he was going.) and confronted him!!!!!! I have GUMPTION! And I must say how proud of myself I am. Damn!

I do not know that The Bean left our relationship to get back together with his ex-girlfriend, but I admit the high possibility. I am not stupid. You go to dinner with me, then out to “dessert” around 10pm with her and text me at 2:30 the next morning, and the questions will come. Even though at the time he said he did not sleep with her and their getting back together was not even discussed, I still possess great doubts. It sure would explain why he had to “extinguish [my] star from [his] sky.” If I was pushed completely out of the scene then I would not know just how low down and dirty a bastard he could be.

Us girls do like to give all the psycho-babble explanations we can find, but I realize–despite my own propensity in this direction–that ultimately the only person who really knows is The Bean. And he refuses to acknowledge that I am alive, let alone able to have a conversation with me to answer some questions. I used to feel ill just thinking of all that falls into that category of “unknown” when it comes to how he left. The questions did not just fall into neat little piles marked “What he did.” and “What I did.” No. The worst category was marked: “Am I unlovable?”

My half-sisters walked out after Daddy died. I went from having nine at the dinner table to only Miss Audrey and myself. I knew, as only a six-year-old can know, I made everyone leave. They left; The Doctor came. He came and molested me because he knew I was trash too. I possessed amazing powers to repel those who loved me and attract the one who would use and abuse me by seven. And why would they all do this? They did it because I had no value…deserved nothing…would get nothing…marked as filth so grotesque and horrible that to ruin me again and again became sport.

And then I grew up. I got a shit-load of therapy. I got as super healthy as one can get when your DNA gets fucked over every day by the ones who are supposed to love and protect you. I became the Poster Child for the sexually abused and healed, as one therapist put it. In fact, my pre-Ordination psychological testing showed just how low my suspicion factor is, which is unbelievable given a childhood of trauma, abuse and abandonment. Somehow I keep trusting and believing in love, even with all the evidence to the contrary in my life.

Don’t get me wrong here. I am far from perfect. Even with The Bean I found places where I needed to grow up so as to make myself even more healthy. I can see it though. I can see where I would get “busy” in our relationship and try to earn his care for me. I would tell him how I could see it, and try and work on it too. Old fears of abandonment creep up. I guess I just figure my best “Plan of Attack” is to try and deal with them when they do. Practicing sinking into being good enough also helps.

Relationships of the intimate variety do require me to practice. Practice trusting. Practice opening up. Practice letting go. Practice just being. Practice relaxing, for I can be so hyper-vigilant about my life. I never let myself off the hook–the old damaged goods record gets played too much–because I do not want to be seen as damaged goods, even if I am. Dont’ worry; I see ironic circular thinking on that one.

The time with The Bean felt like my reward for all shit I endured in my life. I could not believe how lucky I was to have found him. Someone finally got me! Someone finally thought it was amazing that I was smart! Someone finally understood how much pressure I put myself under and wanted to be a healing balm in my life! Someone thought it was cool and beautiful for me to be the “exception to the rule” girl! Someone dated me because I was “amazing!” (At least that is what he told me.) My relationship with The Bean empowered me and opened my heart in more ways than could be quantified. I found room after room in my soul that I thought my past had demolished. I opened up. I could not have been prouder of myself and the emotional risks I took.

Nothing in my past has kept me from risking my heart. I had been demolished in my tender underbelly before in a dating situation. When Plant Geek broke up with me he implied that any man attracted to me must have some sort of “fetish” and would have “to be into that sort of thing.” This was a direct attack on my being a size 16 and not a size 6 or less. Why do we have to resort to hitting the other’s tenderness as we leave them behind? Both Plant Geek and The Bean could have left me without leaving me to question my value or desirability, for that is what happens when you punch hard that tender underbelly. The old “you are grotesque trash” message starts playing and overwhelms my heart, mind, spirit and body…at least for a time.

When Plant Geek called into question anyone being genuinely physically attracted to me, I knew what he meant. My breasts could be higher and firmer. They are not. Shit! I make cellulite whenever I look at broccoli, so anything “fattening” dooms my thighs yet again! My belly is not flat. My hips are wide. My ass spreads. I have sensitive skin that becomes easily irritated. I look pasty without some blush. You cannot see my eyelashes very well without mascara. My chin is not as sharp as it will be when I get to my goal weight. I have psoriasis on my right sole. My nails do not grow long. I have flabby arms.

I am not perfect. I do not have the body anyone would look at and say, “Damn! She is hot!” But that does not mean I am not beautiful or fuckable. I just fall into another category…my very own with only my name on it. I am Jacqueline. Period. My smile can light up a room and calm the fears of the dying. My eyes will tell you my life story before I even open up my mouth. I love my full lips, and I bite the bottom left one when I am nervous or when I am thinking about kissing someone. I have strong lovely shoulders. My skin is soft and milky all over. An artist drew my hairline before my life began, and my hair is always soft. I smell good too. I have beautifully shaped legs. I have a really cute dimple in my ass that only gets more adorable the more squats I do! Each toe is unique at the end of my long feet. I have strong hands. I have a graceful back. I am all woman and will be a girl even when I am an old lady in my deathbed.

