Saturday evening April 25, 2020 9.45 P.M. .
I’ve been here before.
I ve been here before numerous times. The point when I realize staying in 2020 in the midst of this pandemic, is – firstly – not really an option. It s going to drive me mad. But secondly, that it’s also not where I am supposed to be! It is a sign that I need to go all-in on the project I started summer 2019, where I travel back in time to 1994. By now it’s 1995. . I ve had numerous times, and I mean definitely even before the crisis gave me a REALLY good reason, multiple times when I knew: I gotta leave. I need to time travel to 1995 and only “visit” 2020, for example for work, or to post this blog post. But that daily life needs to be designed around me being a 22 year old, working from home, and struggling with yoga, her love life, becoming a writer. A life where I am tempted to start teaching yoga, at a local yoga studio with a super hot yoga teacher who looks like Jon Bon Jovi.
Try saying no to that.
By the way in real life, I have picked up teaching yoga; but it’s an online friends group. . I received a phone call tonight, someone I didn’t know asking to join. And it was exactly what I needed to firmly decide that I will not return to teaching public classes. I have been toying with the thought of offering my online classes outside of the friends group, because obviously now would be a great time to attract a bigger audience. And theoretically, teaching online “should” allow for a broader range of students, than the former studio clients and friends I was teaching before C. Even though the online classes started out as a substitute for that tiny inner-circle, it seems so very logical to make them more public. Except of course, it’s not.
I was a yoga teacher for over 15 years and there is a reason I quit. . Whether online or in real life: I am not a yoga teacher teaching public classes. I retired from that officially in December, and the call tonight was a slap in the face to wake up from secretly dreaming of taking it bigger. Having someone I didn’t know on the phone looking for a yoga class, caused a panic attack, which could only be soothed by frantically checking all my social media on my phone, when none of them had any notifications. My “stimming” ( I still think panic attacks after social interaction occur because I m autistic) conflicted with my resolution to really finally go all-in on the 1995 project. . There was no reason at all to check my phone or scroll my feeds. No reason, except from getting a panic attack from being called as a normal yoga teacher on a Saturday night and realizing that I do not want to be a professional yoga teacher ever again. That if my small inner-circle groups generate enough money for me to live off, that’s great; But I m not going to make myself available on the market as a yoga teacher. I think it’s an extremely vulnerable, awful profession, for someone with my sensitivities. I have no idea how I lasted 15+ years. . All I know is, if I had a chance to start all over, I would do it differently. For example, if I was magically brought back to 1995, I would not become a yoga teacher. . Tomorrow I will travel to 1995, and tell them the news. And that this time, I’m staying.
1. Reboot – a hero’s journey. Diary 2017-2020 2. I M NOT CHANGING MY FUCKING SHOW 3. Big Mistress – confessions, columns and sex advice from the other woman
4. Blote Kont- (Dutch)
5. ALL THE THINGS – unpublished work 2010 – 2020
The best way to receive updates on when these books are ready is to follow this blog. The subscription button to this blog is on this page, probably on the right. . Nederlands blog: https://zegmaarlauren.com/
Does it require an explanation why I didn’t write, for two months? Especially since my last entry early January ended with the militant: “But I will put one foot in front of another, and become a writer. Alone if I have to. ” It hardly seems on point that I have not written anything since. Well, yes and no. I didn’t give up on the idea of becoming a writer but it turned out, no writing is required. Or even desired. Because I went through my old manuscripts and diaries and it’s all there. An entire body of work, as if it dropped right out of the sky. I honestly had no idea I had written that much. So I don’t need to write, in order to become a published writer. I need to organize, curate, filter, edit, embellish, smooth out.
The finite conclusion really is, and I wish it wasn’t, that in order to become a writer I need to be doing the exact same work I (still) do to make a living. The same work I hate so much. Eight months since graduation, the loneliness is daunting and my ass feels like it will fall off one day. But I guess that is a shitty reason not to work on publishing my own books right? Whether you’re sitting down every night to write new work, or to edit your existing work, doesn’t really make a difference for the sagginess of your ass. But it felt different though. And the idea that my road to becoming a published author, included expanding my ass-sitting hours from 8 to 10, doing the same boring work I’m already way overdue with and sick of, was not appealing.
So although I was thrilled to find I was basically already done writing, the conclusion I had maxed out on my solitary desk-sitting-hours, and that something needed to change to avoid “death by copy editing”, was something I needed to come to terms with.
This weekend I will start looking for a new job. Something where I have to leave home for, see people, have a laugh or two. But God, eight months in, and I have to start all over again. So depressing. In combination with my love life which has absolutely bottomed out since January, I really had little to be excited about. Both the Slash painter and Bear are up till their necks into their responsibilities towards their families. With Slash I kind of knew that of course, but nevertheless it still hurt. And with Bear too, I just want to shake him up. But I don’t know if I want to do that because I want to yell: “Pick me! Pick me!” or “Run while you can!”. Or if it really is none of my fucking business how he chooses to live his life, and which responsibilities he accepts. His purpose, what he has to do in this life; It really is none of my business. I know that, I do. But sometimes I think I spent the last two months keeping myself from contacting him, and trying to get through to him. Through to them.
It cost a lot of energy and I’m still not “done” or at peace about Bear or Slash. I find the whole situation extremely unsettling. But two months is enough, and I am no longer going to wait for them to change their minds. I need to get on with my life. Especially after news came about Slash.
It is tempting to go into detail as to how I found out about either one of them. What was going on with Slash, what with Bear. Who told me what, what I heard from others, and what I picked up intuitively or even paranormally. But it doesn’t really matter. The stories are similar. Both could have chosen for me, and both didn’t. And I didn’t do anything to change their minds.
Technically Slash doesn’t even know how I feel. I never said anything. I can still see his jacket covering my coats at December 31st when he came in to eat oliebollen but I never said it. I still only think about Bear when I think of sex, but I never told him. And besides, wouldn’t that be a reason for him not to see me? That I’m all about sex, and that it’s superficial and that he now wants a real woman with whom he can have a future together?
I think the difference between me and the men I’m in love with, is that to me a man I have sex with, or want to have sex with, is automatically extremely meaningful to me. But they are different, they have broader tastes. Slash dated many women before he was married for sure, and maybe even now. He could be having an affair with the bar lady from Warhol. It certainly seemed that way.
And Bear has always had other lovers throughout the five years we were seeing each other. He seemed to have received a calling to settle down and get serious, but I don’t understand it because it’s so not him. Or is it just so not me? Am I projecting how special these men are to me, and my conscious choice for a tailor-made, unconventional sex life, instead of working within the boundaries of what it is society wants from us? Is this all me?
After two months I’ve decided I’m done caring. I’m done thinking about it, done worrying about it and if they would actually need saving, I’m the last person who should be doing that. Because it would screw up what we have. It’s an entirely backwards power dynamic if I start interfering, claiming I know things better. I always had faith in Bear making his own decisions. Always. There is no exception that says: “Except when you don’t choose me.”
It is so simple that I can’t believe I actually spent two months wondering if I had to offer or say something. Or if they were going to turn around. It’s so disgusting. Almost as disgusting as getting a saggy ass, not publishing my own books and having to write basically the exact same diary entry twice, two months after you already knew what you had to do.
