Why do I keep doing this?
Having sex with Bear and then refusing to write about it in my diary?
Is it still the fear I will freak out when I think/overthink letting him come in my mouth?
Are the Aids phobia and the panic attacks still haunting me, is that what this is?
As if I would not take any risk for him, for Bear.
Maybe it is because this fear has been with me for as long as I can remember, longer than Bear.
The fear is more a part of me than Bear is, that much is certain.
But was it really taking that step, about six weeks ago or something, that has made me so careless with cherishing the memories of us having sex?
Or is it the unease of being his mistress since we started having sex again this year?
Why do I throw away memories of something that is so precious to me..
If he decides to stop seeing me, I want to hang on to them, have them in a little box and caress them with my fingertips when he gets married, has his first child, moves to the other side of the country or possibly even migrates, given his work.
I need to build a memory of him, if I can’t build a life.
Yet just like last time, I didn’t.
I didn’t polish that memory and didn’t put it in a jewelry box.
But I did write about it to Nikki, and photocopied that letter before I mailed it out to him. So I have that here in front of me, hoping it will make me remember more.
In the letter, I compared Bear to a professional football player, able to score with the smallest window of opportunity.
Of course! It starts coming back to me now.
I didn’t feel like having sex, and he had made it into such a fun experience. The letter to Nikki was about my understanding that I had to get better at this.
I wanted to be the one who could do that, make things really good in bed and be there when the other is dropping out.
Yet my new year of life started off being just as flaky with sex as ever!
It was Bear who saved the day, and me feeling wishy washy and being totally dependent on his magic.
Even when I should be the one who is flexible and talented, because if I want to have more sex, more lovers, or who knows maybe even a man-
I was about to say “a man for myself” but that is of course not what I want at all.
But let’s say, if I want to have a boyfriend to whom I am the most important girlfriend;
Then I need to “man-up”!
I can’t keep relying on Bear to warm me up with that deliciously long menu that he serves me a chef’s special of every time I m like:
“I don’t know, I m just not feeling it”, when we’ve already kissed, and I m in his arms and I can feel I m wet, but indeed telling the truth when I say I’m not feeling it.
His jam-packed box of tricks.
The way he pokes around in my head to see what angle I respond to…
We role-played for the first time since we got back together this year, and damn that felt good. It was just a light, exploring session that definitely did not have the emotional danger and intensity we had experienced in our best years.
But Christ, how good to be home.
To be doing this again, him and me.
When he hugged me goodbye at the top of the stairs, and descended to the front door, I stayed there watching, through the long rectangular window in my door.
I admired the determined way he took the concrete stairs to the street, and all I thought was;
“I m fucked”.
And not just literally.
“I asked him to take me in doggy,” I wrote Nikki.
“And that was risky, because it hurts. I could have ruined it all, but I think I was so into the role play that I really wanted to be taken like that. And he did.
I m not going to tell you how dominant he was, because it’s like it ruins it. Like I betray the moment.
But it was so good!
Bear said exactly the right things, everything I wanted to hear and needed to hear, to fully submit and let it come.
It hurt so much, I had forgotten all about it. You can’t remember pain, not like that. Yet I wanted it, and I definitely did not want him to stop. I was afraid that if I expressed the pain he would back down, but I couldn’t help myself.
I was totally into it, the pain, the agony, and a pleasure so deep and raw I had never experienced anything like it.
For the first time ever I came like that. And so did he.
In sports they’d probably call it a team effort.”
.
~Lauren96
An unexamined life is not worth living
diary 1996 TRUE ROMANCE Saturday June 26
Nikki is 29!
And he’s from California!
I can’t believe I called him but I did. At his work. I have the number because the packages are sent from his store, or at least the store where he works. But now I know it is his store!
I always imagined him working there a bit like that guy in True Romance, although that was a comic store. Working in a record store has got to be the coolest thing in the world.
I called him there today, on a Saturday. Even though I knew that was definitely the worst day to call. But yesterday I cried all day and I just needed to speak to him.
Thursday night was crap.
Nothing bad happened or anything, but that’s the point: The two guys were there, and we had an okay time at the hard rock cafe, yet I felt so numb inside. I had been desperate to numb out the feelings of having fallen in love with Nikki over us writing letters.
And to repeat going out and drinking tomorrow.
Now that I knew what I was suffering from, I prescribed myself twice a week of alcohol, hard rock music and male company.
