Affairs in a nutshell: no happy end in sight and a whole lotta anxiety

Published on by LS HarteveldLeave a comment

I had a rough night, haunted by the thought this affair could get me killed.
This affair. If it was personal.
Or I could be at risk for my ideas about secret relationships.

I live in the Netherlands and fifteen years ago we had two political assassinations which struck me as a message that you must always be willing to die for your beliefs.
Because you might.

Like many times before I considered breaking it off so I could stop fearing the future. And it was this night and morning of feeling so scared that made me look back at the beginning of our affair.
Could I have prevented this?

When my affair with Mr.Big was still in the early stages, I had simply assumed it was temporary. And that he would choose for me.
What we had was messy and it wasn’t ideal, but things would sort itself out. Even if he wouldn’t choose for me, I considered it absolutely impossible that something as brittle as an affair could survive without evolving into something else.
Either he would choose for me, or it would die of natural causes.
I never believed I ran the risk of becoming a secret, long term – maybe even lifelong – mistress.

In retrospect I think I fell victim to a modern day myth that “relationships are a verb.” Ever heard that one, or something like it? It means that you can’t expect a relationship to last, unless you work for it. Ideally work means that both parties are communicative and emotionally mature but we all know of hostile or dull relationships that last as well.
Without anyone making an effort to improve the quality of it.
But in those cases the couple finds something  in the relationship they wouldn’t have if they were by themselves.
The relationship is to their benefit.

And even hostility is an expression of fear of losing something that is really valuable. This could be fear of loss of the perks associated with the relationship. But it could also be fear of losing the relationship itself, which they value.
So whether positive or negative it’s usually not that difficult to see which kind of “work” or interest is holding a couple together.
And this can range from excellent communication or shared goals and dreams, to being at each others throats or feeling stuck.
Being stuck is extremely stable, by the way.

The habit of seeing a relationship as a verb, gave me the impression that in order for my affair to be something that would pass, all I had to do was nothing.
To not put in any work.
Because we had zero relationship glue in terms of perks, and there even was a severe price tag. We were both risking to be socially outlawed and he was also risking his marriage. There were no forces holding us together except that we liked each other, and we all know that is never enough!
We all know relationships are work, right?

So I was convinced an unstable system like our affair would disintegrate and become a stable one. Of course I hoped and assumed he would choose for me, but never in my wildest dreams or my worse nightmares did I assume the affair could last on its own.
It was a scenario I had never held possible.

That was the first reason I didn’t say “No” to my affair with Mr.Big, all those years ago: I had absolutely no idea what I was getting myself into.
But there was a second reason, and I think this is what “people” mean when they get all accusatory and can’t believe the atrocity that I am in a relationship where someone is being lied to.
That I should have said “No”, I don’t want to kiss you, because you’re married.
No, I don’t want to have sex with you, because you’re married.
I understand that line of reasoning. I admit it: by everyday moral I ve been wrong. Although technically following the ten commandments I’m not the one committing adultery, nor can I be considered coveting “your neighbor’s wife”.
It never said anything about the neighbor’s husband. It was probably fully legit to have a mistress or a second wife at the time.

But still, I understand my position is not going to win anyone’s sympathy vote.
And yet, who hasn’t heard of all those people who once on their deathbeds, regret not going for the love of their lives?
I d much rather be morally questioned, like I am now, than to die with regret. Falling in love is rare. And what is even rarer is for it to be mutual. So every time I am about to condemn myself for getting involved in the first place, I let it follow by:
“And at what cost? What were you ready to sacrifice here?”

And this is his story too. But I think the world is even less ready for the version of the story where a man can love two women, and he does the best he can.
He too, doesn’t want to end up being the man on his deathbed who regrets not going after someone he had deep feelings for and who could possibly have been one of the great loves of his life.
Maybe even THE.
And yet at the same time he didn’t want to discard what he had with his wife.

This must be so difficult for people to understand, but the longer we’re together, the more I m convinced he deeply loves his wife. If they had one of those relationships tied together by things like perks, external benefits, and what would their parents say? He would have left her.
But he stayed.
Because he loves her and he loves me too. It’s that simple.

And if right at the beginning, I had done what eeeeverybody said I should have done: not get involved because he is married.
This also implies that I would be making a promise it would happen if he would divorce. Which comes down to giving a married man an incentive, a reward, for leaving his wife.
I find that a lot more questionable.

So when I look back at the early stages I say: No.
This was the only possible thing I could do, based on love. Not fear.
And even these nights, where I believe I could get killed over it, I think: Never decide based on fear, always choose love. No matter how difficult it is.
I still don’t know of a better choice to make.

But there is one thing that neither my lover nor me, will ever do. An unspoken agreement. The moment our affair becomes one of those things that won’t matter on your deathbed;
We end it.
There are no hidden perks, no reasons to keep this going, except that we are simply two people who like each other very much.

But who will never work, to make it work.

<3LSH
An Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living

{ to keep these little gems aka blogposts from hijacking my day I set the intention to write them in sixty minutes. This one was written in three hours and fifteen minutes, including selecting a mistress Sex and the City video, see below  }

Books 

My diaries are available at LULU
New books will be added.

The best way to receive updates on when these books are ready,
is to subscribe to this blog.
Button on this page, probably on the top right.

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Nederlands blog:
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Oh my… this is even worse than I thought…

Published on by LS HarteveldLeave a comment

No blog post today.
It was supposed to be about fears surrounding my status as a mistress, but I feel like I m going to have a heart attack just writing it.
One hour in, and everything hurts.
I’m going back to bed, and wait for it to pass.

See you tomorrow

The subscribe or follow button for this blog is somewhere on this page.
Have you found it?

<3LSH
An Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living

Books 

My diaries are available at LULU
New books will be added.

The best way to receive updates on when these books are ready,
is to subscribe to this blog.
Button on this page, probably on the top right.

Or follow my Facebook page
/ Twitter: @LSHarteveld

Nederlands blog:
https://zegmaarlauren.com/

Meet my imaginary mother. You can have one too!

Published on by LS HarteveldLeave a comment
Portrait of Gretchen Rubin, NYC

I do a ton of “mindset work” which basically means reprogramming your brain by journaling, goalsetting and watching motivational videos.
They’re gold.
It’s as if every day ten variations to The Secret are posted online and because I’m way over forty, I actually remember the pre-YouTube era where you had to go to a new age store to get anything about the Universal woo-woo.

I was one of those people who got into that at a pretty early stage. This was a coincidence: I would never have considered entering a shop with crystals and angel cards in the Netherlands.
Anything alternative reminded me too much of the anthroposophical and macrobiotic community, which was something people my mothers age engaged in.
Not cool kids in their twenties.

But because I was abroad at the time, I was exposed to English Louise Hay books, which I didn’t associate with my own personal history. The design of English books was more appealing as well.
In the largest chain of secondhand bookstores in the Netherlands you could clearly see the difference between the rows of English books, and the other shelves with Dutch books.