I also build emotional muscles daily. I am resilient. I am kind. I am sensitive. In seminary a friend talked about different people’s reputations. I was curious. What was said about me? She told me that my reputation centered on one thing only: “You are scary smart.” I loved that! I see it too, and I am no longer afraid to show off my big beautiful brain.

I forgive easily. I listen. I try. I respect. I honor the humanity and potential for beauty in those around me. I still believe in the created worth of each and every human being and believe God has a dream–an archetype perhaps–of whom we could be, if only we would choose to be that person. God knowing our capacity for greatness. I am funny. I am creative, and I am proud of the way I put things.

So then, why would The Bean treat me as if I was less than anyone he had ever known? What did I ever do to deserve that treatment?

The ex-girlfriend prior to the one at issue here slept with his best friend from High School and that guy’s wife. He still wanted to be with her and work it out after that fiasco. The ex whose call ended our relationship could easily be labeled “Dysfunction Junction” given how the “shit of her life just weighs her down” (per The Bean), but he…well, I know he wanted her back for a long time and maybe always did. The only person from these fiascoes to be given the “You Are Dead To Me” treatment was his former best friend for seducing the one girl, who was particularly vulnerable due to her own emotional shit.

So if I get this right, I am in the same category as that guy? WHAT THE FUCK?!!?

My friend Miss Douglas asked me yesterday if The Bean could have found out something about me that would have made this happen. What is there to find out? He knew most of my secrets, and the two that he did not know were not life shattering. No. This all happened for reasons only he knows, and I believe no matter what they are they all qualify for “Fucked Up In The Head” status. Paparazzo rides with him on Wednesdays, but I would never ask him. Miss Douglas asked me about that too. I will tell you what I told her: “Not only would I not want him in the middle, but I really do not want to know anymore.” She still thinks that enough time has gone by for Paparazzo to say “WTF?” to The Bean, but my fantasy of that moment would have to include a hard right uppercut as well! (Damn! That makes me laugh!)

My heart is not such a swirling mess any longer. All the “What the fuck?” questions the royal eye roll treatment now. I shake my head and embrace the not knowing and how that must be a more gentle answer. What would I do with knowing anyways? Would it put me back playing the old recordings of being unlovable again? I found a miracle when The Bean and I broke up after he told me that he did not love me and only dated me out of loneliness. I knew I was worthy of love, and all I felt was love in that place…if even for just the most critical of moments. I knew that I loved me. I knew God loved me. I knew I loved The Bean. Somehow in the worst place, I found the love I had been seeking but just not from the sources I thought would bring it.

Unexpected love in an unexpected place.

When I was eleven Miss Audrey sent me off to Theater Camp out at the Dade County Youth Fair Grounds. I played some character in Pinocchio, but I do not remember who any longer. I do remember going to the public pool for a bit each day and swimming until she came to get me after work. The diving board on the right side of the deep end and the diving platform to the left. I would go off the diving board again and again. Bounce, bounce, bounce. Jump. 1…2…3…splash! I wanted to go off the platform so badly, but I was scared. I climbed up, teeth chattering, palms sweating. I stood at the end of the platform breathing deeply. Then pinching my nose before jumping off, I went for it! 1…2…3…?????Where is the splash????Oh my god, is there water???Am I going to die???HELP!!!HELP ME!!!!!!!!!S!P!L!A!S!H!

I find myself on the High Dive again. I keep putting myself out “there.” I find the corners where the pain The Bean caused makes me hesitant to not only date again but invest again. After Plant Geek, I wanted to get other opinions of the person I dated. I dragged The Bean in front of friends and family time and again. The resounding affirmation was: “He is a keeper.” We were all deceived? Probably not, but none of us saw his underbelly for not only what it was, but also what it was capable of doing either. So much not knowing, even as I try to keep the tangled mess of questions about the past in the past.

What I do know is I feel the corners where I still need to heal when one guy tells me that I am “very very beautiful” because I feel skeptical of his intentions. When I think another guy is terribly smart and interesting, I fear it a bit. When I want to kiss someone in particular, I talk myself out of it…for now…because what if I get rejected? I find myself scared shitless! But one of these days…well, I will jump off knowing that the splash may take a bit more time, but once I hit the water I am golden because I am a really strong swimmer. Not to mention, I love the water!

But until I take the leap, I will stand on the High Dive with my heart racing, my palms sweating, and my teeth chattering. And there will still be that corner of my heart that is suspicious that I am in fact unlovable…because no matter how much this Poster Child heals, the old questions journey with me. I just keep trying to find ways to love with them, instead of thinking I can get rid of them all together.