Until I sat there and the numbness around my heart was even worse than the pain I had felt. Not only was I no longer interested in the people there or in the two guys, I could not even reach my feelings for Bear. Yet every time I thought of Nikki, I felt a sharp pain. I could feel tears welling up of how fucked up the situation was, and I left.
There was a full moon on my bike ride home.
Like I said Friday was a bad day. I felt so love sick, even though no one broke up with me.
All I wanted was to be normal, have someone to hold me and call me his and call him mine.
Normal shit. Shit I normally would not want for the world.
Nikki has a girlfriend, so that made it extra hopeless. Aside from him living in England and me here.
Yesterday night I decided I would call him today to tell him I had fallen in love. I just could not reply to his letter, as if nothing had changed.
It felt dishonest, and as if everything I would write would be a lie.
And I also needed someone to tell me it would be alright. But of course I knew I risked having someone tell me he did not have time for me, and be irritated I had called.
Yet as soon as I decided I would do it, I calmed down and had a good night sleep.
So I called him this morning and it was so cool!
Wow…. bad news is I am more in love than ever!
He has a really beautiful voice, but he’s not English!! He doesn’t have a British accent and so that’s when we got into this conversation about where he was from, and I was a bit upset that he had not told me he wasn’t English but he just said:
“You didn’t ask!” and laughed.
He has a wonderful laugh!
So although there was an unspoken agreement that I would not call again, it was so great to hear his voice and speak to him. And I told him I had fallen in love, and felt so bad over it, like I had fucked things up.
But he just said something like that it didn’t matter. But in a sweet way, not a mean way. It was clear he wanted to keep writing each other.
And he mentioned taking a cold shower which made me laugh, even though I was crying at that moment because I was so relieved he wasn’t angry.
I don’t know how everything will go from here. I have his wonderful letter to reply to, maybe I ll do that this weekend or maybe I will savor it a bit and postpone to next week.
But I will not be going to the hard rock cafe anymore. It is pointless, since I m not interested in other men any way. And Bear too, I don’t feel anything at this moment. I m completely neutral about the whole thing. I don’t identify as the person he has sex with, I feel I am a friend he occasionally visits.
And he may or may not.
It’s nice to not feel that involved. Having one man with whom emotions have run rampant is more than enough.
Nikki didn’t use any sex words, I think there must have been customers in the shop browsing. I could hear he was doing things, which gave the impression he had crying girls calling him all the time and that it wasn’t something that upset nor even surprised him.
I think he was holding the receiver between shoulder and ear.
When our conversation became lighter and I knew we’d be okay, Nikki said:
“Do you remember what you wrote, about what you do with guys…? To get to know them?”
“Meet their dick!” I yelled, relieved because I assumed we were flirting now.
“Just a sec,” he said, putting the receiver down to help someone pay for their record.
It was so nice to hear him talk to a real customer!
They talked about the record, and I could hear the tinkle of the cash register. And then he was back.
“Yeah, that thing,” he said to announce he was back. “Well, you don’t even know that about me. Could be awful!”
I laughed: “I seriously doubt that, but thank you for your concern.”
“My pleasure,” he said, as if he had really done something remarkable. And he had! I feel so much better. As miserable as I was yesterday and as bad as Thursday night was, I feel I could conquer the world right now.
“And take that cold shower,” were his last words.
“I will,” were mine.
.
~Lauren96
An unexamined life is not worth living
PS update after sending out yesterday’s blog: I’m doing great!
Take my word for it or read the tweet here.
And now let’s go back in time: .
“Being together felt like nothing we’d ever done
and not comparable to all the years we were students and saw each other.
We did things I m not going to talk about, maybe one day.”
Lauren’s Diary May 23, 1996
Still unable to write it down in her diary, Lauren decides to share her sex story, with her friend the bootleg trader Nikki. He lives in England and they have never met, but he sends her the bootlegs she needs for reviews for a fan club. Over the course of their correspondence, Nikki has become the only person with whom Lauren shares all aspects of her sexuality.
Sent: In an A4+ envelop, addressed to Nikki in England first content of the envelop: A large photocopied page, created from two A4 photocopies, glued together and secured with adhesive tape. It’s a page from the book SEX by Madonna and it has the text: Doctor: “Do you think that it is possible to experience pleasure and pain at the same time?” Dita: “Sure! That is what ass fucking is all about. It is the most pleasurable way to get fucked and it hurts the most too. All your nerve endings are in your ass, but if you’re not excited or if you’re not doing it right, things can really go wrong.” And Lauren’s long letter, printed double-sided on A4 with manually added page numbers. This is what she wrote: Friday May 28, 1996 Dear Nikki,
This letter is going to take the honesty I have with you, to a whole new level. And, truth be told, it was not my choice to do this, but I got completely stuck in something I wanted to do but can’t.