English covers had brighter colors, and the layout inside had striking fonts.
The Dutch ones were plain and unexciting, both outside and in.

The language on the covers was different as well:
English books were more sales-y. With references to bestseller lists, prizes and quotes from celebrities giving praise for the book.
Things Dutch books would never do.
Well, maybe one.
In the sixties an author called Jan Cremer singlehandedly propelled his debut novel to bestseller status by printing on the cover:
“The inevitable bestseller”
Which then became a bestseller.
But other than that, all books were published downplaying their content and there was zero level of excitement to be found.

Had I stayed in the Netherlands, I might have missed New Age thinking entirely.

So because of my adventure abroad I was one of the early adapters of New Age in the Netherlands. At least from my generation. Yoga had been making a rise in young people (young was everything under forty), but positive thinking was absolutely not done.
We, yoga students, were supposed to study Patanjali’s yoga sutras instead.
I strongly advice against that by the way.
Unless maybe when you stumble onto a spiffy American version with a sticker “The inevitable ancient bestseller.”
Anyway!
What I was trying to say here was that I have a long history of mindset work, from Louise Hay’s positive thinking, to The Secret, to motivational YouTube  videos and journaling goals and dreams.

Not only do I believe that you can create an internal world, and that the outer world will start matching your imaginary bank account, body, lifestyle.
I also believe that you are fully allowed to create an internal world that cannot even exist in reality.
For example: maybe I will have new cats one day.
But because it is super unpractical to have them until way in 2019, for a number of reasons, I keep my old cats alive in my heart. My deceased furry friends are alive in my spiritual world. And because I will be doing this consistently, over a very long period of time, there is a chance I don’t choose to have new cats in 2019.
By keeping the cats alive in my internal, spiritual world, they already fulfill a need.

Something similar happened when I created a new mother out of thin air.
I was setting up a new life or fantasy, where I would be thin, young, healthy, and I would automatically do all my daily tasks. Comparable to when I was a teen when I was indeed thin, young, and healthy, and school provided an environment where studying was simply automatic.
My parents didn’t get that much involved in what I did. Which is probably a good thing because I don’t respond too well to people mingling into my affairs. But I do remember that it helped me that they just naturally assumed I was working hard to get good grades.
And I did.

I was never that ambitious, I have to say. But I was good enough and certainly didn’t skip class or anything.
And at home I knew I was taken care of.
They provided food and shelter, and belonging.
My mother (my real mother!) even got up and made our breakfast and lunch, all throughout high school. Until we moved out. I knew of very few mothers who were that dedicated to be there for their teens.

I think what she understood better than anyone, was that it was never about the lunchbox or the fresh orange juice.
She could have just sat there and do nothing, and talk to us while we were getting ready for the day. It was about presence. It was about love.

The reason I suddenly longed being fifteen, and imagined I was fifteen, was not just to get the youthful body back but also to get the presence of a mother back.
So I created a new mother.
Oh by the way, the reason I created a new mother is because my real mother is still alive, so I can’t possibly make her into a ghost! That would feel awful.
And besides, this offered me an opportunity to get an even “better” mom: one who would suit the occasion.
And I immediately thought of Gretchen Rubin.

Gretchen is an author, best known for her book The Happiness Project, and other books in the field of personal development. A month ago I studied her work, and one of the things I liked was that she had persuaded one of her daughters who was complaining that she didn’t want to do school work on the weekends, to work together at 7 AM every Sunday.
So that she would have the rest of the day off.

The daughter agreed, and Gretchen helped by making sure the room was warm and made her daughter breakfast. While Gretchen did her daily two hour email purge,  her daughter did her school work.

Gretchen is caring like my mother, but way more domineering and ambitious. Which would definitely be annoying if she’d been my real mother, but now that I was installing her to be my fantasy mother, I thought it was just right.
I liked the idea of her relentless work ethics kicking my life into a higher gear. Meanwhile relieving me of the obligation to worry about stuff.
I wouldn’t have to worry about life any more than I was fifteen.
From now on, I would be looked after and taken care of.

So now I live in my apartment with my mother Gretchen, who makes sure I go to bed on time, get up on time, and that I don’t stress myself out for example by checking my mailbox or social media at a time that is designated for something else.
That I don’t doubt myself too much, and just get back up if life gets tough.

I once heard that becoming an adult – and this definitely referred to personal development, not to just coming of age – meant that you learned how to become your own parent.
I see Gretchen just checked that off my list.


<3LSH
An Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living

{ to keep these little gems aka blogposts from hijacking my day I set the intention to write them in sixty minutes. This one was written in written in 2 hours }

Books 

My diaries are available at LULU
New books will be added.

The best way to receive updates on when these books are ready,
is to subscribe to this blog.
Button on this page, probably on the top right.

Or follow my Facebook page
/ Twitter: @LSHarteveld

Nederlands blog:
https://zegmaarlauren.com/

Just YouTube search “Gretchen Rubin” for so much more!

The Strange Habit of Mistresses and Their Lovers

Published on by LS HarteveldLeave a comment

At university, I almost exclusively had male friends. We were ten to one, male to female, so there was absolutely no reason for women to hang out together.
So we didn’t.
Which already gives you a clue who the mistresses will be when they grow up: they’re the ones who hang out with the boys.
And the wives are the ones who come out of nowhere to start hanging out with your boys.

By that time I had already selected my college sweetheart, and we would stay together until we were way over thirty. But every year at least one of my classmates would get into a relationship.
And we, I, would get to witness it.
Which was downright excruciating for me, because I couldn’t stand how those men gave away their power so fricking easily. They didn’t even TRY to stand their ground!
For Christ’s sake.

I know that whenever I tell women I am a mistress (don’t worry, I ve stopped doing that at least within the borders of the Kingdom of the Netherlands) I see women wonder, worry, go over in their minds:
“Oh my God, could my man be having an affair as well?!”
Short answer?
NO.

Not if you could barge into his messy bachelor cave, give his stove a proper scrub, clear out his closets, rearrange his furniture, and dump all his sports medals and souvenirs in the basement where he can go visit them on Sundays.

I did admire those women for their forwardness. My boyfriend was a little messy, but I didn’t foresee how bad it would get. Hoarding is a spectrum, and expresses itself by not having a system to manage your things, because you can still see the value of the object or how you might one day need it.

I met my boyfriend when we weren’t even twenty yet. He just came out of a relationship with his girlfriend from high school with whom he had practically been living together. At her place.
His room had not been used much until he became single and then became my boyfriend.

Initially he was very much into taking proper care of his things. He bought paint and new carpet. And even though he had to do everything by himself, and it was pretty hard to paint or put carpet in a small student room, when you have no place to leave your stuff:
He did it.
He really made himself a home.
He made it, not me.