Let’s get to work.
.
~Lauren An unexamined life is not worth living
.
December 2023/ January 2024
This series is currently being updated, and will be published into
A letter from a stranger diary 1994 – 1996 including book 2, Dear Nikki
I was archiving my spiral bound diary of 1994. When closing it, the first page fell open and it just broke my heart. It had a quote from Bear. It was from a conversation we had, about our dreams. Or his dreams, which fascinated and inspired me. It may have been why he was so irresistible to me; He just did his own thing and I seemed to have little impact on his life. We only saw each other when it suited him. Which was another thing I liked, no one understood; How could I not take initiative to see each other? And didn’t I want him to be there for me when I wasn’t doing well? How could I give him all the power, controlling everything? That not having a say in whether or not we were going to see each other, was actually one of the most intoxicating things about it, baffled them. I usually added that I would initiate contact sometimes, to ensure he didn’t feel excluded. But he rarely accepted the invitation.
Late 1993, he had taken his physical exercise to the next level. It didn’t seem to take him any effort. He had been training every day since October, November, and he had been keeping it up. I immediately started dreaming what I would be able to achieve if I did that. But Bear reminded me this wasn’t the first time I was inspired by his discipline. He said he would be frustrating rather than inspiring me, since I seemed to be having so much trouble to stick to a regiment.
I denied and ensured him 1994 would be different, starting with quoting him on the frustration thing, at the beginning of my journal. Only to not read it again until January 1995 when archiving the journal. And suddenly I felt so guilty. Not for not keeping my word to Bear – regardless if he would have been more inclined to stay with me and not break up if I had become more successful at my fitness dreams. No. I felt guilty for not backing myself up. It wasn’t just the fitness; I vowed to become a writer in 1994, and then didn’t. It wasn’t all bad, don’t get me wrong. Both Bear and me finished our thesis and got our Masters. We both started our working lives as well. And then a month ago he broke up, and now it’s January 1995, and I’m like: “Where did the time go? Where did my dreams go to workout every day (in my case yoga) and to become a writer?” It was all so very sad.
How full of life I still felt one year ago. Everything Bear and me had been sharing. Our five years of being lovers felt like a heart shaped bubble. A curated experience like something you could put in a museum. The intensity, and the beauty of it just brought tears to my eyes. For the first time I cried, thinking about our years together, and that he had moved on. Wanted a family. Wanted normalcy. Didn’t want me anymore, the girl who had asked him to have her first time sex with. Because her boyfriend had ended it, right before her 17th birthday, and she didn’t want to leave this to chance or let it fall into inexperienced hands. A burden had been lifted from my shoulders, when I had found him.
Just like the past month after the breakup, I had been devoid of emotion, and I had been pragmatic about what needed to be done. I was young but I was determined to find someone skillful to give me my first time. And took all the steps on instinct. Bear immediately sprung to mind, because I knew him from stories from two friends and had seen him on a number of occasions. We had been briefly introduced but never really talked. Bear had been sexually active, and was notorious for not committing. Through the two friends (I can’t remember which one) I got his telephone number, I came up with some kind of excuse for needing it. I rang him up, explained who I was, and that I wanted to ask him something. But that I could only do it in person. We set a date to have coffee together, and I was business-like about what I wanted from him. It wasn’t until he said Yes, that I broke into tears.
Suddenly all the tension of setting this up, the fear of staying a virgin far too long, grief of having lost Jonathan at such an important time; It all came out. “I’m sorry,” I sobbed. Bear just smiled and took my hands over the table. Touched my face. I wanted to crawl away, I felt so pathetic. Bear tried to look me in the eye, but the more he tried to stay connected with me, the more I started to cry. “It’s going to be fine, okay?” he finally said when I had calmed down a bit. “You trust me?” I nodded. “I’m not going to do anything you don’t want. Do you understand?” I didn’t explain that I wasn’t crying because of him doing something. But out of fear of him not doing something. Out of fear of him changing his mind and leaving me hanging. And a virgin.
But just like the daily exercise, Bear did what he promised. The first time we didn’t go all the way, but stuck to the things I was already experienced with. And the second time we had real sex. It was extremely emotional. It had been such a big hangup for me, and at first I really thought it was that stress, why I was crying. But it would stay that way. The fucking brought out so much tension, I cried more often than not. I felt like a baby in his arms, and it was all okay. More than okay. It was wonderful. And now he has ended it and there is this bubble of beautiful memories, that will never go away. Our first date he had ensured me he would never do something I didn’t want; He held true to his word. All the way up to the end.
As soon as he wanted a normal relationship and possibly a family, he asked me for a similar coffee date as I had five years ago. And he left.
Bear had been right. 1994 Was not the year he would inspire me to great heights, and became the source of frustration instead. Not because he had stuck to his exercise regime and I hadn’t. But because our time together had come to an end, and had left me empty handed. Finding the quote in the diary was the first time I cried for our breakup. For not backing myself. For making resolutions I didn’t keep. For not being a writer. Not having a lover. Everything.
After two days I decided enough was enough. I am only 22 years old, and I still have my life ahead of me. I took a piece of paper, and drew out what I wanted this year and also for the upcoming years. Just as Bear had done for his. There were way too many blanks to my liking. With whom was I going to make love? Cry? In whom would I trust? It was an incredibly lonely exercise, and I can’t say that I’m suddenly healed and looking to the future with hope and dreams.
But I will put one foot in front of another, and become a writer. Alone if I have to.
.
~Lauren An unexamined life is not worth living
.
December 2023/ January 2024
This series is currently being updated, and will be published into
A letter from a stranger diary 1994 – 1996 including book 2, Dear Nikki
I finally cracked the code why the sexual tension keeps on building between the Slash-like painter I’m in love with, and me. We both seemed very determined not to throw any fuel on any fire, the last time I saw him was all extremely respectable. So then why can’t I stop thinking about him? Why do I keep having the feeling him raising his hand wishing me a happy new year and good luck with the cats, is not going to be the last time we see each other? And even more so that the tension not just keeps on building despite both of us not acting on it; But because of it. Our “distant” dynamics are like buckets of gasoline thrown straight onto the fire. But why? Now I know why.
And I also know what either one of us would have to do to break the spell; And that neither one of us, is going to do that! But before I get into that, I want to first explain why things have gotten so heated.
For starters, even though Slash and me seem to be behaving identically, we are both playing a different role. It only looks as if we’re both distant, formal even. But underneath the surface, our roles are different from each other… Very, different.
When Slash holds his distance, sidelines me by letting me know he’s married, tries to hook me up with his colleague even, he does it from a position of taking the lead. His actions say: “I have no room for you in my life.” He keeps it clear that our chance encounter when he painted my balcony was a one-off thing. The click between us might have taken him by surprise at the time, but that he’s going to leave it at that. When he avoids physical contact and proximity for example by choosing to sit at the table instead of next to me on the couch, he’s saying: “I like you, but I’m not going to act on this. And I want to be clear on that.” However, that is not what my distance means.
My distance means: I respect you. I will never initiate. You decide. You don’t owe me an explanation. His distance communicates he’s not available but inadvertently (or intentionally?) makes him dominant. My distance communicates I respect his choices but also that I comply to his wishes. My distance makes me submissive.