And I know that when I write it to you I can.
The thing I really want to do is write down what happened the last time Bear and me were together.
You told me multiple times I can write anything I want, but I think the truth is, there is so much within me that I m ashamed of. That I feel is not allowed to exist, sexually.
And although Bear has never been there for me after we had sex, because we have never been in a regular relationship, it seems to have hit me hard this time, to deal with this by myself.
To make peace with who I am.
Even though I have known, and even have nourished, “her”, sexual me, by reading the book SEX from Madonna. Because I didn’t want her to die on me. In particular after Bear broke up with me. Originally.
I seem to have regained terrain as “the other woman” because we are having sex again. But in 1995 I didn’t go all the way, and I needed that year of keeping my pants on and “only” giving the occasional hand job (the word always gives me the creeps, not the act), to make up my mind.
I needed it to grow into what it was he was inviting me to become.
The other woman….. phew.
Talk about getting your pass to adulthood god dammit.
But I needed 1995 as that transition year where I went from being only a friend, to being welcomed back in.
So when we started sleeping together again this year, I had thought things through.
It’s just that I was unprepared for what happened last time.
Because Bear and me are back at the level of sex we had in the early years. When I think there must have been other women, but I felt like the only one. Or maybe for a brief period I was the only one.
I know Bear was fascinated I took matters into my own hands and recruited him to have sex with me. But for the most part I attributed those first wonderful sexual years to the newness of it.
It’s pretty normal for two people to have such a great sex life when they start out.
However, I had not anticipated for that to happen again.
In particular because he’s with his girlfriend now. Logically it would automatically mean the intimacy would stay manageable.
Or was he single this time?
Man, this letter is all over the place. Sorry! But I do think this is important:
I met him at a friend’s place, he was house sitting. And I got the impression he was single, I really did. Everything was so different from the way it had been for years. Even before he broke up, even just the years after the first years.
When our sex was still amazing, but not as intense as the first years.
So I met him at his friend’s place and I met a Bear I had not seen in years.
And I assumed that was because he was single, and not telling me yet.
But then afterwards nothing happened. He must be back with his girlfriend by now, but I haven’t heard from him.
And it’s just so confusing, Nikki. I m sorry to interrupt myself the whole time, but I think this is why I feel I can’t write in my diary what happened, because every time I think of that day, I start questioning myself.
How could I have been so wrong?
How could I have made such a huge mistake in assessing what was going on?
What does that say about my people skills?
Am I a dumb person?
So that was the boring, self-pity part of the letter.
But look at it this way! If I had been totally okay with it, I would just have written the sex stories in my diaries, and you would not have gotten to read them.
So I think in the light of our correspondence, my doubt has served us well.
There were two things I really want to highlight for you.
Two things I would have written in my diary, if I had gotten over myself and actually wrote in my diary.
The first is anal sex, and the second is oral sex.
Bear and me only had anal sex in the first years we were together.
I was a (normal) virgin when we met, so I was inexperienced with anal sex as well. From Bear, I don’t know. I remember asking him, but not getting an answer. He just brought it back to what he was doing to me, asked if I liked it. Maybe he said something like “I ll manage”.
So I always assumed I was the first one for him, but there really is no way of telling.
We always used a lubricant, even for normal sex, so we both had that. It was always present, whenever we were at his place or my place. We both still lived at home, when we started out.
But his parents were liberal, as was my mom.
I was already used to owning condoms, even though I was a virgin. I had been single for half a year, before “recruiting” Bear. Losing my virginity had been on my agenda.
And from Bear I learned to use lubricant, which I found funny at first. What would a teen use lubricant for? But he explained that it would help the first time be less painful. And that he liked using it.
I remember that he was completely unmoved by my attempt to mock him for owning it!
And once I understood how he used it, I was embarrassed and felt immature for laughing about it.
Because he was so nice.
What Bear started doing, right from the very beginning (we saw each other a few times before we went all the way), was finger me.
But not the hugging and touching and fingering, fingering, what I would call normal fingering.
But he would lay me down, naked or without panties (half-naked), and I would lie there and he would inspect me like a doctor.
Oh my God, I still get wet just thinking about it!
