Author: shelly

A few days ago i made a decision that i hoped i would never have to make. It was the last time i would acknowledge someone that used to be my best friend and it hurt more than i can describe.

There was no satisfaction in doing this, no satisfaction whatsoever. It was one of the most difficult things i’ve ever done but there are simply things that you do not do or say to someone and believe they will not eventually respond.

Sometimes there simply is no, “they have their side of the story.”

As I said, there is no satisfaction in me- only sadness and a profound sense of loss. I feel like i’ve been crying for days.

Maybe i have.

Today was a bit rougher than i thought it would be. I knew i was going to have to drive through my ex’s home town of Olympia. That includes Tumwater, Olympia and Lacey. Each town has more than a few memories. But it was going to Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge that i was simultaneously looking forward to, and dreading, the most.

When i got there, a fog had begun to set. It wasn’t much but the air was thick with humidity and the wind cut through everything i had on as soon as i got out of my car. The smell of decay immediately hit me and reminded me of home. If you’ve never lived near the coast or a bayou, you won’t understand. It’s just something that’s part of living and being near the water.

Nisqually is an absolutely gorgeous place filled with more beauty than i can describe, so i won’t. I’ll post some pix eventually but probably not for a few days. If you know my G+ feed, you can see them there.

I am over my breakup. Thanks to some things my ex said to me and everything she refused to acknowledge or take accountability for in July, she managed to sever the last of the emotional ties i had to her. I guess i shouldn’t be surprised. After seven months of PURE silence from her, her email to me is titled, “You still don’t get it.” I cannot make up this shit.

Nonetheless, driving through Olympia was a bit tougher than i thought it would be. I had to stop at the Tumwater Fred Meyer and memories of a much happier time were on each aisle.

But the Tumwater Fred Meyer was a piece of cake compared to the memories of walking through Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge. It’s such an odd experience to be surrounded by such beauty and equally haunted by memories.

Thanks to the correspondence my ex and i had in July, I now remember something with a brilliant clarity. I had pushed this memory aside because it was too painful. I didn’t want to remember it but she forced me to. It’s last October after she’s sent that hatchet job of an e-mail. I think this is the last weekend i’ll ever see her but i don’t know it at the time. I think she does. We’re sitting in her car about to go into PetSmart. Her beautiful, beautiful betta had died and she wanted to replace it with some others. It broke my heart when he died and even now, it makes me sad just thinking about it. He was really special.

It’s one of the first rains of the season and we’re trying to repair things. She looks at me and says she has the right to “…do what I want with who I want whenever I want.” I had nearly forgotten this but somehow she reminded me of it in July. When i miss her, i simply go back to this, among other moments. I latch onto her absolute stupidity and cruelty in this moment and in doing so, the Abyss will never claw and scrape me back into its embrace again.

That is her idea of “repairing” a relationship. No. That’s her idea OF A RELATIONSHIP. I am so deep into coping strategies and my own insanity at the time that i do not respond to it for what it is. Rutting like an animal in a field with whomever you want whenever you want is not a relationship. Is it freedom? Yeah- i guess so. But by definition, if that’s your idea of freedom, then you are incapable of and you are unworthy of anything else. There’s a reason they’re called “relationships” and not “i’ll-rut-and-fuck-anything-that-moves-ships”.

But i don’t want to lose her and i do not want to hurt her. She is my best friend. She is the woman i’ve waited my entire life to meet. I’ve been trying for years to find a job and move closer to her and when i think of my life and my future, she is always there. She is the last person i see when i close my eyes and she’s the first person i will see when i wake up. I may care for and even love others but she is my foundation, my closest friend, my sweetest lover and each of those are so deeply intertwined that to try to separate any one of them is to destroy all of them. No one will ever mean as much to me as she does and i will always love her more than anyone else. Period. Every major choice i’ve made for years is with her and our relationship first and foremost in mind.

But this thing she says- and it makes no sense. Looking back, it was one of those moments where her insanity and my insanity (in the form of coping strategies) slam into one another.

And i said nothing.