So of course I was impressed and assumed that he could manage his life. And maybe his mental health did deteriorate later on, and that was the reason he started to create stacks of things and papers, unable to clear them out.
Or maybe it had always been his weak spot but didn’t become apparent until he was well into his twenties.
But no matter how bad it got, I never went through his things. And when we were living together I simply claimed my own room or my own desk, where he wasn’t allowed to put his stuff.

When our relationship stranded I confessed that it had worried me that our house or life would be taken over by his car parts, his tools, his old school books, his twenty ashtrays, and so on. That I had no idea if there was some kind of mechanism that would switch on if it got too bad.

Turned out that mechanism was called NEW GIRLFRIEND.

The woman who came after me was like a decluttering force of nature. I was impressed with how she handled it. This was a man in his thirties with a whole house to clear out:
It was completely next level compared to hooking up with my university friends when we were still in our early twenties and had few possessions.
This was impressive!

And right now I can so see that’s how it was meant to be.
“Those” women are such a blessing for men who drive themselves and others crazy by not being able to organize their lives.
And my boyfriend was very dutiful when it came to work, he had a stable income. He didn’t drink, he didn’t do drugs, he didn’t get into fights.
And he was a nice and fun person to be around with.
So it wasn’t like he wasn’t a wonderful partner: he was.
But he needed someone to take control over his life, and I had not done that in the fourteen years we had been together. Nor would I have ever done that if we had stayed together for fourteen more.
Because a mistress doesn’t do those things.

It’s so strange, because I didn’t know I was a mistress until I became one. But even this aspect, the way I behave versus the way normal girlfriends behave when handling a man’s stuff, speaks volumes on how we’re different.
Although I was emphatic, I never solved his problems for him.
The only thing I did was be clear on my boundaries.

Normal women see a problem they know how to solve, they take over that part of your life and do it for you.
And normal men let them and are probably very happy with it too. Giving up their sovereignty is a fair price to pay because together they can now achieve things they could not achieve on their own.
Manage a household.
Have children.

I was relieved my former boyfriend finally got someone who could help him cope with that part of his life. I saw she was asking a big price, for example he wasn’t allowed to see me anymore. But I didn’t take that personal.
If they ever breakup he knows he can contact me again. No hard feelings. Not at all.

She helped him out in an area where I had felt powerless. But the fact that she was jealous or suspicious of our friendship?
That was totally unnecessary.
Like I said: if you can barge into a man’s life and take over the wheel?
It’s not a cheater.

Now I do risk having to eat my words here, because “bad” men or “cheaters” are susceptible to women promising to save them from themselves…
And hand in their entire deviant life at the promise of being tamed.
But that is usually so short lived.

It is far more likely that a cheater is the one, who does stand his ground. Who didn’t get hitched in college but stayed single or swayed in and out of relationships until he was way over thirty.

The next time a woman wonders if her man is a cheater, I should probably ask:
“Would you dare clear out his closet without asking him?”
If the answer is “no” you should probably worry.

<3LSH
An Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living

{ to keep these little gems aka blogposts from hijacking my day I set the intention to write them in sixty minutes.
This one was written in written in 1 hour 45 minutes;
Plus half an hour of watching Sex and The City on Carry Bradshaw colonizing Big’s apartment by leaving her toothbrush and hairdryer. A story I ended up not using! 😀 }

Books 

My diaries are available at LULU
New books will be added.

The best way to receive updates on when these books are ready,
is to subscribe to this blog.
Button on this page, probably on the top right.

Or follow my Facebook page
/ Twitter: @LSHarteveld

Nederlands blog:
https://zegmaarlauren.com/

In episode 11 of Season 2 Carrie colonizes Big’s apartment by leaving a blow dryer and a toothbrush. Which Big then casually returns to her!
lol
Anyway, I couldn’t find that one on YouTube
But this one has toothbrushes in it as well.
Pro tip: if a man keeps new spare toothbrushes in the house, he’s a player.
You should probably keep him 😉

Four deliberate choices that accidentally led me to being a mistress

Published on by LS HarteveldLeave a comment

In retrospect it is all so logical.
Of course I was a secret mistress.
Of course this would be my preferred relationship form.
Of course seeing a man so little was going to keep me in love indefinitely.
Of course.

But the reality is that if you don’t have an example, a role model, it is practically impossible to know what you’re aiming for.
There is a saying in Ayurveda: your body can’t ask for flavors it doesn’t know.
It’s the same with relationships.

As long as you think a mistress is an unfortunate or evil woman who fell in love with a man who’s taken and the poor fellow can’t choose?
You’re not going to want to be that manipulative bitch or woman biting her nails in frustration.
But there is so much more to it.
Like most people I didn’t know that. I simply set one foot in front of the other, and nine years of unsatisfactory dating later, I was a mistress.
And a pretty damn good one.

Not so much technically.
I don’t think I possess anything that makes me a sex goddess, aside from relentless enthusiasm for role playing, if I get to play the submissive part.
That is literally the only thing I can possibly think of that could set me apart from other women. But there are so many men who don’t like that, or absolutely hate it. It barely counts as an asset to be that singular in your likes and dislikes.

So when I say I make a good mistress, I don’t mean I know any special tricks. Being a good mistress means (to me) that I m happy being the other woman. And although I can see it has serious drawbacks, they don’t outweigh the benefits for me.

So if I didn’t know this was the type of relationship that would ultimately suit me best, then how did I end up here?
I’m going to share which guidelines I used. They were my internal compass, from the moment I fell in love with a married man.

#1 choose love over fear

Fear has so many forms.
And they’ll probably all get triggered, the moment you fall in love with someone who’s taken.
Ego fears – that you’re not good enough unless he chooses you.
Fear of loneliness.
Fear of rejection by him and those around you.
“Fear” will have you settle for anyone readily available, who doesn’t bring that kind of baggage.
But only “love” will stay, regardless of the risks.
I never regretted it.

Like I said, I had been dating for nine years before I became a mistress.
I knew exactly how straining sex, dating, hanging out, being boyfriend and girlfriend, anything to putting your order in at the cafeteria, could be when you are with someone you don’t totally admire and are not absolutely fascinated with.
Nor he with you.

But this time I was with someone I actually liked, and he also liked me back!
After nine years of dating men who were often available, kind, and loving, yet with whom things ultimately always turned sour in some way because we didn’t love each other enough;
I now recognized Love immediately.
I wasn’t going to let Fear ruin my party.

#2 Don’t take love away from anyone. Not even yourself.

I’ll admit that when we started out I assumed it was a matter of weeks before he’d choose me. And although I stayed true to my own internal compass, and never pressed him to leave her, nor did I give him an ultimatum – in fact we didn’t even discuss the matter – I was disappointed.
It wasn’t easy to deal with not being The New Chosen One.
Until I realized how much damage it would do, if he actually did get a divorce. How he and his family would have to deal with that tragedy. It immediately became clear to me, that I never wanted that for anyone.
Not for him, and his family.
Not for me.