His rejection and my cooperative understanding have turned into a highly volatile situation. He’s taking the lead and I’m complying. It’s like mini-sex.
Having said that, it is now blatantly obvious how either one of us can break the spell effectively: By breaking pattern. The moment I try to seduce him or take initiative either sexually but especially verbally, by speaking to him about my feelings; The spell is broken. And vice versa the moment he puts me in the lead, for example by claiming to be overwhelmed by his feelings for me or complaining he does not know what to do: The magic is gone.
The reason I think neither one of us will let the magic die out by talking about it, is because we are both fascinated by it. Even if we don t act on it. Maybe especially then.
.
~Lauren An unexamined life is not worth living
.
December 2023/ January 2024
This series is currently being updated, and will be published into
A letter from a stranger diary 1994 – 1996 including book 2, Dear Nikki
This may be the best January 1st in the history of my entire 22 year old existence. And I am not sure why, because I am in an impossible position. This is not one of those happily ever after stories because even if I would end up happy, others would not. Technically, I could see how everybody could live happily ever after. But since even Bear has set himself up for a life of monogamy and normalcy, I have given up on the idea that men can love multiple women, without blowing it with one of them. Or both of them.
It’s not that I cannot see how a marriage does not have to blow up if your Slash-like husband has fallen in love with a rock chick whose balcony he painted this summer: It’s just that it’s not the most likely scenario. And a hurt, angry wife, a divorce and children caught in the middle, is. Yet I seem unbothered by this horror scenario.
Probably because I’m still under the spell. His spell. Rationally I can see this is going to be a mess but emotionally I’m in way over my head. Because I encountered the Slash-like painter on the last day of 1994 with a bag of oliebollen (a Dutch treat for New Year’s Eve) in our building. He was just on his way out. I came home from shopping for my first New Year’s Eve when I was going to be all by myself. I have my own apartment, so I no longer have housemates. And I have cats now, and didn’t want to leave them alone with all the fireworks. Slash threw me a big smile when he saw me and said: “I left something at your door. I hope you don’t mind.” The company he works for were delivering cards on behalf of the real estate company, thanking us for our cooperation during this year’s renovation. If the tenant was home they would also get a box of oliebollen, but they were not allowed to leave them at the doorstep if no one opened the door. Yet, the painter who looked like Slash, had.
He was wearing a black leather jacket. I had never seen it, because I usually saw him in his work-gear and the two times I had seen him at Warhol’s, he had not been wearing a coat. He was wearing black jeans and black boots. The perfect rock star ensemble. The only thing that revealed he was not entirely casual was a black shirt, instead of a T-shirt or a sweater. I assumed he was already dressed for a New Year’s Eve with his family, perhaps with an extra family or friends coming over. Luckily enough, I was also decently dressed. Since I didn’t have anybody to dress up for, I knew that if I didn’t make a conscious decision, New Year’s Eve would end up without make-up and without beautiful clothes. A questionable way to start the new year. So instead of waiting until later in the day, I was already wearing my festive outfit, and wearing makeup. I considered myself so lucky that I ran into him. He would be the last person I saw in 1994!
And I was looking amazing and he was looking amazing and we had just bumped into each other on a day neither of us were pressed for time. He had an excuse not to be home, because technically he was working, delivering cards. I asked him, if he wanted to come up and eat the oliebollen with me. And to my unspeakable joy, which I hoped I kept a bit hidden, he accepted.
He carried my heavy bags up, and indeed, there was a box of oliebollen with a card on my doorstep. Slash seemed a little embarrassed that I was going to read it, with him being present. But there was nothing to be ashamed of, really. All he had done, was put his own name on the card that had been pre-printed by the company. He had signed it: Happy New Year “Slash” And he had drawn the little bald man with the big nose and big hands, looking over a ridge. The one he had pointed out to me on the Iron Maiden album cover. There was no phone number or anything like that. It was really respectable, and I liked seeing the card before we went up. I interpreted it as a sweet goodbye note. Something like: “You were not crazy. We did have a moment together and I’m sorry I’m married and I never told you.” But his way of saying it was better.
Regardless of me thinking his message was neutral, he felt embarrassed for a moment. Almost as if he had not realized that if he would go up with me, it would include me seeing the card. So we went in, he took the groceries to the kitchen and I took the box and the card. We put our coats on the hooks, and just seeing his jacket in my hallway, covering my other coats, made me so happy. It was as if it belonged there. Like he was already my boyfriend, when I knew very well that he was not.
We went to the kitchen, where I simultaneously made coffee, heated our oliebollen in the oven (he originally wanted only one oliebol, but I told him that equaled zero and that they always came in pairs.) and I unpacked all the groceries. He had to move around all the time, because he was always in the way of the fridge, the cabinet, the stove. And it was all very funny. I don’t even remember what our topic of conversation was. But I do know that it got interrupted all the time by me saying: “I’m sorry but,” or him saying: “Oh, I need to move again.” We were both, very deliberately, not touching the other person. We even tried to stay as far away from each other as we could. And not just in the kitchen, in my living as well. I sat on the couch, but he sat at the table. No kidding. He even asked: “Do you mind if I sit at the table?” No, I don’t. I didn’t.
It was obvious that we were both sensing things. It was as if the air between us was on fire, I have never felt anything like it. And yet neither of us mentioned it, and we both did our utmost best not to add fuel to the fire. And in a way we succeeded. Because nothing was said, no phone numbers were exchanged. No promises were made and we just parted raising our hand in the air: “Goodbye! Have a great new year!” “Good luck with the cats,” were his final words, before I saw him descend from the stairs.
We did well. Yet now all I can think of is everything about him. It was as if I finally understood that I should enjoy him being there. The first weeks after our balcony day this summer, and even the times I saw him at Warhol, I forgot to notice what he looked like. I didn’t know the color of his eyes, how tall he was or how he was built. But now I tried to absorb everything about him. The deep brown of his eyes. The soft childlike features of his face. His strong hands. The tone of his voice, it was like a warm blanket. Although he did not have a very low voice but a friendly one. Just like his body; It wasn’t threatening in any way. I couldn’t sense his sexuality, and I still don’t know if we would be a match. After 5 years with Bear, I’ve gotten so used to a man being dominant and I have promised myself I never have to be dominant in bed, or even seductive. I don’t want that. But I do know our great sex life was because Bear was sensitive to my needs. That although I usually say it was his dominance, that I could surrender to, it wasn’t. It was his sensitivity to what it was I needed, and he understood that most of the time this meant for him to be dominant. To push me. To take me. But he would always look into my eyes, and never lose connection with me. He immediately picked up if my mood had shifted. Often before I did.
I don’t know if I will ever see Slash again.
But I do know that when I felt so attracted to him, without sensing his sexuality or without knowing if he would be dominant, that it was because those things really do not matter.
That the first thing I look for, when I’m in love and wonder if we’re a good match, really isn’t if someone is dominant in bed.
It’s if someone is warm and feels safe.
And he did.
.