He didn’t play doctor, he just did it that way. With us detached, him sitting between my legs on the bed, the floor or next to me on the side of the bed. And he fingered me with lube. Sometimes he would talk to me, ask me how it felt. But that was only in the beginning, because I didn’t really know how to respond.
It felt awkward, to get that kind of attention. I just remember that this fingering too, was something he only did in the first years. And he didn’t do that the last time we were together either, but he did do something that was similar, the oral sex, more on that later.
But anyway, when I was a virgin the doctor like fingering sessions served a clear purpose.
Firstly because they made me incredibly horny. I think that’s also the reason I was embarrassed by them, and didn’t quite know how to respond. Isn’t that strange? Even in bed, with a man who is clearly trying his best to make me horny, I feel so horny that I think that is no longer appropriate.
Guilty for just lying there, not having to do anything.
No doubt aided by the fingering, losing my virginity went really well. I never had any pain, and I loved feeling him inside of me so much. It was so wonderful. The closest to another human being I ever felt.
Last time too, it felt so good.
It was like his dick was bigger, I could feel him so clearly. And when I was sitting on top of him, resting, he moved his dick inside of me, and that was so special.
I m sure he has done that before, but it felt so great.
The fingering stayed on, after I was no longer a virgin. And I bought lubricant, for when we were at my place.
So lubricant was always present, and I think this was another reason why for us the step to anal sex may have been easier than for other teens.
But we did started doing it pretty early on. But it stopped after the first three years.
In hindsight I think it was the moment Bear started to realize he wanted a family, and that he didn’t want to be in what we had forever. That it was great for the college years but that he was going to look for what he wanted.
That’s when we stopped having anal sex and also when that type of fingering stopped.
I realize now that I m saying many contradictory things in this letter. I m sorry! I m just figuring it out as I go. But if I wrap up the timeline of our sex life, is that the first years were the best, and then the most intimate acts just didn’t get played anymore.
I thought it was due to the normal thing that happens when you know each other for a longer period of time. But because he broke up with me December 1994, in favor of a new girlfriend (and by then we had not had sex for 5 months), I think our sex life started waning because he was already saying goodbye.
And not because we were less excited by each other.
When I saw Bear last time, we both wanted to have anal sex again.
So we did.
And what was so cute, or very “Oh, I totally forgot about that!” was that we tried to do it more doggy style, from behind. And it hurt and I said, let’s just do it the normal way.
So in missionary but then anal sex.
And this was exactly reminiscent of the first time we had anal sex when he wanted to do/ try in what I think must be the normal way to do it, but I said I wanted it to be missionary. So missionary it was.
But this time, we tried it in doggy, but it just hurt. It was unpleasant, so I broke it off and said something like: “Just do it the normal way,” meaning our normal way, which I had forgotten was our normal way.
So I turned around on my back and invited him on top of me.
And I pulled my legs up a bit so he could see where he was going!
And it was absolutely magical.
The first bit was scary. You got a thousand thoughts going through in your head, and fear it’s going to hurt. It goes so slow, sometimes you think there is no progress at all. And again that word “embarrassing”. It’s very intimate, to be together in that not knowing.
And knowing your ass is the bottleneck factor here! Oh my God I m laughing out loud as I type this. This is ridiculous, but that is how it feels.
There is a lot at stake, and you don’t want to be the deal breaker, yet you can’t control it or do anything about it. It’s either going to work, or it isn’t.
But it did, and we could both feel it. It was like everything, all the stupid years of not doing this, faded. It was the moment we were really together.
I smiled and he smiled to, and then he did something he had never done: He pushed it in further and started fucking me. I can’t believe he dared to do that, but it was so wonderful.
It was one of those things that if he had asked me upfront I would never have dared to agree to it, and perhaps I would have tightened up just from asking.
But he just did it. Nothing rough, and I don’t know how to say it in a way that expresses that I know I m totally safe with him and that the reason it is so good is because he would immediately feel it probably even before I did, if I was not enjoying it.
But it was so wonderful.
Fuck, it makes me cry.
What a fucked up mess, to then part afterwards. I think I m beginning to understand why I can’t make myself pick up my diary and write this down.
So we had anal sex longer, deeper and also more connected than ever.
It was a remembrance to who we were as a couple, that we did this and we did it facing each other. I know melting together as one, sounds corny and probably is corny but that’s what it was. But I felt that was when we were reborn as a couple. Corny too, I know.
You re just going to have a find a way to forgive me for the Harlequin vocabulary.