If his marriage wasn’t meant to be, then so be it. But I didn’t want to be a reason, much less The Reason, it stranded. I didn’t want to be the cause of unhappiness.
So I let their love be their love.
I kept giving him my love.
And receiving his.

This rule, to not take love away from anyone, has been the most important guideline.

#3 Play on his team

Anything that is important to him, is important to me.
Period.
Whether it’s work, or his family: I will not ask to be prioritized ever.
We had a children’s book with stories from Andersen, and it had a story:
What father does is always right.
About a man who made illogical decisions but ultimately made a lot of money because his wife stood beside him, and he took a bet that his wife would be delighted when he came home from a seemingly unfortunate deal he had made.
I am that “wife”:
I will never question my lover’s ability to make the right decisions.

#4 Don’t obsess over getting a giraffe

What I have is a loving relationship with the man I love, who loves me back, and after three and a half years I m still very much in love.
And yet.
So many people would trade that for having a loving relationship with someone they love, who loves them back and THAT DOESN’T EVEN EXIST.
They compare what they have, with something or someone that isn’t there.
I’m not saying you should settle. Never settle! Not when it comes to how much love there is between you, or how he makes you feel.
Don’t settle for someone whose order at the cafeteria you can’t stand.
But if you’ve found someone you like, and he likes you back, then why do you keep obsessing over getting one just like it, but single?
He’s not single!

I compare it to going on safari and you see hunting lions, and elephants with calf, the last white rhino and you get to play with the chimpanzees and yet you want your money back because you didn’t see giraffes.
You can only see a safari as successful if there were giraffes, and therefor didn’t enjoy any of the other animals.

Thinking your holiday was a failure because you didn’t see a giraffe,
or believing your love life is a failure because he’s not single?

They could both be considered a success, it just depends on how you look at it.

<3LSH
An Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living

{ to keep these little gems aka blogposts from hijacking my day I set the intention to write them in sixty minutes. This one was written in written in 2,75 hours. }

Books 

My diaries are available at LULU
New books will be added.

The best way to receive updates on when these books are ready,
is to subscribe to this blog.
Button on this page, probably on the top right.

Or follow my Facebook page
/ Twitter: @LSHarteveld

Nederlands blog:
https://zegmaarlauren.com/

The Business Bestie: pets, plush toys and Build.A.Fucking.Empire.

Published on by LS HarteveldLeave a comment

I don’t see her that often, and I have no idea if she minds being in my blogs. So I ll keep it as vague as possible.
But if you would ever meet her, my business bestie -let’s call her BB- the last thing you would think is “vague”.
Because she speaks her truth and her reasoning is razor sharp.
There is no person in the world with whom I feel more at ease as with her.

I am someone (aren’t we all?) who can pick up conflicting energies on what is being said.
Especially from people close to me, who hide those things because they wouldn’t see how it would contribute to our relationship. They don’t want to make their shit my problem.
But I can feel it’s there.

And then I go home and find myself going through everything I said, and what might have triggered their feelings of fear. A draining backlash.
I never have that with BB.

We do have other concerns; to not go too deep.
Because we understand each other so well, and neither one of us is covering things up. But also: neither one of us rests until we know why we are so sad or angry. Or why we are suddenly terrified by the success and responsibilities that lay before us. Our dinner dates have the intensity of a self-help shock therapy intensive:
You come out a different person.

You face paralyzing fears that you normally simply have to brush aside. That you can’t afford to pay too much attention to if you want to build your dream life. And not risk ending up in your rocking chair looking back thinking of all the things you didn’t do because you thought you would get hurt.
Except of course, every now and then you should face your biggest fear. And see it’s still as monstrous as the last time you checked. It may get you killed. Or worse. Yes, there is a worse, not going to share that one. But either way, you face all that shit and yet you do it anyway. 
Purpose is not negotiable.

And if you do make it to that rocking chair, you’ll have some great stories to tell.  Instead of a life that died inside of you.
Those are the things we speak about.
We purge our minds and reclaim our goals.
And then she excuses herself because she has to put her pet to bed.

Just like I had with my little cat Max, she has a pet who needs a lot of care right now. Which is why we met at her house: because she wants to be there for him as much as she can.
Cuddle, kiss, speak to him.
Feed him snacks and give him his medicine.
And at night she does an extra long session of all of those things, before she tucks him into his bench.

Kylo Ren in his travel pouch his grandma made him

When she’s back I tell her about my doll Kylo Ren.
I bought him after Max died, so that I had something to sleep with. And he could also keep me company on my travels. I have barely been out of the house the last years of Max’ life. When I became mobile again, I wanted something to support my new lifestyle.
Kylo Ren would sleep with me in hotel beds all over the world, go to book readings, and make us new friends by saying:
“Don’t be afraid. I feel it too.”
Because he speaks if you push his tummy.
“This is a him in his travel pouch,” I showed a photo of Kylo Ren to BB.
“My mother made that for him, because I asked. She did think it was a little weird, to make a doll pouch for her middle-aged daughter.”
“Oh no, Kylie has a plush.”
Kylie was one of her other business besties, and she had a plush bear about the size of Kylo Ren.
“But isn’t she some kind of executive?” I asked, slightly puzzled.
“Yes,” said BB.
As if it was completely normal for an executive to carry around a toy. BB explained that the bear had a sleeping bag.
“Just like yours.”
I still couldn’t fully grasp what she was saying.
“You mean she actually takes it to work?”
“Yes. It sits on her desk.”

Here we had it.
Three women who were willing to face opposition and their own deaths if needed, to go after their dreams, who were also fully dedicated to looking after their elderly pets or their dolls.
And I suddenly realized how I had shown BB a paper in my mobile phone. It contained my daily schedule. It said:
1. messaging: write a blogpost
2. self-care: do yoga
3. BUILD. A. FUCKING. EMPIRE.
“I suppose most people would be ashamed to have it so visible,” I had said to BB.
Putting it out there, claiming it boldly IN. CAPITALS. and not being discreet about my ambition, had been so liberating.
But when I saw the three totally badass business babes, taking care of pets and dolls in a way “normal” people would definitely shy away from, I realized what the connection was:
Not just that we were all facing much bigger battles than explaining why we had a doll sitting at our desk- but also:
If you’re facing your deepest fears in order to live your purpose, showing the outside world who you are is no longer something you can hide. 
Being authentic is no longer an option.

If you’re going after your dreams, being fully you in all areas of your life, simply
becomes a must.
Don’t be afraid. I feel it too.

<3LSH
An Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living

{ to keep these little gems aka blogposts from hijacking my day I set the intention to write them in sixty minutes. This one was written in written in 2,5 hours plus fifteen minutes on the Mandy Morris video at the bottom of this post. }

Books 

My diaries are available at LULU
New books will be added.