Almost nothing. I am so utterly and deeply confused by this. It makes as much sense as the heroin addict that says that they get high because it’s beautiful and shuts out all of the ugliness in the world. It is wholly and utterly detached from reality. My mind grabs a shard of what little is left of my dignity and i tell her, “The guiding principle i live with is that every major decision i make in my life, professional and personal, is that i consider the health of our relationship first and foremost. Can you promise me the same?”

She squirms in her seat and she will not make eye contact with me. She was angry. How dare i hold her accountable to something as obsolete as ethics? How dare i hold a mirror to her and force her to see how banal and idiotic her idea of, “…do what I want with who I want whenever I want” is? Actually the latter didn’t happen. To this day, i have no reason to believe she’s ever stared into that mirror objectively. She has submitted her will time and time again to someone else whose lack of confidence is surpassed by his lack of ethics. He has fed her cancer time and time again and dragged her down to his pathetic level. He is a buzzword fuck fundamentalist and i’ll go into him some other time.

She finally acquiesces by muttering, “Yes”. It’s said with the sincerity of a child that’s been forced to hear their own words.

Anyone that thinks an “open relationship” is a relationship at all is stupid. That’s what’s called a “Friends with benefits”… and that’s what she told me all i was to her in that mail she had sent me a couple of weeks prior and that all i was entitled to with her was, “vanilla sex” (verbatim). Anyone that tries to bully and force that (an “open relationship”) upon someone else, especially someone they have been with for four and a half years and have had many discussions of a life together is a bully. Anyone that believes that an “open relationship” is ethical, moral or sustainable isn’t just stupid, they’re fucking stupid.

It is approaching the anniversary of the carnage and destruction of our relationship. Logically i know that i dodged a cancer that would have left me a shallow, hollow husk like the ones that held/ hold sway over her. But emotionally… well, i loved her so very, very much. Not the new personality she declared she had last October but when she was a woman; when we were the closest of friends, the sweetest of lovers and when any thought i had of the future had us together. I am proud of the progress i have made. I am proud that i have salvaged myself from the brink of insanity and death itself. I’m not happy that i have gained all of the weight that i lost but at least i’m going to the gym again and hope to be able to run a mile w/o any problems in the next month.

I’m starting to feel like myself again- that the brightness and stupid-at-times-yet-occasionally-charming-innocence that i carry, is coming back. I’m writing a bit more these days and my urge to paint is coming back. My libido is slowly coming back and emotionally, i’m finally able to date again without any thought to my ex whatsoever.

Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge is a profoundly stunning place. It is a blend of decay, growth, change and the cycle of life is spoken there with absolute clarity. It is the place where the memories of a woman that once meant more to my than my own life will always remain- but as i find love again, those memories will sink into the mud and the tides will ebb and flow until only the hint of her remains. And if not there then at least elsewhere new experiences and memories will break through and open themselves to the light and brightness that life and that i have to offer. I will always be sad that she was not there to be a part of that but i’ll be far more happy in knowing i’ll find others more capable of honesty, friendship, critical thinking, integrity and commitment than she is/ was.

This is about the one year mark of her absolute, deliberate and calculated destruction of our relationship. Overall i’m doing very well but the closed wounds feel… well, they feel a bit raw right now. I guess i’ll always love and miss her from the days when she was a woman but… and it still hurts to acknowledge this, i think i fell in love with an act… with an illusion. After all, who in hell tries to bully the person they claimed they wanted to spend their life with into this belief that they have the right to fuck whomever they wanted, at any time (and i think she had been convinced by others that i supposedly had that right, which is too bizarre to address) and that being a swinger was something they were going to do and i had no right to have any say in the matter?

Well, if you surround yourself with good people, you’re likely a good person. If you surround yourself with diseased and broken people, then you’re likely a diseased and broken person yourself. All i have to do is look at the people in my life to know where i stand. And looking at her friends, especially the ones that believe being a cum dumpster or jizz dispenser at a swingers club is somehow an affirmation of “femininity” and “self actualization” (her words) are a reflection of who she is and i think it’s the best that she can do.

