It's strange that the most sexual part of my days has become when my arm has lost circulation because I've been lying in it, and then happens to touch my boob. It's almost like a different person is feeling me up, albeit a weirdly limp or boneless one. I can assure you that this kind of self-titty-grab is not sexy at all. It sure as hell made me laugh when it happened this morning because I seriously, briefly, considered getting into it. And then I laughed again when I realized: yep, this is as good as it's gonna get for the next 95 days. But you know what? I'm surprisingly okay with it. No, I don't mean this is going be a new masturbation thing to explore. I'm not going to start intentionally sleeping on my hands so I can wake up to a friendly cop-up, courtesy of me and my bad circulation. (I don't think that's what people mean by being "sexually liberated.") I'm talking about being okay, sans sexual activity. Numb-hand jokes aside, this is the freest I have felt in ever. Even at work this weekend, when I was receiving a higher than normal amount of attention from several guys (why?), I noticed that I felt great. I noticed my mood because it had absolutely nothing to do with any of these decent guys chatting me up. For the first time since I was 11 years old, my emotional state was not held in the balance of the attention they were paying me. It was because I'm feeling legitimately happy on my own. As the days pass, its like more and more of a weight that was unknowingly bogging me down is being lifted. I'm laughing easier, I'm more relaxed, I'm humming and floating along throughout my days.
Now. I don't know if any of you guys do this, but you know when you've been putting off cleaning your floors, and until you get down there and scrub, you kinda...tip-toe around the dirty surface? As if to keep your soles from absorbing the grime? For the past 10 years, give or take a year, I've been doing a similar dance, but around my own soul. There were dirty, untended parts of my being that I refused to accept, and/or blinded myself to. I tried to suppress these aspects of my inner self, to keep them in the dark. I avoided confronting them. I didn't like them, and I certainly didn't like how they made me dislike myself. And akin to finally cleaning a long-neglected kitchen floor, I was a little terrified. Scared of the work, and the possible stench (okay, that maybe be a stretch for this metaphor.) I was scared of being forced to face my massive build-up of spiritual crap needing to be dealt with. Growing up, I was always very lonely. Maybe because I was middle child, maybe because I never opened up or showed my true self to even my closest friends. Over time, I morphed this loneliness into, "Oh, no, I'm just fiercely independent." Some people are scared of silence; I was scared of being with me. I became distracted by sex, boys, and with finally feeling pretty. But even then, I don't think I ever felt happy or loved. For a while, I'd silently deny parts of who I am. It was easy to push things down, but when it's you rejecting yourself, it's super painful to dig it up. Even momentarily remembering those cold periods of being alone would bring me to tears. I definitely don't like crying, nor accepting that I was ever that lonely, because, well, it made me feel like a big ol' fucking loser. So, time passed and I just kept ignoring it and piling on other things on top of my fears, my loneliness, and my own self. I was still petrified of looking upon these hidden, stashed-away corners of me, to find something I didn't like, and to have to come to terms with the undeniable truth: it's who I am, all of it. And holy shit. That is my exact, to a T, fear when it comes to men. That they'll look at me, the real me, for everything that I am, and hate it, and reject it. I had no idea of this connection. I'd been walking on eggshells with my own psyche for so long that I had forgotten I do it at all. Of course I was transferring my fear into thinking men would do the same. I've been doing it to myself for years; it's only fair that I would subconsciously think anyone else would do it, too. GUYS, MY BRAIN JUST EXPLODED. Seriously, I just had this epiphany as I was typing. BOOM! Take that, Carrie Bradshaw!
I'm going to have to make this a two-parter; it's Sunday and I ate too much, and that realization just wiped me out as much as scoring an awesome 9-letter word in Boggle. But yes. This journey is helping me realize my soul's mess of a kitchen floor is in desperate need of attention. Not just acknowledgment, but acceptance. I've got to figuratively hug myself- the good, the bad, and all the things I've tried to hole away and never come to terms with. But you know what, I finally feel ready to do that. Even as short as a month ago, I would've have been way too frightened to be this honest with myself, let alone to get down and deal with the clean-up that's long overdue. It's time to bust out the dish-washing gloves and get to work. Only now, I'll be meeting this challenge head-on, and with a smile.
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