Only then it turned out he was not single and he’s back with her now.
And I look at that Madonna book, that had the job of keeping my sexuality alive through 1995, and I just know that I have to get back to that, or to something else that allows me to be sexual without him.
But I fail so often.
There was a dildo I really wanted to buy, but I just couldn’t. It was mail order, the brochure still comes in here from the man who used to live here. Maybe that I can see his name, is adding to me feeling uncomfortable buying. Then the tenant after me will know my name from brochures that keep coming.
And it was just so disheartening that I m back to square one.
Back to denying my own sexuality, and needing him to choose me in order for it to be alright to be a sexual person.
But you know what Nikki? What makes it so sad?
That I am denying my own sexuality, in response to him denying me a relationship.
As soon as I know or realize I am still single and we are not together, I can’t claim or enjoy what happened anymore. I feel so rejected, I reject my own sexuality.
I deliberately saved the oral sex part for last.
Because I didn’t want to end on a low, with me feeling like I have to start all over again restoring my sexuality. Even though that is how I feel. But that is not what I want this letter to be about.
We were at his friend’s place, and this was the first time we were at “his” house and he had a bedroom, because we used to be students and then you only have one room.
So he asked me: “Do you want to go to the bedroom?” when we were kissing on the couch.
He is such a good kisser. The boyfriend I had before him was also an amazing kisser, and I think I learned it from him. That first boyfriend was the best kisser in the world (I was also single and kissed with people then, Nikki!) And yet I prefer Bear to the first boyfriend, because Bear is much more sexual.
Or at least, sexual in a way that I understand.
Like, when I am kissing him I constantly hear the beat of drum beneath! And the drums say:
“Just say when.”
Bear is the best kisser in the world, because his kissing is part of his whole sexual availability to you. So I understand him better.
So he asked if I wanted to go to the bedroom, and I said yes, but instead of taking my hand and taking me there, which I would have found to use a German term “zum kotzen” (I actually considered taking the couch to avoid such an unerotic moment of him taking my hand) he said:
“I’ll go first, you come after. But naked. Leave your clothes outside.”
He had already gotten up and was heading to the bedroom, not making eye contact. So he didn’t ask if I agreed or anything. It was the absolute opposite of taking my hand, like a cheeseball.
I had a huge grin on my face, as I undressed, and left my clothes in the living.
I came in and he was there, also naked. And we started kissing and he said something about how he loved my body and “look at yourself, at how gorgeous you are”.
I gained a lot of weight, since I was 17! But I agree it does look great on me. But it still makes me feel a bit uneasy. It’s very strange to live in a body, that still doesn’t feel like how you remembered it to be. Maybe that’s why I want to lose the weight, because I don’t want to get used to it.
But the only place those kilos never felt out of place was in the bedroom.
There they have always been exactly right.
So he admired my body, and I his, and I gave him a blowjob but more a pre-sex blowjob. Not an all the way blowjob. It was too soon for that anyway.
The first time we had sex this year, I took him in my mouth so many times, my jaws started hurting. It was great to have that feeling of being used and being used up!
But now we kept it civil. It was just a relaxing blowjob with him on his back, and me also licking the whole area around. I usually let him decide if he wants me to continue or stop, and I imagine that was this as well.
And then he went down on me.
And it was a bit like the fingering, in that he instructed me to lie down, and I just lay there. And he told me what to do which was pull my legs up.
As wide as I could.
I thought I was going to die! Figuratively, but it was so open, exposed. Like I wanted to just disappear.
And then he went down on me, and started giving me oral sex, which was so incredibly good.
It took me until typing this letter to realize why that was, and that the two were related. Because I felt so exposed and part of me (a big part!) did not want to be there in that position, that’s why the oral sex was so sweet.
It’s like what Madonna says in Erotica: Only the one that inflicts pain, can take it away.
But then I m alone again, and it’s so difficult to remember the pleasure, and the embarrassing moments or the vulnerable moments melt together with the pain of not being chosen.
And I see the Madonna book SEX, knowing that I will be needing that a lot.
That even though it is no longer 1995, and I have made up my mind that I ll count my blessings in whatever form they come, I will need some kind of outer reminder that I am a sexual being.
That I am more than just rejected by Bear.
That in the moments that count the most, I was never rejected.
And that we did it right.
.
~Lauren96
An unexamined life is not worth living
diary 1996
ON MY KNEES
Saturday April 3, 1996
Maybe it is because my correspondence with Nikki, the British Bon Jovi bootleg trader, has been slow.