It is near the anniversary of her rage and cruelty. My life is inexorably and forever changed. I do not care for her and whether she is alive or not is of no concern of mine. But this anniversary all of her cowardice, malice, stupidity and pride have stirred my passions. The hurt will go away in a few days; it always does.

And as it does and my future opens to me again, i’m looking forward to meeting women that are sincerely feminine, intelligent, kind, honest, self actualized and aspires to be more than being a cum dumpster at a swingers club. And while i have no idea if polyamory is in my future, if it is, those women will understand that the “amory” part of polyamory is more important than the “poly” part and that the “ethical” part of “ethical non-monogamy” is vastly more important than the “non-monogamy” part. And if they disagree, then not only will they never have anything to contribute to my life but i’ll never respect them either. So it’s win-win.

I do miss her at times, even now. It would have been nice to have gotten married at Nisqually or somewhere like that but that person is gone. Thankfully the beauty and the lessons of the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge will always be there.

As a guy with a vasectomy, it’s not terribly common for others to comment on my choice to not reproduce. But it does happen. Unfortunately in our double standard culture and societies, it seems that women are targeted and have their integrity questioned when they choose to not have children.

This is a somewhat funny yet entirely accurate response to the most common things that others have said to this author. I’ve had many of the same things said to me.

And since it was mentioned in a conversation i had with someone recently, here’s a decent article about the clitoris, as rendered from the perspective of an artist, Sophia Wallace.

So there.

I had a date last weekend with a woman that i found to be more remarkable than i had anticipated. While she asked the lions share of questions, it was her last question to me that has stuck with me.

“Have you ever been in love?”

Gods, yes. Too many times? Not enough times? Neither as far as i am concerned. But in her asking me this question, i had this really interesting epiphany. As i process the question, i realize that there are women that i know i was in love with at one time but now? It’s as though i look at my memories of them and think, “What was i thinking?” And to be fair, they probably feel the same about me although the ones i’m thinking of never were in love with me.
Continue reading “have you ever been in love?”

This is the Thank You letter that i sent to all of the people who supported me over the last year. I could not and i WOULD not have my dignity and objectivity back were it not for each of you. Having said that, there are some of you that i’m sure i missed. So with a bit of humility and tons of love and gratitude, here is your Thank You.

It is a perfect autumn Sunday here. It’s 60 outside and not a cloud to be seen. The trees slightly sway and bend to the breeze that a few days ago, was pushing beyond 40mph in the driving rain.

Three days ago marked the anniversary of the beginning of the end of my relation with my ex. It was the email that she sent me and that i have shared with most, if not each of you. The general consensus from each of you ranged from, “This is seriously fucked up,” to “She is insane and you’ll eventually see it and understand why you are better off without her,” and one person that said, “She needs a copy of The Ethical Slut.”
Continue reading “It’s been a year. It’s time to say thank you to everyone.”

I am finally in a position to be able to go back to the gym. Yesterday was my first day back and it was a true moment of humility for me. At the peak of my working out prior to losing my job and subsequently having surgery on my left foot (bone deformation addressed with an Austin bunionectomy ), i was up to running 3 miles. It hurt, it sucked and i hated it but god knows i felt great once the misery wore off.

I have packed on every single pound i lost and added a few extra in the process. A nasty cocktail of a job loss, an emotionally violent breakup, very limited funds to buy food and all the self doubt and confidence breaking pain that ensued, were the backdrop. I have spent the last four months living on carbs, sodium and processed sugar (esp in milk chocolate).

Strangely enough, my bloodwork came back good. I have to keep an eye on my cholesterols but my blood sugar and other levels are good.

I have to wake up at 7am to be at the Red Cross for a platelet donation at 9. It’s 8pm right now and i think i’m going to forgo my usual evening of lethargy to go hurt for a bit and remind my heart who’s in charge. If i’m lucky, maybe i can come across a brand new flavor of fuckwit in the sauna. I’ll be sure to share if i do.