The best way to receive updates on when these books are ready,
is to subscribe to this blog.
Button on this page, probably on the top right.

Or follow my Facebook page
/ Twitter: @LSHarteveld

Nederlands blog:
https://zegmaarlauren.com/

Condoms are sexy

Published on by LS HarteveldLeave a comment

“Number 1: he’s very handsome.
Number 2: he’s not wearing a wedding ring.
And number 3: he knows I carry a personal supply of ultra textured Trojans with a reservoir tip.”
This is Carrie Bradshaw’s voice-over when she drops her handbag on the sidewalk and a man, who we later get to know as Mr.Big, helps her pick up her things.

She just had a deliberate no strings attached sexual encounter to write about in her column. Which explains the condoms.
But Big doesn’t know that and he probably assumes she is a hooker because later in that same episode, he gives her a lift and asks:
“What do you do for a living?”
And when she answers she’s sort of a sexual anthropologist, he answers:
“What? Like a hooker?”
“No, I write a column.”

I grew up in the eighties and for me carrying condoms had nothing to do with sex work. It was the aids crisis and I saw messages everywhere that anyone, boy or girl, gay or straight, virgin or going steady, simply anybody over the age of fourteen, unwed, and in the possession of a penis or a vagina was completely irresponsible unless you were carrying condoms just in case.

Our sexuality was presented to us as something that could overtake us in the blink of an eye, and turn us into dripping wet or rock hard sexual predators that would not rest until they had come deep inside of you.
Or until they had all their holes filled IMMEDIATELY.
You never know!
Could happen!

Yeah right, in porno that’s where that stuff can happen.
That type of sexual zest is definitely rarer than any of the diseases or teenage pregnancies the condoms were supposed to prevent.

So although we were never programmed to think that condoms had anything to do with being loose in a negative way, we did get an unrealistic image of what our clumsy, insecure sex lives were supposed to look like.

Feeling clumsy and insecure, both physically and emotionally, and then try using condoms.  I don’t blame my peers for coming up with excuses why they didn’t need them.
But I was really scared of aids.
Sex education and everything government organizations taught us had gotten a hold on me.
Making me the only consistent condom user of my generation.

It took me decades to even give head without a condom, without relapsing into a panic attack. And even in recent years, the only time I let a man come in my mouth was because it was an accident. Or because he was a jerk.
I also had one lover to whom I agreed he could come in my mouth. But in retrospect he was a jerk too, so the story still stands.

I use condoms when I fuck.
I give condomized blowjobs.
And if I trust you and your medical status, I will give the blowjobs without a condom but you can’t come in my mouth unless you’re a virgin or a jerk.

This is how I ve been doing it for the last five years, and that’s me at my “loosest”. My most irresponsible behavior, ever.

But there’s also good news aside from me not getting myself infected or pregnant.
This strict, fearful attitude towards the dangers of sex turned out to be a one hundred percent match to my sexuality.

I never saw this powerful dark side of myself until recently, so I never realized that having so much fear attached to sex was serving me well.
Very well.
Because my sexuality in terms of needing power-play, needing really intense mental stimuli in order to get aroused, has been with me all my life. Even as a child. I have masturbated from when I was five years old or even younger, and those fantasies have always been a part of it.

The reason the fearful sex education of the eighties shoot root with me, and not with my peers, is that I had the foundation already in place. I had been building my dark, delicious dungeon of sex for ten years, by the time I got the official version of it which belched at me:
“YOU COULD DIE HAVING SEX!”
My subconscious yelped: “Wicked!”

I didn’t know that of course.
I was suffering from anxiety attacks, and tried to keep sex as safe as I could. But the older I get, the easier it is for me to fully own my sexuality.
And one of the aspects of it is that I need safe sex, protected with a condom. I am no longer ashamed of the fact that I ve always used condoms. In my long term relationships as well. It wasn’t until a condom broke with my current lover, that I had a man come inside of me.
And after that we just kept on using them, nothing changed. I got a morning-after pill and we both got tested to ease my anxiety, but otherwise things stayed as they were. For multiple reasons but one of them is:
I need condoms.

The thought of sex with a partner who you trust completely, a partner who’s clean and checked, and you could completely melt together as one, and have that natural feeling, of penis in vagina with nothing in between?
I cannot tell you how unappealing that is to me.

I need the tension, the possibility, that he might have been screwing around and that I don’t know what he’s been up to. That he could infect me with something. I’m still fertile, so for me it’s super practical to use condoms from that perspective as well. But it’s way more the safe sex aspect of it that turns me on.
I am with someone I don’t trust.
That thought is the corner stone of my entire sexuality. And that thought is wiped out the moment we’re not using condoms.

I told a friend I was no longer writing in Dutch. I have chosen English, and I’ve selected the topic too: The return of the mistress.
I will be concentrating on the British market.
“I m going to do for mistresses, what JK Rowling did for wizards,” I explained.
He replied:
“Oh, that could work. I once read something about British men not wanting to have sex with their own wife.”
Trust me.
I know exactly how they feel.

<3LSH
An Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living

{ to keep these little gems aka blogposts from hijacking my day I set the intention to write them in sixty minutes, but this one was written in 2 hours, plus half an hour of Sex and the City research. }

Books 

My diaries are available at LULU
New books will be added.

The best way to receive updates on when these books are ready,
is to subscribe to this blog.
Button on this page, probably on the top right.

Or follow my Facebook page
/ Twitter: @LSHarteveld

Nederlands blog:
https://zegmaarlauren.com/

 

A mistress’ advice on avoiding dramatic breakups that derail your life

Published on by LS HarteveldLeave a comment

Ten years ago my first relationship as a mistress stranded.
Badly, I have to add.
And in hindsight so much of it was unnecessary.
If I had handled things differently he would have been back, sooner or later.

Fortunately for me, in ending this particular relationship, it didn’t matter that I fucked it up, pushed him away and ruined my chances of every seeing him back. Because five months after the breakup I found out that the reason he had broken up with me right at the moment when we could finally be together and screw our brains out for a couple of months before we’d decide what to do next:

He wanted to be with my best friend.

She had set eyes on him the moment his girlfriend had kicked him out of the house because she had found out about our affair.
Suddenly he had become eligible.
According to her she put him in quarantine where he was supposed to prove he would make a worthy spouse, and neither one of them bothered to inform me on what was going on.

After a three week silence he called to breakup with me. From abroad. He was there for work reasons, but I had never seen him gone for so long. He was simply choosing exile over facing me.
And she pretended to be my friend up until five months after, when she informed me what had been going on and I got three different versions of the story in three days.
None of them that would make me forgive her any sooner than the next.

The benefit of having them screwing each other was that he became damaged goods to me.
It had already been five months since he had broken up with me, but I was still in love, and hoping he would miraculously want me back.
But the moment I heard he was doing her?
Even though she was the most beautiful, gorgeous, sexual woman I knew?
I didn’t want him anymore.
She was like family.
It would be like sleeping with your brother-in-law.