Because I don’t remember last year’s Easter to be so dull and slow, and that was when Bear and me were still in full breakup mode.
I don’t remember if we had a late or early Easter but either way, by the beginning of April 1995, Bear and me were either not seeing each other at all, or we were in the modest coffee date phase.
After that breakup December 1994 when he told me he had someone else, someone who wanted more than “just” sex (he didn’t say that but I know that is what he meant) we had months in a row when it did not seem like we would pick it up.
Least of all sexually.
But also the friendship he had promised me seemed to have been taken off the table.
I did not blame him, I assumed it probably meant that he did have feelings for me, and needed to not see me to make the other relationship work.
Yet I can’t remember Easter weekend feeling so lonely then.
Even though I did not have a pen pall then who had paused our correspondence. Nor did I have the Thursday Sunday dates at the Hard Rock Cafe, that were cancelled.
Like they are now.
Maybe that is the key:
Because I didn’t have contact with Bear, I didn’t have a hot letter exchange with a man I called Nikki, and I didn’t have anything-goes nights at the bar with like-minded souls.
So I didn’t miss them either.
But now I do. Very much.
I can’t remember ever feeling so lonely at Easter, although in my case the worse is already over.
Thursday night, Friday and today I was alone.
But tomorrow and Monday I have company.
It’s always darkest before the dawn.
With a little luck I ll be resurrected tomorrow.
.
diary 1996
HANGING BY A THREAD
Saturday April 11, 1996
Since it’s exactly one week ago, I wrote in my diary last, it seems to be a Saturday night thing:
Feeling lonely.
Feeling asexual, deserted, hopeless.
In a vacuum that is filled by movies on TV because I m too numb to even put on a VHS, or to listen to Bon Jovi bootlegs to write reviews for the fanclub.
I can’t concentrate for ten minutes, let alone for 2,5 hours listening to a crackly cassette.
So sexless Saturday seems to be here to stay.
Today I walked, I cycled, I masturbated AND I did yoga.
That’s four physical activities, that should be able to sustain some feeling of vitality or even sensuality.
Some feeling of aliveness below the belt.
But nothing lasted and I feel fat and slow, as if I sat on the couch and ate nachos all day.
If you would call me, you’d hear an echo.
If you’d water me, I would drown.
If you’d invite me for a party, I would answer I have nothing to wear, because everything feels off.
I checked my calendar:
It s almost 5 weeks since Bear and me had sex.
And it’s not even two weeks since I last heard from Nikki. A small note with the latest bootleg, explaining he would have little time to write.
I received the letter on April 1st, and thought it was the worst April fools day joke ever.
In particular since he sent the letter from England so there was no way for him to know it would reach me on April 1st.
But I did feel like a fool. Not just with regard to him, but because I feel so dependent on men.
My sexuality just seems to die, the moment they turn their backs on me.
And my body even!
I couldn’t go to Thursday’s Hard Rock Cafe because my belly was hurting so badly. It was one of the few spots without easily infected organs, and it responded to breathing, so it’s probably a muscle and not an organ. Nothing to worry about at all.
But there were moments I could not even sit up straight, so no Hard Rock Cafe for me.
.
And another Saturday night at home wondering what I need to do to stay “alive”, in the broadest sense.
And not shrivel into sexual nothingness the moment I am deprived of men, music and more.
It will take a man or a miracle, and I suspect a miracle won’t cover it.
.
~Lauren96
An unexamined life is not worth living
CHOOSE WHERE I AM HURT THE MOST
Friday March 12, 1996
I have no idea if the worst is over, because in that case it was pretty doable. But even if I have another wave coming of feeling worthless, hopeless or have a panic attack, I know now that I choose this.
Because where you feel the most, you love the most.
It’s not even 7 PM on a Friday and I have a lonely weekend ahead of me. A date got cancelled tonight, so there is no escaping what I have been pushing away since Monday.
Bear and me had sex, for the first time since summer 1994.
He broke up a few months after. Months in which we saw each other only once, as I recall.
From infrequent, his calls seemed to disappear entirely.
Until he set a date and we saw each other and he told me he was seeing someone else.
Five years ended, just like that.
Five years in which I knew I wasn’t the only one, and I think he has cheated on other women who were in a relationship with him.
But it wasn’t all that obvious.
Certainly not at the point where I could be held responsible. Which is not to say I accept responsibility today, because I don’t.