I went to the Oregon City library today so that I could focus on getting some things done without interruption. I’m on my laptop and quietly minding my business when this golf pencil came flying near me and landed near the woman sitting across from me. Whoever did it did was on the public computers and immediately turned around. The woman that it landed near thought i did it.

Ten minutes later, this guy that seemed a bit off turns around and begins to threaten me. He’s deeply concerned that i might be listening to music on my earbuds (i was) and that i’m using a Hewlitt Packard laptop. He asks me things like, “Do you even know what you’re dealing with here?” I answered, “Yes. A schizophrenic, sport.” He didn’t like my suggestion that he go get some tin foil for his head nor did he appreciate being my “sport”.

So i called him “princess,” instead. We never got around to discussing if he preferred that instead.

After a bit more verbal abuse, he gets up to walk out and says to me, “You watch that Hewlitt Packard. I’ll turn that in!” Seriously- that’s verbatim.

I’ve had too many insane and broken people in my life. Am i some sort of magnet for broken and crazy folk? Oh well, the librarian came over and took a statement from me and she was very freckly and incredibly cute. So between that and actually getting some stuff done, it was a good trip to the library.

Sigh. Once again someone has admitted to me that they are not being honest with their psychologist.

Why do you even bother to go? Yes, there’s a difference between eventually disclosing all of your issues; that i get. But that’s not what i’m talking about here.

This is a situation where someone is deliberately withholding a compulsion/ desire that she has. We all have desires that we’d rather our friends, family and co-workers not know about. Some want to carve themselves like a Thanksgiving turkey, some want to be a cum dumpster at a swingers club, some want to go behind their wife’s back and have high risk sex in glory holes or anonymous encounters, some want to push that needle back into their arm and so on and so on.

I have my own desires but- and this is the important part- i’m self aware enough to recognize them for what they are. Put simply, they are metaphors. I acknowledge them and i understand what those cravings actually say about me. They’re metaphors about the wounds and pain that make up my past. They’re about asserting my absolute and uncompromising control over someone(s) else in a way that’s entirely about my urges, my insecurities and my insatiable desire to have control of a situation where i never had control before. I absolutely and totally get that.

When i step foot into my psychologists office, there are no secrets. To be honest, there were times when i wasn’t ready to disclose something and that’s fair. It takes time to build trust and it takes time to lay down the foundation necessary to explain everything. But at a certain point, especially when events in your life are changing rapidly and intensely emotional, absolute and unconditional disclosure is mandatory. Especially… ESPECIALLY when you’re basing your beliefs and your actions on the assumption that these desires are normal and/or healthy.

I am particularly sensitive to this for reasons that i won’t go into here.

“Why don’t you tell her (her psychologist)?” I ask.

“I don’t want her to judge me,” she says.

She’s a PSYCHOLOGIST. She has gone through more years of school than most of us ever will. She’s paid to listen and parse and help you see yourself objectively. But therein is the problem- she doesn’t want to see herself objectively. She wants to believe these urges she has are normal and healthy and she wants to feel validated in the way she treats her SO. I’ve heard this bullshit before under the guise of, “femininity,” and even “self actualization.”

No. This is revisionism in the context of cognitive dissonance.

One of the things that everyone can agree about me is that i have an ability to see people and their behaviors for what they are. It’s not like i’m a profiler wannabe or anything like that. It’s more a matter of i am a deeply self-honest person and as someone once told me, “All truth begins with inner truth.” I tend to see people without their facades. There are exceptions but i won’t go into those here.

And the truth is that with her, as with someone else that i used to know, they are using selective disclosure (a common trait among survivors of abuse and neglect) so they can portray themselves as being victimized, so they can rationalize their behavior as an extension of “freedom,” “femininity/ masculinity,” “self actualization,” or whatever manufactured belief they need to grasp.

It’s the same rationale as the heroin addict that sees their addiction as a source of beauty- an absolute and perverted inversion of a destructive habit or craving and trying to turn it into a source of something positive. It is the embodiment of cognitive dissonance.