Them being together emptied out my heart of feelings of sadness and longing. And replaced it with hatred and contempt for both of them.
Which felt amazing after feeling powerless for so long.
I realized they had nothing I wanted, but that I had what they thought they would find in each other.

He had expected that one blonde sexual mistress could be upgraded to the next. One who did want children.
One who did believe in marriage.
And he found himself manipulated and was never appreciated for who he was the way he was with me.

And she thought that it had been something about him, that had made him so special to me.
Our affair had contained something she wanted for herself.
When in reality, beauty and everything else are always in the eye of the beholder.
She could never see what I had seen in him.

Naturally, some of this is based on assumption, on stories from acquaintances, on what happened after I erased them from my life.
Some of it is ego.
My ego.

So I won’t pretend that I’m giving you a fact sheet of what happened back then, but the broad strokes are clear. I responded badly to him breaking up with me, and even worse to having them do each other behind my back.
I don’t have much advice on what to do when friends betray you. Although I have grown a bit in that area as well.
I could shed some light on it.

We, as women, overemphasize in all relationships but especially those with female friends, that we have to be nice and warm to each other.
And quickly jump to conclusions that friendships which are not loving are bad for you, because they’re toxic.
When that is really only one way to look at it.

Another is that toxic friends or bad friends, can be very exciting. They push your boundaries, they make you stronger. They make you grow.
Just like bad and evil men make you grow, challenge you, and can be exciting in a way no good boy will ever be.
So hail to toxic friends and lovers.

But at the same time you should never hesitate to take anyone out of your life when they cross your boundaries. Unless you see yourself as some sort of refuge for difficult people, like a sanctuary for mean dogs. And you are willing to let them cross your boundaries in order to take care of them.
Or if you like being challenged.

I could have chosen to keep my friend in my life, just like I could have chosen to stay open to having this lover back. Key word being choose. You don’t have to breakup with someone because they “did something”.
You should only breakup if that something has affected the feelings you have for your friend or lover.
Not as a punishment.

In this case five months of lying to me, was a deal breaker for how I felt about our friendship. Sleeping with my friend a deal breaker for my feelings for him.
I wasn’t punishing them.

This is relevant, because a punishment, or having a fight over something, is something you do to someone you want to continue seeing. Which is why people often think marriages with a lot of fighting are bad. They’re not. They’re a sign of two people desperate to make it work.
I never fight.
I never punish.
I simply leave and I never change my mind or go back.

So the room for improvement I see in my way of how I could have handled both the friendship and the lover are hypothetical. I wouldn’t have wanted any one of them back.
But I didn’t know that and had he broken up with me for other reasons, I would have responded equally bad and then I would have wanted him back.
So here’s my tip.
On how to keep your cool when he breaks up with you. And not just on the surface but internally as well.

This tip will absolutely maximize chances of not having your life shook to its core, as well as chances of him wanting you back.
And not in a crawling back manner either.

Here’s the tip to keep someone who’s breaking up with you or betraying you:
Behave in a way that will make both him/her and you, feel good about what you had.

In my case it was a man so “he”. Nathan.
He would have felt appreciated and capable of handling difficult situations. And the moment he would have started feeling bad or in doubt, he’d remember the last time he felt really good: it was with you.

It was the moment he got it into his head that he wanted to breakup with you – that’s when you made him feel good about himself.
Trust me.
He could be back within a week.
Which is why you must only do this with someone who you consider the love of your life.

So, what’s the trick right?
It’s two steps:
One is for when he breaks up.
One is for the hours, or days, or years if necessary, after.

Step one. The breakup.
Put yourself in his shoes and be genuinely concerned for his well being.
Whether you receive a phone call from abroad, a two hour conversation in a public place where you won’t make a scene, or a post-it note like Carrie Bradshaw did in Sex and the City, your response should always be somewhere along the lines of:
“Oh God, I’m so sorry. It must have been so difficult for you. I fully understand and I wish you all the best. If there’s anything I can do for you, let me know.”
And then you go home an cry your lungs out 😀
If you have to.
Unless you apply step two.

Now the first thing you can do at home, before step two, is to actually be concerned for his well being. To feel, or re-feel the significance of what you just said, and the empathy you felt for him. The moment you focus on him?
Of course, you want the best for him.
Of course, you don’t want to stand between him and the life of his dreams.

But then there is a way to move even deeper into your acceptance of the situation by acknowledging that this was not your choice and that you do still love him. And that his rejection doesn’t mean that you were loving the wrong man. Feeling love will go on for as long as it has to.
Which could be a lifetime.
And that’s okay.

It means that you really chose that person as your muse, your idol, as a symbol of everything that was and is good in life. But then when that person leaves you, rejects you, that is in itself no reason to start doubting your heart.
Your heart led you to the place where it could give the most love.

Yesterday, when the topic of this blog post and the powerful meaning of loving someone who is no longer there was sinking in, I changed the background pictures on my phone. Last year my best friend Whatsapped me a series of photos from 2009 of me and my two cats. I chose one that pictured both Max and Willem, as my screen lock. And one that had the 2009 version of me and Max, as my startup screen.
It only dawned on me today that unconsciously, I had been using the insights I’m sharing today. I was trying to heal from the biggest blow my heart has gotten in the last few years. In 2015 I lost Willem. And five months ago I lost Max.
I have never felt so alone in my entire life.

I have literally said to people, that the moment Max died in my arms I felt like I was going insane with grief and added:
“I haven’t felt this bad since 2008 when Nathan broke up with me.”
It was pure despair.
And today, less than 24 hours after changing the pictures, I can already feel it healing. And I can feel that they are still with me. Both of them. I got out of touch with Willem, after he died and Max was still alive.
My relationship with Max grew so strong, almost symbiotic.
But now that they are both on the other side, and their pictures on my phone remind me of my love for them, and the time we spent together, I can feel the pain transcending into something else. Something independent of their existence on the physical plane.

I remember when Nathan broke my heart, and I felt so bad, that everybody was really nice to me. But the only one who grasped the full magnitude of what was going on, and also hinted at the direction where I could find a solution to my pain, was my mother.
My mother is really loving, patient, without judgement and she will never push anything onto you.  In my days or weeks of despair after the breakup, my mother acknowledged that I was feeling really bad, and listened to me telling how great he had made me feel.
She said: “You know, that was really never him. Those feelings are inside of you.”

People can leave you, you can get separated, or someone can die. They can exchange you for the next best thing. But never let any of that trick you into thinking you have to change anything about your feelings for them.

The love is always yours to keep.

<3LSH
An Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living

{ to keep these little gems aka blogposts from hijacking my day I set the intention to write them in sixty minutes, but this one took me 3 hours  }

Books 

My diaries are available at LULU
New books will be added.