His choice, his responsibility.
Not mine.
So there it is, the first weekend after we had sex and I know he’s with his girlfriend.
They’ve been together every night since Monday of course. They live together. But still. It’s the weekends that hit the hardest.
Where I am alone and he is not.
And that hurts.
There is no way of telling how hard this is going to be, but I have decided to see the pain as a sign I made the right choice to go with my heart.
And not a sign it was the wrong one.
Irritation. Impatience. Indifference.
If I had these emotions it would be a sign I could get out, and would feel relieved to start anew.
Anger. Reasoning. Blame.
It would destroy me to feel so negatively about someone I had been so intimate with.
But a heart that feels like its bleeding left to die.
That’s a sign it was the right man.
Where we’re hurt the most, is where we love the most.
.
THE EYE OF THE STORM
Saturday March 13, 1996
The worst was indeed over.
I went to bed way too late, but I slept alright and today is extremely productive.
Although a bit lonely;
After yesterday’s date falling through, today’s walk with a friend also got cancelled because of the weather.
It’s storming.
Originally I thought I was gonna go no matter what, but then I saw a piece of roof flying by.
I live on the third floor!
A piece of roof, like corrugated sheets but without the corrugation.
I really wanted to go outside but the moment I realized that might include getting beheaded, I called him and we cancelled.
So I didn’t have any daylight, fresh air, outdoor exercise nor social interaction.
Which is not healthy, but at least I still have my head.
Yesterday I had what I thought would be my final take on sleeping with Bear even tough he now has a girlfriend.
And the pain of him leaving and not being my boyfriend, was more intense than it had been during all the years of what should probably count as “an affair”, even though he didn’t seem to be cheating, and I wasn’t seeing someone else.
But the lightness of it, was “affair-worthy”.
It’s strange that the same man leaving after sex now, going to his girlfriend and their house, is so much more painful than when I had no idea if I was the only one, yet I pictured him coming home in the student dorm and falling on the big couch in the man cave that was their shared living.
And I was right, the worst really was over yesterday.
Perhaps the whole process of getting over it and finding peace also came from reaching the conclusion in yesterday’s diary entry, that he was the right man.
Not despite the pain but because of it.
That we only get hurt where we love the most.
To be in the calm of the eye of the storm, you need it to storm.
Just don’t lose your head.
.
SHINY AND NEW
Sunday March 14, 1996
When it rains it pours! But only good things, this time.
Contrary to the last two days where I had no social interaction, and even daylight and fresh air got cancelled because of a storm;
Today was filled with so much excitement, I feel my whole life is starting anew.
That tomorrow, a Monday, my whole life will be healed, filled with meaningful relationships, and of course lots of sex.
I haven’t felt this sexual in years!
Me and Bear finally hit it off again, and me finally having all the way sex, first time in 18 months, seems to have sparked something.
Something good.
I haven’t felt this alive in ages.
Today was spent with a friend, had lots of exercise, had to go to bed around dinnertime because I was so tired!
And then tonight I went to the hard rock cafe which had “reopened”, after its unexpected and unexplained shutdown about a month ago.
Still don’t know if it was by the health inspection or if those were just rumors.
It wasn’t an official reopening or anything. They had opened the doors this afternoon, and put the chairs outside on the terrace, and word spread fast.
A friend called me to tell me the good news, waking me from my nap.
I only had one beer, but I talked to so many people and it feels so good to be back.
Back in the land of the living.
.
TOUCHED FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME
Thursday March 25, 1996
It worked! I really am back in the land of the living.
And the consequences of needing a sex life, or to saying Yes! to sex when the opportunity arises (and in case I m absolutely crazy about the man of course), have become clearer.
They are indeed, inevitable.
I refuse to live a sterile or monogamous life.
Having one partner who is totally devoted to me, would kill my creativity, as much as living in a monastery would. People always think that I want to be the one who fools around, that not being in a relationship has perks because “then I can do whatever I want”.
Which I think is so revealing about them…. It is they who wish they could do whatever they want. They have sacrificed a unique part of themselves, their sexual expression, because they thought they had to, to be worthy of love.
When the part I would find suffocating, is him being monogamous to me.
Not me being monogamous to him.
That aspect of monogamy, is my default.
Which is not to say I do not aspire to become more versatile. Nor do I intend to say No to a new lover, to being in love, to exploring one night stands or other non-committal versions of sex, with a man when I feel attracted to him.
But it is not what comes easily and in all likeliness it will not be something I excel at.