~Lauren An unexamined life is not worth living
December 2023/ January 2024
This series is currently being updated, and will be published into
A letter from a stranger diary 1994 – 1996 including book 2, Dear Nikki
Maybe I waited too long. My melancholic moments, my saddest moments, and certainly something that resembled tears (I only vaguely remember them…. it was all so strange) must have been the first days after Bear broke up with me. That although I did not feel like I was feeling it, that was all that was gonna come, making it the best moment to write about the breakup when I was still emotionally involved. That there wouldn’t come a better time, when I had more meaningful things to say. But I didn’t believe that. Bear had meant so much to me and therefor I was convinced I would eventually break to pieces and lose my mind. That “this” could not be it. But nothing came… And now I’m on the verge of 1995 and I just want to have the breakup with the most important man of my life in my diary, especially since we no longer seem to be friends. He didn’t show up at a party we had both been invited to and that he had been looking forward to. We had said our goodbyes with a big hug and actually saying: “See you there.” That had been another possible reason for keeping it together: I still had something to look forward to. Either way, the party came and no Bear. No explanation either and instead of being devastated I just interpreted it as a sign that he could be having more difficulty with the new situation than me. Our breakup had not brought the peace of mind he had hoped for, and now he was cutting ties. Yet, I was still okay. And with that another good moment to reflect and to write, passed.
So I had already missed the first days or the first week, when my feelings had been the strongest. Then I missed out on the second opportunity, which was experiencing that he didn’t want to see me anymore. And then the third trigger happened, which didn’t have anything to do with my Bear, but with the second man I am in love with. A Slash like painter who did my balcony, and whom I later went to see at Warhol’s because he had told me he usually went there on Saturday’s. In Warhol he let the woman behind the bar in Andy’s room hijack our conversation, and almost pretended he had no idea who I was. Afterwards I had seen him only once, when I was going out and we ended up at Warhol’s. I now considered it my time to pretend we had no memorable connection. He took it well, which I on my turn, found extremely sexy. “Well played!” I thought.
Then just this month he started working on the building with a colleague. The scaffolding slowly moved up the street, alongside the building. After two weeks it was on our side, the final apartments that needed work. Probably because I had been impressed with his relaxed attitude the second time at Warhol’s, and also because he had kept his cool every time I cycled by and casually said hi, I offered them coffee. I didn’t invite them in, or anything. And I treated him and his colleague entirely equal, nothing flirtatious. I was business-like even. Which in turn, seemed to fascinate him. As if he started to wonder if his imagination had been playing tricks on him. “I thought she had come to the Warhol to see me, but now I’m not so sure!” Something like that, I don’t know. Like I said, I wasn’t overthinking it. I was just normalizing whatever it was that had happened this summer, with strategic use of coffee and cookies. I wasn’t bending over backwards to win his heart.
On my way out I passed them again. It was the end of the day, I had been working from home and was now going to a Christmas drink at the publisher’s. They were breaking down the scaffolding, and as I was taking my bike out of the basement, putting my handbag at my steering wheel and getting ready to leave, the most peculiar conversation arose. Something in the lines of my Slash-like painter making jokes to the other one, that he (the other one) was single. But that he (the Slash painter) had a family. It was all done in a casual boys will be boys kind of way, and it even included the suggestion that the other painter and me should hook up. Or Slash addressing both his colleague and me in a way that suggested “we” were a group, or the singles or something.
What I also noticed was that the colleague did not seem to notice this was a strange conversation. Or he was too excited to be named in one sentence with me. Like I said, it was not exactly clear what was said or anything, but I did understand that he was telling me he was involved with someone. And I know it’s not with the woman who’s working in Andy’s room, that was super obvious. But if you have a family, and you have a sexy bartender who has the hots for you, it does explain why you’re not following up on the girl with whom you unexpectedly had a wonderful afternoon, when you were sent to paint her balcony. It does explain that.
On my way to the Christmas party I kept thinking why it was that something seemed off with Slash’s remark. Something was… strange. I was too busy trying to get my finger on it, to realize that I had just been rejected. That after Bear breaking up with me, and then Bear not showing up, I now had the other man I was in love with saying No. I now had three reasons to feel lonely and rejected, and yet I still did not feel miserable. I was more like a detective trying to figure out “Whodunnit”. Although in my case, not having sex since July, the answer was obviously not “me”. I had not dunnit for five months and both men were rejecting me.
It took me over a week to crack the puzzle. Everything. From why I wasn’t feeling totally devastated when he broke up, to why I was okay with him not showing up to the party; To why I was unimpressed with Slash telling me he was taken. The reason is one and the same: I’m still in the game.
It is as if these men have come up and said: “I can’t play.” but then expected me to respond with something. To stop doing something. As if I am running around in red lingerie sucking my fingers and winking: “Come here, sailor.” and am supposed to change that. I don’t know. But they are treating me, or talking to me, as if they are expecting something to happen with me. As if I am supposed to do something, as a response. As if they want me to step out of the game when they are the ones who have just announced they are either not playing games or have stopped playing and now they’re looking at me to leave the board. Why would I leave the board? They are the ones who left.
I still like them, both of them. I like Slash and I like Bear. But I’m not stepping off the board because they are not in a position to play anymore.
I said this to a friend last weekend. That I finally understood that these men had expected me to be defeated. And that even I had expected that. My constant waiting, expecting to at one point “feel” the breakup. But I was fine. “It is so strange,” I said to her. “I miss Bear, I really do. And I would have loved Slash, but he doesn’t even let me come near. Yet I still feel excited. But why?”
“Because you’re still in the game,” she laughed. “And you’re a good player!” I sure am.
.
~Lauren An unexamined life is not worth living
December 2023/ January 2024
This series is currently being updated, and will be published into
A letter from a stranger diary 1994 – 1996 including book 2, Dear Nikki
Molly Ringwald. Whose 80s pictures are frequently featured in my 1994 project
This is a goodbye post. But a very exciting one.
It is “Goodbye 2019” and “Hello 1994” I m taking on my life as an art project, where I create an entire new persona, based on real life events, as well as on desires of what I want my life to be like.
It’s something I started four months ago, with the series “1994 fanfic inspired erotica”. It was me trying out the concept of time-traveling, as well as feeling into it. Was it as inspiring as it sounded? Did it feel expansive? And yes!
Taking 25 years off my life, turned out to be as good as it sounded. But I didn’t go all in. There was simply too much at stake, and too much going on energetically, I would even say.
I tried to figure out why I was feeling so awful, but it wasn’t until my lover broke up with me one week ago, that I knew the answer to that.
Our relationship had been falling apart.
And I had picked it up without knowing it.
Ultimately the conversation itself – you could even call it a date! – was the most painless, supportive breakup in the history of mankind.
Not because I wasn’t sad.
But because I had already shed all my tears, felt all the despair, and built myself up again. I had already done all the internal work.
And without a doubt, so did he.
It was two mature adults, who had learned that relationships can end, but anything that is worth saving, will last on in our hearts.
I felt like I passed my exam to adulthood.
With honors.
And now what, right? There was nothing left to do anymore. Not here. Not in 2019.
After this accomplishment, I would almost feel compelled to share everything I have learned. To become or stay an inspirational speaker, coach, yoga teacher. I ve always claimed I was good with relationships, and with the cum laude breakup I had proof I could really do it.
But I don’t want to inspire as a professional.
I don’t want that to be my work.
So I m at this point where I feel I have developed myself as a senior in the field of personal development, but it’s not my field. I am an artist.
Someone who plays.
Creates.
And then moves on.