The best way to receive updates on when these books are ready,
is to subscribe to this blog.
Button on this page, probably on the top right.

Or follow my Facebook page
/ Twitter: @LSHarteveld

Nederlands blog:
https://zegmaarlauren.com/

Six-steps-to-motivation pants and an infinite bra collection

Published on by LS HarteveldLeave a comment

This post is going to be confrontational for anyone who used the Konmari Method. And I don’t mean in the half-assed way I did. I didn’t even bother to put all my clothes on one pile before I started, and just did it drawer by drawer.
And I didn’t go looking for clothes which she warned were “everywhere around the house, you’d be surprised!”
Which might explain why my collection of tiny pants, which up until 2015 had been hiding in the basement, was never fully purged.

First of all I don’t purge my basement very often.
I estimate once every two years. And those were years where I basically moved every one or two years, so now that I have a permanent address it might be less.
I know I purged the basement a year ago, when my best friend migrated to the USA and I offered her storage space. But even then my tiny pants were no longer there. They were already in a box in my wardrobe. The box does get opened and I inspect them regularly. And never with the intention to throw them out!
The reason I keep coming back to my box of tiny pants is that they’re absolutely fascinating.

I m so glad that Konmari’s decluttering method never worked to the level that I originally thought would have been ideal. That I never got myself to throw out this ever expanding box of pants I didn’t fit. They were both a reminder of my past, as well as hope for the future: I was convinced they would one day fit.

So yesterday, after writing my New Body Manifesto (aka The Sex Worker Manifesto I suppose, because it was pretty obvious which women I found most inspirational when it came to matters of self-care) I got my tiny pants out.

Now the box doesn’t just contain pants: it also has a wide variety of tiny bras!
I remember having my chest measured after losing ten kilos in 2005, and she said I had 75 centimeters, maybe even 70 centimeters, with a D cup.
Not C!
Smaller chest sizes have a different cup size. So when I lost ten kilos I had accidentally went from a C to D cup. I really needed time to come to terms with my new status as sex bomb and remember not buying a bra that day.
First I had to process this.
So from that time on, I started buying 75D. But as I gained weight, and my chest was strangled by the tight strap, I started increasing the size.
But I kept forgetting my size and bought too small.
I have a large collection 80 C bras, when I never actually had that size. I didn’t start buying new bras until I was a 85C.
So my relationship with bras is definitely more complicated than with my pants.
My pants are really motivational.

My mother was the first to use this trick on me, and maybe she created the root cause. Because when I got potty training she bought me three panties:
One dark blue, one red, one yellow.
They had contrasting prints on them (the blue one had yellow duckies and the yellow one green clovers) and a matching contrasting color on the borders as well.
She hung the panties on a line outside, it was summer. And my potty was also outside. We had a very secluded garden so it wasn’t like she was trying to make me pee in front of the whole neighborhood. But I vividly remember being motivated by the three panties that would be mine the moment I did whatever I was supposed to do on the potty.

Back to the pants.

In 2005 I dropped ten kilos and I remember just fitting the pair of Marlene Dietrich pants (do they call it like that internationally as well?) at the bottom of this pile.
See photo.
But it wasn’t very comfortable, and I never wore them aside from trying to fit into them.
Which is why I’m dating it “1998” because that is the year I was in Australia, and I wore them to work.
So I m positive they fit me then.

That’s how I will go through the whole pile:
I will date it the last year I recall they still fit me.

Marlene Dietrich pants, from Zij
color: dark blue
size: 38
last worn: 1998
how far I can get it on: 1/3 of my thighs
These were my first pants that had some sort of professional look. In the eighties I had a classmate who always bought her clothes at Zij. And she (unwittingly) inspired me to shop there as well.
I think these pants were bought in the early nineties.
In order to fit them I would have to weigh way under 60 kilos, and/or have a super toned waistline.
The last time I was this thin was one week in 2008 when I was totally stressed out because of medical shit that was going on.
So far, that has been the only thing that made me drop under 60.

Freesoul jeans
color: dark blue
size: 29 32
last worn probably in 2008
how far I can get it on: 1/3 of my thighs
Reconstructing my body weight and history, 2008 must have been the year I was at my smallest, and these pants are definitely extremely tiny.
I remember fitting them only for a very brief period.
Maybe as little as a few months.
Just like the next pair.

white Mango jeans
size: 38
last worn: 2009
how far I can get it on: 1/3 of my thighs
The post-it says 2008, but that’s the year I bought it, in the city where I was dating an Israeli spy. Or someone equally sketchy :p
Who knows.
But the added bonus of having that much anxiety attached to your dating, is that I do remember what I did the few days I was there. And one was buying these pants. They fit me more than one summer, and I have a picture of 2009 when I m still wearing them, so the post-it should have said:
2009

capri jeans Esprit
size: 38
last worn: 2012, fortieth birthday
how far I can get it on: halfway my thighs
On my fortieth birthday I posed for a photo in bikini top and these pants. Although I was happy with my body, I remember being surprised that I could still fit into these pants because I was at least a couple of kilos heavier than I wanted. I liked my body but I did hope the photo was me at my biggest, and that it would inspire me to shed the pounds once again.
Just like I had in 2005..
In retrospect that was me at my thinnest in many years to come.

pink capri Mexx
size: 38
last worn: 2016
how far I can get it on: 14 centimeters to close
This has been my absolute favorite set of pants for over a decade. I remember buying it April 2005, at a flea market. It didn’t fit. But then something happened.
I started losing weight.
It’s even safe to say these pants motivated me to lose the weight..
The pink capri, which I bought on Queensday so that’s why I know it was in April, were my first pair of motivational pants since my mother put the panties up to get me home trained 🙂
Last year I still fit them early spring. Then I got too big.
I dated the pants “2016” and not “2017” because they were not comfortable anymore.. I can’t wait to fit into them again.

Pall Mall Export jeans 
size: 32-32
last worn: never
how far I can get it on: 8 centimeters to close
These were pants that were supposed to fit. They are the same size as my current jeans, so when I saw these, last Kingsday on the flee market, I thought they would fit me.
God knows I don’t need more pants that are too small! lol
But they didn’t. They will be the first that I can wear once the pounds come off. So they’re the first milestone.

My pants are my measuring system for this challenge. I’m not going to weigh myself, but I’m about 74 kilos. So that makes it 15 kilos to drop.
There have been two changes in my diet, which people say attribute to weight loss.

One is that I stopped drinking alcohol a few weeks back.
Which I did because I wanted full awareness for my work and life, and I know I m prone to balancing out work with drinking. Not more than six glasses a week. After having an accident at home and hurting myself, after a long workday, and writing an extra blog post with two glasses of wine, I was done with taking risks with my health this way.
No more accidents.
No more wine.
I have had periods where I didn’t drink in the past, and I ve never lost weight over them. I m just mentioning this because that’s what people will say attributed.