Unfortunately i do not know this woman well enough to be honest with her. That requires trust and it takes time to build trust. I have no investment in her nor do i care to. Having said that, i am particularly sensitive to both dishonesty with psychologists (and yes, a lie by omission is still a lie) and i’m sensitive to this bullshit notion that taking something that’s inherently destructive, deceptive, risk oriented and the like and trying to turn it into something positive is just laughable and pathetic.

So if you’re going to a psychologist and you’ve decided you don’t need to disclose everything, especially because you’re a coward and feel that you’ll be judged, it’s because… well, let’s be honest- you know you’ve fucked up and your fear of judgment isn’t about feeling judged. What you’re afraid of is that you’ll be seen for what you are and that your psychologist will no longer be able to be as empathic to you. And yes, if she’s a decent psychologist, she’s going to explain that not only is this desire unhealthy but that you’ve laid down a swath of deception, misery and hurt upon others because of your selfishness and inability to be honest.

And as i can tell you, an undeveloped person, particularly if they are a bully, is NOT going to find that acceptable.

Again, i am sensitive to this sort of thing.

So don’t waste your psychologists time. If you’re not going to be honest with him/ her, they aren’t going to have the ability to make an honest assessment of you and your behaviors. Your fear of being seen for what you are is irrelevant. You go to the psychologist for therapy to deal with the wounds and hurt of your past yet you deliberately neglect to give them the information they need so that they can do their job. In so many words my psychologist spent a lot of time with me telling me that i’d fucked up. Of course he was more clinical about it. He was able to help me identify my coping strategies and eventually i had to confess- in contrast to my confidence and self belief, the reality is that i’ll do nearly anything and put up with broken promises, lies and more just for the sake to love someone and to feel that they love me.

It was not nor is it a happy realization. In my previous relationship, i surrendered so much of my dignity, self respect, respect for my ex and my objectivity because i kept using coping strategy after coping strategy after coping strategy until she’d metastasized into someone i didn’t know (by her own admission, she had a new personality) and i’d transformed into someone that was so utterly lonely and morose that she probably couldn’t recognize me either.

All the same, one of my guiding principles is that i will always live with an uncomfortable truth instead of a convenient lie. It is the only path to self respect and dignity. I am a deeply self honest person.

The end results are these: You’re wasting your psychologists time. You’re taking away time from someone else that WILL be honest with your psychologist and in the process, you’re preventing them from being treated. How goddamned and pathetically selfish of you.

And stop wasting YOUR time. You’re not honest with them, you’re not honest with yourself and you’re not honest with the one that you supposedly love. If that’s your idea of love, you’re broken. You’re seriously and profoundly broken but more than that, you have absolutely NO interest in an honest evaluation and diagnosis and you’re no more ready for counseling than you are ready to be honest.

I know she’ll never read this; she doesn’t know me that well. She hit a nerve that i didn’t realize i had.

Even closed wounds still hurt sometimes.

I just received some bad news.

I’m so tired of this. I am so beaten up. From months and months of emotional isolation to a profoundly difficult breakup (ironically, i’m now seeing this as a positive thing) to a coworker who, for three years, constantly asked me where i was going, where i was at any given moment (via radio) and what i was doing in her fundamentalist-authoritarian way- and second guessed and marginalized in front of students, teachers and administrators alike (and this ‘peer’ couldn’t tell the difference between java and javascript and didn’t know how to log into a bound Windows computer using domain credentials). Then a few weeks ago, having some wounds from my breakup torn open (which i’ve done pretty well with since, especially with the last things she said to me and all the things she left never said), to losing my job, being denied unemployment insurance and feeling a lot of anxiety about my medical benefits running out in a few days.

Then today, more bad news. I won’t go into it today but will eventually.

I just don’t know how much more i can take but i guess i will. I’ll figure things out one way or the other. I may earn a bloody nose or two in the process, i may lose some battles but i will never bow my head. I can work through anything if i put my mind to it. Still, it would be oh so nice if someone believed in me or at the very least, if i could just have one single win in my column for a change.

I had an eye exam a few days ago. The verdict is that while my vision remains very strong, i also have a mild astigmatism. I have to say, the glasses have made reading, especially at night, much, much easier.