I don’t identify with having any specific profession; I “just” channel it.
That’s what I ve done as a yoga teacher, a writer, a publisher. And I ll channel whatever profession will be next for me in real life.
The only profession you could “tie” to my identity, is being a play artist, or a performance artist.
Someone who is always changing, always playing, and consciously and unconsciously creating a new truth by first living it.
Adopting it.
“1994” has started by taking baby steps, and exploring how it felt.
But with the departure of my lover, and my love life always being the main thing I write about and am interested in, I am free to really go all in.
I can start creating a new reality.
The love life I desire.
Disclaimer for lovers – Rules of engagement 1994
Although I can leave out, reframe, embellish or omit any event, experience or character in order to either fit into the 1994 time bubble, or to keep someone from appearing in my blog, there is one aspect where this is not going to happen;
My love life.
Love is what makes the world go round, and it’s certainly what makes me tick. I d rather never have a man in my bed ever again, than to give up writing.
Or to give up being in love with whomever I want.
Which means there are four non-negotiable rules, for whomever I get sexually involved with.
rule number 1: I m a secret/ Writer FIRST
.
Any man with whom I have a sexual relationship, must take into account that our encounters, and my feelings surrounding them, will be written about.
And in order for me to be free to do that, you can never refer to me as your girlfriend or your lover, because it would mean that your friends are now reading our blog, and I can no longer freely write about it.
Your anonymity will be guaranteed, by writing about you as a fictional character, without matching characteristics. And the content, as to what it is I write, can be negotiated as well. In particular with regard to protecting your privacy or your feelings. In order to make this writing aspect as comfortable as possible: I will always deny that you are my lover, and I strongly suggest you do the same. There is an escape clause to this secrecy 😉 See 4.
rule number 2: You must guarantee my safety, and be comfortable seeing me in public
. If you’re married, wanted dead or alive, a singer in a rock and roll band, or if there is any other reason why I could get the cops or angry women on my doorstep if we’re seen together? We call it quits.
The secrecy under 1 is just to avoid people from recognizing you in my blog, and to claim our boundaries as singles. It’s no one’s business what we do.
But the secrecy is not because I want to hide in hotel rooms, and never go out in public (as friends).
rule number 3: You must keep seeing other women
. For a long time I thought this was a dominance thing. That in theory, a man could also be faithful to me, and convey in this kind of arrogant way that HE was the one who decided what he was going to do with his body. Not me. But right now, that all sounds very far fetched.
I need you out there having adventures and me not knowing what you’re doing, or my sexual interest will flatline before you know it. If you are uncomfortable with me writing about having a lover who has other women? Don’t come.
In the rare case I absolutely have to write about something extremely dramatic that happened in your love life or other relationships – I will change our timeline, events and of course names for you.
Details of your love life (should I know them) will never be revealed.
rule number 4 (going steady rule): we’re a team
. This rule is not for those who are my lover:
This is for those who ultimately want more, which is to say to become my partner, and call me their girlfriend instead of friend.
We’re a team.
And I need you to be supportive of me.
You see, I m hard-wired to be faithful. It really is, a frickin big deal for me to be physically intimate with someone else when I am already involved. But (at least in theory) I think I could be intimate with more than one man, because there have been times when I WAS in love with two men.
I have always figured it only took that second man to say “yes”, to turn me from being monogamous into polyamorous. But does it? Because so far when I was in love with two men, my main love-interest was already moving on, or turning away. I have once written a book about this. It’s called Dutch American Diary. And it’s about me being in love with two men, and the agony that comes from that. It takes a while before I realize that I only fell in love with the second man, because the first could not meet the demands above, and we were completely stuck between me being a secret mistress and trying to break up.
We weren’t good at either one.
A second love interest was the only thing that would give me the power to stay away from him.
And this pattern of pulling in a second crush, as a response to realizing the first is no longer an option, has persisted. Whenever a second man came into my life, or an old crush suddenly became current again, the main man in my life was already pulling back or had proven to come with the proverbial hornet’s nest. All in all, I have more proof that I am absolutely incapable of having sex with anyone other than my main man, than otherwise.
However, I do not want to be selected or chosen, because I am this kind of dream woman who lets you fool around but she herself seems bound to an invisible moral code between her and God or something.
No.
Instead, I want you to be supportive of me.
I either want you to treat me as a secret lover, which means that we both could be dating other people and you make sure I don’t get to see any of your jealousy.
Or, if you want to be a part of my life, I want you to be there for me when I explore these things. Because my happiness is your happiness (as it is vice versa), and you know that what is true cannot be taken away.
I really believe that I will be the dream woman for someone, and that my dream man is out there.
And he will read this, all four points, and know it’s him.
Entering the portal to 1994
. The past couple of months, I ve freely switched between my fantasy world in 1994 and my real life.
But today, is the day I m going all in.
Which as far as this blog is concerned, means I will no longer be writing about secret mistresshood since I now live in 1994, and my lover Bear was single.
And I will no longer be engaging in politics or any current day events that used to catch my attention, and inspire me to write.
Everything I write, will be in the series 1994, and once every two, three weeks, I will be writing a letter to my creativity coach Sara.
This letter to her, is where I will give a helicopter view of what my “real” life is like;
But otherwise, I will not be going back and forth anymore.
I will now teleport myself to 1994.
See you on the other side.
. ~Lauren An unexamined life is not worth living
Subscribe to this blog for my letters to Sara, and the Behind the Scenes of my year 2000 diary.
The subscription button is on this page, most likely on the top right.
October 1994 I wrote my experience with consent play in a notebook. Every night before I went to sleep, I wrote a little bit, with the intention of writing a complete book and publishing it one day, but I never finished it, as explained in the previous episode.
This is what I wrote about my consent play and my affair or relationship with Bear.
-> contains erotic elements
-> NSFW, not suitable for work
-> triggering
Monday 21- Tuesday 22 October, 1994
0.40
I don’t know how many words will go into this journal before it’s full, how many pages before this ballpoint is empty, or how many stories I need to tell before I have said what I’ve come here to say, but I do know the limited resources will work in my advantage.
On top of the boundaries set by the material, there is the slowness of it, the thoughts that just drip onto the paper word for word, a little pause at the end of every sentence. And I’ve set myself a time limit. Not because I’m in a hurry finishing or publishing it but because I believe this unspoken confession is what is blocking the pathway to what it is I desire, or who, all of them, the men.
But above all else: Not writing this out is blocking my way to becoming the person I would be in their presence. The lover who calls herself, yes, what? What is it, this unnamed role? Both “girlfriend” and “submissive” are equally misplaced, neither one is what I want to be and at heart already am, just without words so far. How do you name a woman who desires to be in a constant game for her consent? And not just in the obvious, the play rape. Although I did think that for a while, that the most defining characteristic of my sexual preference was to be dominated during sex. But now I know this consent is always played for, and withheld unless I feel I have his full attention, and then we play, I surrender and he can dominate me. That my desire for power play is weaved into the bigger picture of two lovers only seeing each other for sex, into a date of some sort.
My sexual preference cannot “just” be defined as power play or rough sex, because that would imply that you could be married and have this type of sex at night and then discuss whose turn it is to stock the fridge. That is not how consent play works- let’s call it that for now. Consent play would ask: What fridge? What tomorrow? There is only the now.