Same goes for my diet: I eat three times a day, no snacks. Not even coffee with milk if I can help it. I m not super strict with it. I believe in particular that a social life is also important and you can’t always choose what, or the moments at which, you eat.
Also: Way back in time, for about six months, I didn’t eat till noon. And that too didn’t make me lose any weight.
I ve been on this habit of eating three times all you can eat, and there are days where this probably cuts my calorie intake in half, and yet I ve lost zero weight.
So this (intermittent fasting) too is something that people will say attributes to (my) weight loss, when in fact it never did in the past.
Nor has it done any such thing the past six weeks or so.
It doesn’t have to either because I m fine knowing my organs have half the work to do. And I chose this diet because it protects my teeth from getting sugar all the time.

The most important inspiration, motivation and “plan” I’ve got, is that I ve come to realize that if I see my body as a commodity, something I need to keep fit and healthy for my work. I now see it and treat it entirely differently.
I coyly referred to it as the Sex Worker diet, but for me it really was a breakthrough to start taking care of my body in a non-emotional or attached way. But simply because that’s what you do, if you make money from it.
A writer writes.
A photo model or sex worker trains their body.
End of story.
That and six gorgeous set of pants that are waiting for me, down the road.
And an infinite collection of bras to choose from.

<3LSH
An Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living

{ to keep these little gems aka blogposts from hijacking my day I set the intention to write them in sixty minutes, but this one took me 2 hours and 15 minutes }

Books 

My diaries are available at LULU
New books will be added.

The best way to receive updates on when these books are ready,
is to subscribe to this blog.
Button on this page, probably on the top right.

Or follow my Facebook page
/ Twitter: @LSHarteveld

Nederlands blog:
https://zegmaarlauren.com/

example video of a Konmari cleanse:

Treating myself to a new body for my birthday

Published on by LS HarteveldLeave a comment

For a while now, I’ve been moderately obsessed with getting my old body back. And I’ve restarted this challenge at least once a week and often even had the audacity to publicly announce my physical transformation.
Only to then never speak of it again when I dropped off the wagon of doing more yoga and working less.
And instead didn’t do any yoga and worked even harder than ever before.
So I never got “there”.

Just yesterday, within days after cutting a deal with myself that these blog posts were going to be written in an hour, so that I had a chance of taking care of my basic physical needs with yoga, home cooked meals, daylight and a bike ride, I turned myself inside out at my writing desk and came up with a piece that stretched three hours and three decades.
Bye bye basic needs.
I did have a bike ride though, because I always clean the yoga studio on Tuesdays. So then the bike ride is work, which means there is a hundred percent higher chance that I’ll actually prioritize it.

So I was in the city, and my day had went awol first because of the way too long blogpost and then by a draining but effective series of phone calls and paperwork for last week’s creditcard fraude.
I was now walking the streets with an envelop, which I could not post anywhere because postal services have removed half of their mailboxes. To keep my spirits up, I was eating a double scoop of Belgian cream.
That’s when I “ran” (I could not have been strolling slower, honestly. Looking around halfheartedly for mailboxes) into Disciplined Friend.

Like all Disciplined Friends I have, he has an irrepressible urge to downplay his own achievements and to remind you of how many times he slacked and didn’t run, lift weights, or do yoga. Depending on which disciplined friend it is.
Disciplined Friend was in his running gear, and he was cooling down.
So we had a little chat.

I confessed to him that whenever he posted his run on Facebook, it inspired me.
From what I hear that is an atypical response to workout updates.
There’s even a meme:
“Unless you find a dead body on your morning run, I don’t want to know about it.”
I have that with family updates.
So unless we’re talking life or death situations, or photos of your cat, I would much rather know if you worked out.

I told him that I sometimes wished he would text me, to announce that he would go running. It would be crucial that he did this before he went, not after.
And then I would pause writing my lengthy blog posts, postpone calling creditcard companies, and do an amazing one hour super-intensive yoga session, that totally transformed my body and my life.
And I would do that three to four times a week.
And it would be amaaaayzing.
“And then of course I think: There’s an app for that,” I concluded my story.

I quickly started licking my ice cream all the way around because it was really hot and I couldn’t afford having a conversation.
I saw the letter in my hand already contained ice cream stains as well.

We said our goodbyes, I found a mailbox, cleaned my studio, taught my classes, and sat myself down for my last hour of the day, which is sacred time. I clear out my running diary, go through all the notes of that day, transfer them to my diary or notebooks and cross off all the pages that don’t contain relevant information anymore.

I could see where I had “lost” my resolution to do yoga: on days when I already have six hours of designated work, I can’t afford writing a three hour blog post and then expect to do an hour of yoga as well.
But also; the eating.
It’s not that I can’t have an ice cream, but I knew I was slipping back into my habit of needing food in order to make myself keep up with everything I have to do. I use food as fuel. Whereas when I’m writing? Journaling? Taking a personal development training?
I can go up to seven hours without needing food, water or Wifi.

So Monday and Tuesday are my most challenging days in terms of self-care but they also set me up for the rest of the week. If I don’t do yoga then, I don’t do it the rest of the week either.
Same goes for snacking.
If I drop my “diet” of three times a day all you can eat, in favor of Belgian ice cream on Tuesday afternoons, I will easily slip into eating  whatever crosses my path, twenty-four seven.

And I thought of my ideal body, my ideal lifestyle, and that every year for the last decade I had slipped away further. I have a photo in bikini top and jeans, from my 40th birthday. I vividly remember having it taken and thinking:
“Hmmm… I can’t believe I still fit into these pants. I’m way heavier than I want to be. But my belly looks nice. I hope this photo inspires me to take the extra pounds off.”
That was five years and eight kilos ago.

And then, like a lightning rod, it struck me. A powerful vision of exactly the way I want my body to be.
Lean.
Bendy.
Professional.
It was as if my two ideal bodies, those of porn star Stoya and of escort Avery Moore  mixed together with a new vision of Who I Wanted To Be, the second half of my life.
I wanted their photo model, bendy, beautiful pale bodies.

What was different from all the resolutions I had before, was that I no longer felt resistant to work for it. For the first time in my life I saw my body as a commodity, something that could pay the bills.
Which isn’t even that far off considering I am a yoga teacher, and the only offers I have gotten as a writer is to pose half nude or fully nude.
In “exchange for free publicity”.
I don’t know why I put quotation marks there, since it means exactly what it says.  I said no, or hell no, or fuck no, but I do acknowledge that a writer with a killer body is definitely more newsworthy than a middle aged woman struggling to keep the pounds off.

It was clear to me that my decision to commit to this daily blog, and thereby a decision to get serious with my writing, could only be followed by a decision to be just that driven in getting the sex worker body to match it.

I wonder if there’s an app for that.

<3LSH
An Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living

{ to keep these little gems aka blogposts from hijacking my day I set the intention to write them in sixty minutes, but this one took me 2 hours and 15 minutes }

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