It will not come as natural as being faithful, but that does not mean it isn’t healthy to pick Life up on an adventure.
I also insist on having a non-monogamous relationship (or no relationship!) because I m not okay with a man being jealous. I want him to be supportive of me, happy for me, take care of me when I come home.
That sort of thing.
Being faithful is easy for me, but another reason I would not make it into a promise, is because it would allow for things inside of him to stay hidden.
An undesirable inequality could arise, where I politely work around his insecurities. Something that ultimately would not benefit anybody, least of all him.
Promising him I would be faithful, would feel like doubting his ability to be bigger than that.
After the first hurt was over, or maybe even when it was still there, the thought of Bear living with his girlfriend started to arouse me.
It’s not that I can’t see how great it would be to be together. Just that it no longer keeps me from appreciating the special situation we are in.
There is too much good there, tension and interesting-ness.
I can’t write it off as a dumbed down good (he chooses for me!) versus bad (he doesn’t choose for me!) situation.
The current situation with me being the friend he started sleeping with again, is preferable to the staleness of monogamy.
I heard someone say that if you find the pain you can fall in love with, nothing can stop you.
Two and a half week after he was here, having recovered fully and counting my riches, I can say;
I ll take this.
.
~Lauren96
An unexamined life is not worth living
PRETTY TIED UP
Tuesday March 9, 1996
I feel I m in way over my head!
Sunday I came up with this idea to clean up my agenda, my social life. And get the healthy and productive lifestyle of Me, at 16!
No more Sunday night bar benders. Which didn’t seem too hard, since the Hard Rock Cafe is closed because of holiday or hygiene reasons. Either way my Thursday and Sunday fan nights are already cancelled, so it was a relatively small step (or so it seemed) to getting back to my high school rhythm.
Just the thought of having close to 10 productive hours a day, made my mouth water!
I m a freelancer, and I only bill effective hours:
Combined with how easily distracted I am, and often having the overwhelming urge to do my own work first (writing new work, even though I still have not picked up publishing my old work, my books) this means it often takes three days before I can bill 8 hours.
It’s hopeless.
And then I power through, work until way too late like I did yesterday night after having lost the entire day because Bear came by.
He just stayed a few hours, early afternoon.
But it killed my workday and maybe also because I didn’t want to feel the pain of him leaving;
I chose to work until after midnight instead.
So within 24 hours of starting my Project 88, 88 days of living my 1988 life, my current life had already spun out of control.
Instead of better, it had gotten worse.
And today a new neighbor brought me 5 gigantic homemade cookies, which were the best cookies I have ever eaten.
And eaten in the shortest amount of time, I imagine.
So on this project that was supposed to bring back my 16 year old size 6, one entire meal consisted of cookies.
But there is also good news.
About my books.
And it was such a surprise, and also shock!
I felt so free and happy and bold! I even checked with the publisher if my new plan was actually allowed.
All ISBN numbers, meaning all my books, are already registered at 1995, via a publisher that allows you to publish your own books.
It’s totally different to having a normal publisher.
So I asked:
“How strong is this push to hire an editor and designer, and make it look professional?
Because I would like to try something else, but I don’t know if I am allowed to.”
I was very proud of my choice of words “try something else”. I had thought long and hard about that. I didn’t want to shove it down their throats, because they have been so good to me.
But I also didn’t want to go ahead with something that is, three months after registering all the ISBNs and hardly making any headway publishing my books, clearly not working.
The task of publishing that many manuscripts is impossible.
So I asked:
“What if I would give myself one day for every book?
And that I print them however they come out after that one day?
No more, no less.”
And they agreed this was interesting and that they would help me!
In particular with coming up with some kind of cover format that we can adjust for every book.
So that was all very exciting (maybe you’re noticing I m not talking about Bear being here yesterday, but I m still trying to not think about it until the first pain of missing him has worn off) and then another thing happened!
Guns N Roses fans from the Thursday group at the Hard Rock Cafe are throwing a potluck party, and it’s tomorrow.
Someone has the Live in Tokyo VHS, and that’s what we’re gonna watch.
Shame it’s not the Sunday group with Bon Jovi fans, because I would have loved to see that special guy where I had, rubbing-crotches-in-passing-by-with-drinks contact with.
But then again, maybe throwing home parties on a Wednesday night is more of a dirty thing.
And Jovi fans would be too modest or hardworking to take it that far.
Let’s take it that far.
LS Harteveld 