It is like a perpetual tango. A game of attraction, where you hope you’ll dance again. There are multiple men I would like to tango with but currently I’m dating none of them. I don’t have to answer to anyone right now, I’m alone with my thoughts and with my desires, between what was and what can become, who I can become. And when I do the right man will come. Plural, maybe.
Tuesday 22- Wednesday 23 October, 1994
Create the Truth
0.05
I tick off the things I want to do each day, cuddle enough with both cats, masturbate, yoga. Some things are harder than others. Writing in this journal is also on there and it’s one of the things I don’t want to skip. Not even if it’s after midnight before I start.
The reason I want to do this is because this activity is called “create the truth”; By writing I want a dominant lover, I will create him. I need to feel like I am the perfect match and then next to me, like magic, a vacuum will be created that will draw the right man and only the right man, in.
This man will automatically, when we make love, force me down, pin me down, restrict me, push me, command me, open me, enter me, hurt me, fill me, and it will be under that weight that I lean in and let go.
And that I am home.
Wednesday 23 – Thursday 24 October, 1994
0.15
On days like this it’s so good to have this diary to come back to. I didn’t do yoga, didn’t see friends or a movie. The only thing I did, which was good for my sexuality (or maybe it’s more a prerequisite than an aphrodisiac) is deep cleanse my house. I feel thrilled by this.
I intend to do yoga AM! The PM thing is not working for me. I hope that a sexy yoga session every morning will keep my spirits up for the rest of the day. That I’ll keep identifying with my sexual ambitions, of who I need to be.
Right now I keep forgetting it until suddenly I remember after midnight, when I pick up this journal. I need to start doing a hell of a lot more to straighten this out, than writing this book.
Wednesday 30 October, 1994
A League of their own
09.30
First day working from home, and immediately I take this journal and go to the cafe instead of spending the day behind my desk.
Don’t worry, I’ll make it up. It’s just that I’ve been in such a dark place that I’m thrilled my desire to journal has returned. The story has returned. And it’s not the story I thought it was.
Maybe they were related: The story of consent play and my meltdown.
Consent play is a lot more complex than just a variation to S&M. And I am a lot more complex than just a college grad stuck in her first job. I may have needed the meltdown in order to do justice to the story, as well as to myself. Over the past week I’ve discovered a really big chunk in my identity, that I don’t know where to put, or how to interpret it, but it is a place of strength. It is about the Catherine Tramell part in me.
Yesterday I was talking about this part to a friend and she said: “Oh my God, you’re sitting just like her.” She was referring to Catherine Tramell, Basic Instinct. A movie I’ve seen more than any other.
Just this summer they played it at the discount theater, I went four more times, and I’m thinking of getting a VHS. After realizing I identify like her, I started wondering where do I behave or feel like Catherine Tramell, if I’m submissive in bed? If I make myself as grey as possible at work? Not that I’ve been very successful at that and I’m glad I can start working from home but nevertheless; I didn’t recognize Catherine Tramell in my submissive sexuality, nor in my bland work life.
I think cutting my personality in half was the biggest cause of me having suicidal thoughts over the weekend. Not as an act of despair but as a happy thought. A comforting one. One I’d rather thought of than how I was going to solve this. But the signs that life was slipping though my fingers, had been there earlier. In no longer masturbating, in no longer writing, and in cancelling appointments. I had quit eating sugar, which was the first moment death entered my thoughts, as if I wanted to bring my body back to its pre-college thinness before I died.
I felt dead on the inside already and that it needed to stay that way to not disturb the others around me. The only one who didn’t require me to be half-dead already, was Bear. I have not heard from him in weeks, if not months. I did run into him and he invited me over or suggested we should see each other soon, but I rejected because if he doesn’t want to see me, I don’t want him to feel pressured to invite me. I really believe he has someone else right now.
Meeting up by chance encounter at my all-time low, was out of the question.
On my way home I kept wondering why I had been so determined to reject him helping me. He had literally offered: “Maybe it helps to talk.” Yet I knew the moment I accepted this, it would not only ruin what we had, but that it was also dangerous because I would become dependent on him. I would be meeting him from a place of needing him when I want him to want me, not to pity me. And suddenly I snapped out of it. I saw why I felt suicidal, why I was so happy with my love life and could even bear the thought of him having someone else. And where that giant chunk went!
I saw why I had seen Basic Instinct so many times, and why I should buy the VHS. And most importantly: I saw why my submission during sex was rooted in strength.
My relationship with Bear has been the only place, in all those years, where I have been able to show myself as Catherine Tramell.
He never blinked. Not when I asked him to become my lover when I was a virgin. Not when I asked for anal sex. Not when I asked for play rape. Playing doctor. Applauded him for staying sexually active with other women. Watched him with great love, appreciation and understanding as others around him crashed into his stubbornness.
I saw that we had something that we couldn’t have with others because they needed it to have rules, form, agreement, when we had none of those things. We had a deep understanding and appreciation of each other’s strength and independence. We saw each other as solitary beings, not as half of a couple in need of amalgamation.
My relationship with Bear had been my Catherine Tramell Sanctuary. And the reason I had been starving myself, denying myself, creatively cutting myself off and ultimately the reason why I wanted to kill myself: Because in all other aspects of my life I had not been Catherine Tramell.
Sunday 17 November, 1994
Epilogue
I just typed out these notes on consent play, and I was right. This really was, and is, all I can say about it.
Sometimes I think my depression and the current trouble we are going through are the effects of leaving university, and both of us trying to find our place in this world. I’m convinced we’ll stay in touch, over the course of our lives but right now I need to start implementing what I learned about who I want to be.
It’s almost 5 years ago that we started our affair, we were both still in high school when we met. I have become an adult and stepped into my power, but only in my relationship with him so therefor it has been very limited. You could say I’m only half adult. Or a part-time adult. The rest of the time my own power scares me or the response I get from people is starting to scare me. Now more than ever, it seems. My studies were filled with male friends, but at the publisher’s it’s mostly women. I have definitely not been coping well with that and avoid their company, mostly.
With Bear out of sight, the only place where I’ve felt good in my own skin, disappeared. No wonder I feel I’m losing my strength.
Growing up is like shedding skin, isn’t it? You can’t enjoy your new identity, if you keep paying attention to everything that has fallen off. My old life, my student life, is over. And maybe my relationship with the boy who grew into a man, at my side, is over too. Maybe our affair is part of the dead skin but maybe it’s part of the strong, vibrant beings that we became. And we’ll always keep reinventing ourselves, together.
It reminds me of the final scene of Basic Instinct.
Nick and Catherine just had sex, and Catherine is unsure how they’re going to have a normal relationship. She seems terrified and confused, but you can’t see if she’s having relationship skitters because she’s so used to killing the people she loves or if she’s scared because everybody she loves ends up being killed. Then you think she’s reaching under the bed for a weapon, but the movie ends in a passionate kiss, indicating she was never the killer.
Yet after a fade out, Nick and Catherine come back into focus one more time. This time the camera moves under the bed, where you see an ice pick, indicating she did intend to kill him, and she’s the killer after all. I always thought that last shot was cheap and I didn’t buy it. Not even the first time I saw it.
I didn’t buy it that Nick and Catherine would not stay together, since they were a match made in heaven. No one was playing at their level, and they both had enough experience to know that no one ever would.
Things like that don’t end.
~Lauren An unexamined life is not worth living
December 2023/ January 2024
This series is currently being updated, and will be published into
A letter from a stranger diary 1994 – 1996 including book 2, Dear Nikki
If I tell you what I’ve been up to, you will just laugh your socks off at my ignorance. That I ever thought fall 1994, would be the time when I would write a groundbreaking book on consent play within unconventional and highly exciting relationships between dare I say “superior” minds. I haven’t heard from my lover Bear for ages, and I would not be surprised if he is with another woman, probably a less problematic one. So I’ve already been punished for my arrogance of calling us superior minds.
On the bright side, since I’m already in pain, this does entitle me to start speaking my truth because I’m no longer promoting a success lifestyle here. The current situation immediately illustrates the drawbacks of being so demanding in your love life. If it works, this relationship style will bring you the best thing you ever got, the best thing he ever got, and in all likeliness the best thing anybody going back three generations on both sides ever got. But most likely it will not work and you’ll end up totally alone and everybody will believe you totally deserved it. And I probably did.
You know what the problem is, aside from having pictured life differently than feeling old and terribly underused at age 22? That once you’ve gotten used to playing at the level Bear and me did, there is just no way you’re ever going back. If he wants a normal family life with someone else, or a woman who will inspire him to be monogamous? Then I will not get in the way.
And I’ve already proven that because every time he fell out of communication or put me on the back burner like now when we see each other once every three months or so; I stay exactly where I am. I don’t approach him to see where we stand or, more precisely, to ask him where I stand.
I don’t make plans to end it and get someone else instead.
The only repeating pattern is that his absence makes me realize it would be better to have multiple lovers, because it’s just not ideal to have so little sex. But owning my Miss Arrogance Catherine Tramell Basic Instinct persona: Who says other people have sex this good? Or a relationship this exciting?
Whenever I think not hearing from Bear is my cue to take action and start dating, or at least actively entertain the thought of getting a second lover (one equally good) it doesn’t happen. And when I started writing this book on consent play, I originally thought it was limited to what Bear and me did between the sheets. Consent play would define as sex where I play I am the victim of some sort of abuse, to put it bluntly.
And I don’t think the word “play” does it justice, because it’s best known as a term in S&M, which is something entirely different from consent play. For multiple reasons none of which I will get into.
But “play” also makes us sound like really bad actors when our words, each and every one of them, are improvised and meant to arouse and increase pleasure, both of ourselves and the other. We are at different levels of reality, and we play/talk/act on these different levels, at the same time.
There is our real life selves, who are the main thing. Our normal conversation is still part of what we do, especially for quick check-ins. And then there is our play connection.
This can be singular, where we really deliberately play out one fantasy. But more often it’s an improvised scene, something one of us initiates, and two or more concepts of consent play could be covered in one session.
Finally there is the connection based on our past as well as our future selves. Memories of what we did in the past, or things we’d like to do in the future. Fantasies like “How would you like it if one day..”
These multi-leveled sexual encounters were absolutely mind blowing compared to anything I ever had ever done with any other man. But because I was still a virgin when we started out, I didn’t think much of it. I assumed that all people must be doing this.
It wasn’t until after a few years that I began to understand how lucky I had been. I had asked Bear to make love to me, just once, because I knew he could do it (he was a player) and I was a virgin and wanted it to be done right. When someone like that sticks around, it takes a while before you understand most men would not have been comfortable being asked so directly for sex, nor would they have stuck around to discover your sexuality, and find the magical match where you (the girl) likes to be taken against her will and he (Bear) likes to do that.
So because of my relative inexperience, it had taken me a while to realize that Bear was worth his weight in gold.
A few weeks ago, I decided it was a good time to write the consent play thing down, since I didn’t seem to have a sex life anymore. It could serve as a guide for others but also for myself if I ever wanted a new man. Having a manifesto on my first real relationship, would make sure I preserved what I had learned, make it my own. Even if Bear would no longer want to see me, I would live on as the woman I became because of him. Which was not the sexless, worker bee shadow of a woman, I had become.
Late at night, before I went to sleep, I started writing in a journal. It wasn’t the best time to write, but at least it was the last thing I did before I went to sleep. Something that nourished me on a soul level regardless of how bland my life was.
The last time I had spoken about our relationship style with friends, things had turned sour. Why I appreciated Bear so much, and found it difficult to picture myself meeting someone that was “up for it”.
I discovered a discrepancy between what I want from a man, and what seems to be accepted as normal. It was impossible to explain what Bear and me have, without challenging their beliefs.
Here are some of the beliefs I encountered in others when I tried to explain my current (or perhaps past?) relationship with Bear:
A belief that monogamy is a trade-off
There seems to be the misconception that because Bear has other women “I can do whatever I want.”, implying to have sex with other men. Yes, I can have sex with whomever I want. As can you and you and you and everybody in their right mind.
However, I don’t like men touching me with whom I don’t have a long-term understanding. The initial one-off with Bear was a necessary evil because I wanted to lose my virginity and didn’t want to claim him.
The reason Bear is my only lover is because so far he is the only man I am in love with and with whom I have matching sexual preferences. My fidelity is not because I feel I owe it to him, nor because I believe monogamy is the morally right thing to do. It just comes as a natural consequence of the current situation and my preferences.
As does the other side of the coin:
They believe someone who cheats/ has multiple partners is not serious and uncommitted
The reason I often let this pass, is because I don’t want to come off as if I’m trying to prove that Bear loves me. I don’t know what I mean to him and maybe he is uncommitted and not serious, who knows. And who even cares?
I think my biggest problem with this insatiable urge to know if someone is serious, as in aspiring a life-long monogamous pairing, is because I find it of no value.
What I value is: What does someone do to make our time together unforgettable? And I do not mean any planning going out for the day, which is not as good as deciding in the moment itself.
Bear and me both show up clean, interested, funny, laid-back, trusting, good-humored. To me to then start investigating if someone is serious, is as if you’re pissing in your own drink.
Don’t piss in your own drink.
They believe a good sexual match is; Irrelevant compared to the other parts of your relationship, or; That good sex is sheer luck, or last option; Good sex is a natural consequence of liking each other. All wrong.
This was really the point where I stopped working on my book about consent play, because I realized it all starts by making sex the main event in your relationship, in your life. Something you are going to facilitate and make a top priority.
Something to be taken into account with every move you make, and every decision as a couple:
“Is this beneficial, or detrimental to my/ our sex life?”
That it is absolutely impossible to aspire having a normal looking relationship on the outside, and enjoy meaningful, layered consent play in private.
So in the end consent play, wasn’t a sexual preference at all; It was a relationship style! It was the game we play when we’re not in bed.
The constant tension of not knowing if I will ever see him again, was what made me such a big fan of our play. Any man wanting to know where our relationship was going, or wanting me to take responsibility for his feelings, for his life, was not going to get anywhere with me. Our mysterious undefined relationship, had been a prerequisite in order to do the consent play I intended to write about.
If I wanted to write a book that would serve the world, it had to be on the relationship style itself, which I found a totally boring topic. I didn’t want to write an entirely boring book. But it was this relationship style, which me and Bear had accidentally invented, which was the basis for the great sex life.
The consent play had been the most remarkable aspect of what we did. And it was the aspect that got confused with S&M a lot, and partly because of that I had been so motivated to write an entire pleasure guide on consent play and how to do it. But I knew now that our consent play would never have existed without that Catherine Tramell, Nick Curran, Basic Instinct relationship style.
And with Bear gone, not a lover in sight, and my self-esteem reaching new lows after every workweek, there was nothing left to write about.
I need to get my act together and start doing what I had set out to do, the moment I started writing in that journal late at night. The real reason behind me claiming the level Bear and I had reached, was so that I would be able to keep it, long after he had left. I had hoped the writing would help me to become the strong woman I used to be. But I was wrong because it was never in my writing, it was in me. Or it had been, because “it” wasn’t anymore.
I need to start remembering. Start becoming. Start embodying that bold virgin that asked him for an encounter over coffee, at a cafe December 1989. The young woman with whom he went to the movies, seeing Basic Instinct, in 1992. Several times.
And how we somehow knew we’d be the only people in that audience who would understand that this wasn’t about if she had done it. That Basic Instinct was about Catherine Tramell’s and Nick Curran’s desire to live an exciting life. A life no one would understand.
Bear may have returned to his normal life, but that should never again be a reason for me to stop being Catherine Tramell.
~Lauren An unexamined life is not worth living
December 2023/ January 2024
This series is currently being updated, and will be published into
A letter from a stranger diary 1994 – 1996 including book 2, Dear Nikki
For those of you who would rather have this diary entry in pictures, let me create a visual of my sex life in pictures:
Picture 1. What I want my sex life to look like, and what it actually looked like four years ago, is a lush oasis, an inviting lake between a sea of trees. You knew that there was a desert, somewhere out there, but you would have to travel half a day to get to the edge.
Picture 2. Three months ago, it was no longer the fertile grounds of the oasis, but dried up to a desert with blossoming bushes. Surviving on what was available.
Picture 3. Two weeks ago, it was the helicopter shot of a desert with the little white chapel where the Guns N’ Roses video for November Rain was shot, with Slash in the desert playing his guitar. Because of the presence of Slash, it’s hard to fully realize that he is in fact the only reason for optimism in this entire situation.
Picture 4. Current day, the picture is of a desert with the wind blowing a dried out bush, a desert rose, over the sand. The rose will stay this way, drifting and in its dormant state, until it starts to rain and it can come to life again.
For those of you who prefer swearing: “How the flying fuck did I let this happen?!”
And for all those willing to endure reading how I managed to “lose” both my lover Bear (nothing is certain), as well as miss out on the most promising lead I had in years – a Slash-like house painter who was basically just tossed into my lap by God – I have to warn you: There are no easy answers, let alone satisfying ones. I haven’t got a clue, how I managed to make this happen. Or better yet, not make it happen, but I’ll try to explain it as good as I can.
First off, Bear.
My dearest, sweetest, lover for the past four years and nine months, and the man about whom I still don’t know what he wants out of life. What kind of future does he want for himself? What does he want from me?
I honestly could not be more clueless.
To me our sex life, his entire presence, and all the wonderful hours we’ve spent together have been more than I ever hoped I would get out of being with a man.
Initially though, I thought he was entirely normal. Maybe it was this beginners luck that saved me?
In 1989 I more or less “recruited” Bear as my lover, since acquiring a sex life as a single had proven to be impossible for me. At that moment I simply put one foot in front of the other, and was very pragmatic. The sex was good, even though Bear was the first man I had real sex with, and it was so good we continued having it even after the first time.
It wasn’t until the few females in my life shared what they had to, dare I say, “put up with” that I realized how lucky I was.
That any other man would probably have failed the test, and might even have failed to fuck me or make me come. Which is saying something, because my body is beginner-friendly.
But my faith in the average level of men’s love making skills was gone and I started cherishing Bear, even more than I already did. As long as he still wanted me, and wasn’t (yet?) in a relationship he wanted to remain faithful in, I would enjoy him.
However, I did notice that our dates were becoming less frequent. And this summer when we were both transferring from being college grads to working lives, I wondered if it was still enough. If being in such a dry office environment wouldn’t require a little, or a lot, more juiciness between the sheets. I wouldn’t say that I opted for a weekly gang bang, but having sex only once every 2, 3 months would no longer be cutting it.
So when I opened the front door two weeks ago, and discovered a Slash-like painter who wanted to paint my balcony, I thanked the Lord for his swift moves. It was before my first workday, just in time!
The painter and me didn’t kiss, nor did we openly flirt really, but there was definitely a lot of chemistry between us. When he mentioned he went to Warhol’s every Saturday, I understood the hint. But guess what? The first Saturday he wasn’t there, I felt like an absolute idiot. But this was nothing compared to what I felt the second Saturday! Because this time he was there, but he let the bar lady hijack our conversation deliberately. It was clear that some kind of loyalty issue was at stake here and I lost. I lost, plain and simple. Whatever she had to offer him, I didn’t. Maybe it were just quiet nights at Warhol’s that he didn’t want to sacrifice. Or perhaps they did sleep together occasionally, or planned on doing so.
It is hard to believe we had something, for those few hours.
When he came in for the last batch of his painting materials I noticed his tobacco pouch was still on my desk. I quickly picked it up, and because his hands were full I slipped it into his pocket. For a moment I felt the warmth of his thigh, through the boiler suit. We smiled, both slightly uncomfortable, as if we had both felt it. At that moment I just interpreted it as nerves, or healthy tension.
But seeing how miserable things turned out, maybe I did overstep his boundaries and missed something important.
On a different note:
The neighbor just had a tantrum. He lives alone, so I’m afraid it was directed at his cat. Heard something similar when he moved in, and then he literally yelled at the cat for being stupid. I hoped he was just a handyman, and not the new neighbor and owner of the cat.
But I must have suspected even back then, there was more to it because on my way to the city my heart started aching so badly, I cancelled my plans and dropped by at my mother’s because I was feeling totally miserable. The heart problems have intensified the last few weeks, now that I’m working.
With the neighbor having his second tantrum and work stress, I’ve decided to go see a doctor for this. My heart really does feel broken.
.
~Lauren An unexamined life is not worth living.
This series is currently being updated, and will be published into
A letter from a stranger diary 1994 – 1996 including book 2, Dear Nikki
I have a deal with myself:
Once I finally get to publish “A Letter From A Stranger”, an erotic diary set in the 90s?
Only then I am allowed to remove these blogposts from this website.
As I have done with my other highly personal book, Big, as well. (which you can find in the bookstore now)
So these updates, where I insert the final versions of these posts, corresponding for 99% at least, with the chapters of the book; And adding a customized Canva picture to go with it; Well, they’re not shared. They’re not posted to my social media. ‘Cause I don’t want them out there!
But now that you’re here, my dear reader, well now that you’ve found them on your own, I want you to read something good. And not to find the old posts, among which some of them were in shatters after a layout massacre caused by a WordPress update.
I hope you enjoyed this read. And you’re welcome.
~Lauren 2026 — Subscribe to this blog, and receive my current work. The subscription button is on this page, most likely on the top right.
Saturday evening April 25, 2020
LS Harteveld 