Secret Park Stranger

What do you do when you see an old friend and there’s so much news to share that it’s nearly impossible to find a starting point?

First, got a new job at a small semi-startup and I work from home and so far, it doesn’t suck that badly and I don’t hate it. Per usual, the other shoe feels like an imminent matter of time. I hate being this person, why can’t I just enjoy the win?

I adopted an old mean cat and named her Unni. She can be sweet sometimes but I appreciate her duality. The name affectionately means “older sister” (if you’re a female addressing a female) in Korean. However, it can also mean “sea urchin gonads” in Japanese. Duality, perfect. She sneezes directly in my face and scratches me without warning.

I was finally diagnosed with ADHD, a few decades shy of holy shit, way too late. But, now I have drugs and I’m pissed off I’ve been white-knuckling life when I didn’t have to. I guess, if anything, it’s been fucking interesting, to say the least.

For example, I was once having brunch with friends on a Saturday and then my phone alerted me (4 mimosas deep) that I had THERAPY in a couple of hours. First lesson learned - never schedule therapy on a god damn weekend.

Fifty bucks would be charged if I canceled within 24 hours and I’d be damned if the money I just dropped on brunch would be wasted on a cancelation fee. I said my goodbyes to the drunkest people in Chicago and hopped on the 36 bus headed towards Armitage Ave.

I didn’t make it past North Ave. when I started feeling sick. I clumsily pulled the lever to stop the bus and hobbled onto the street in front of my ex’s office. Lincoln Park was across the street and I still had almost two full hours until therapy. I decided maybe I’d sleep it off in the park and set an alarm. Great idea.

I woke up, parched, to the sound of someone yelling in some distant park game. I leaned over to grab my bag where my water bottle lived and noticed what can only be described as a man/boy staring at me. I was still very drunk but I would estimate his age to hopefully be between 18-21? I think we talked a little and then he asked if he could make out with me and I agreed. When I realized the day’s goal, I stopped and checked my phone. The alarm had not gone off as I had set it for the AM and not the PM.

I said my goodbye to the park stranger and hopped onto the North Ave bus, this time in a sobering panic. I couldn’t arrive to therapy intoxicated, could I? Was it against the law or just bad form?

I didn’t want to find out.I got all the way to the lobby and decided to call the therapist with a very pathetic excuse that I was having a panic attack. She was kind, too kind. She didn’t charge me fifty dollars but I wouldn’t have blamed her.

ADHD is a waking nightmare. It’s not only difficult to live this way, it costs money and time and friendships and jobs.

I haven’t allowed myself much of a life since I’ve started this new job, which is probably why I haven’t written about it.

I’ve allowed myself to go numb and it’s a welcome change for now. Feeling everything all the time takes it’s toll. Being medicated helps me to organize my feelings as well as my thoughts and tasks.

I’ll say this, I am really proud of myself for getting this job and doing well. I feel immense pride going to work every day and I like my coworkers a lot.

Maybe, sometimes there isn’t another shoe.

Secret Stomach Lumps

On our way to our new private school, I had to repeatedly say “mom!” until she stopped singing. No doubt, she replied with something like “yes Shelly” or “what Shell”. “I have lumps in my stomach”. She figured out I was referring to butterflies in my stomach and I’m sure she and my brother shared a smirk. 7th grade, the start of junior high and I had to be shackled to my brother into a conservative Christian school because he’d been expelled from our public school for throwing a chair through a window. A year later, he would be expelled from that school for drinking with a couple of girls in the chapel.

Every time I get nervous, I remember those lumps in my stomach and I smirk. Maybe it helps a little to laugh at it.

I just had an interview in Chicago and I just returned from that trip. Eagerly as I wait for the result of what I perceive a complete disaster, I reflect on the humility of life and the lessons I take from it. All the expectations we have are just a mirage and never once have I felt I’ve “made it”, even when things were going seemingly well. I’m always full of lumps, as it were.

Part of me needs to feel like I have to produce a certain result for my parents. Apparently, that’s what I’ve been up against, my dad’s ego to be better than his childhood best friend from down the street. I figured this out years ago but it still kinda stings, even though I don’t blame my dad now. I know that both my parents tried their best and on my good days, I can let it go and forgive them.

My brother told me something the other day that might stay with me forever - he said “you tend to blame others for your problems”. Perhaps an oversimplification but maybe he’s right. I think I try to get to why things are the way they are. Sometimes when I reach those conclusions, I get mad. Maybe I’m too curious and I just need to move on and attempt to improve my life. When I look at the endless possibilities in life and what I feel I’m capable of, the world seems small. That is perhaps my liar brain talking.

Secret Stories from a Sad Heart

He was eventually going to read this blog, when I had the courage to share it. An English Literature major in college and avid reader, he caught a spelling error in my resume a few weeks back and it spooked me, I didn’t want him to catch all the grammar horror woven into my private thoughts.

He took himself out of the entire world this weekend. I can’t share movies or music or funny thoughts or good news with him. How cliché a time this is to think that I can see why people wish for an afterlife - a way of those who died to still be around us in some capacity. I don’t wish that for Brian, who, for decades, I called Brain. I imagined I’d tell the story about his nickname for years. Who would I tell it to now? Who would care now? An audience of none.

Dying young is unnatural. Trapped in time like an insect in resin, trapped in a time period and unable to experience new happiness, new pain and, new love and new loss. I look out my window, a scene I’ve photographed for him, once summer rain and now a new first snow. We move on, we keep changing, this will be part of my story now, this will be part of my change.

Truth is, I’m full of questions and rage. His last stop was me. His last hope was me. Yet, no note of solace letting me off the hook. Nothing to give me peace. His pain was so internal and he refused to share it. I am furious with those in his life that gave him the impression that he wasn’t valid enough to share his thoughts. Was it his parents? His ex-wife? At what point do we stop pointing fingers and just swallow the bitter pill?

The pacing has slowed over the last few days. He’ll never provide the answers. He did however provide me something he wrote in 2007. Rebirth, what a nice thought - here’s hoping he’s reborn in a world a little kinder than this one.

Brain’s story:

She awoke one morning to find that, in the night, her face had been hollowed. There were eyes, still, and yes, a mouth, but between was a void, a lack, a no-face full of insubstantiation. At first, the problem concerned her from a solely material standpoint – she still felt the sensations of a face, the itchings, snot & boogers, but how was she to blow her no-nose? How to scratch her formless cheeks? Worse, she felt the hollowness spreading, and by noon that day she was only lower-lipped and upper-lidded. The concerns grew – how would she taste (her tongue having also dissolved)? How would she salve her unceasingly chapped upper lip now that it appeared no longer amongst her features? With a start, she realized that these were only the beginning, the pettiest of her concerns. She had no nose, and could not gauge the proximity of impending rain; neither could she sense and avoid the danger of spoiled milk. With nothing but upper lids, she was unreadable and unknowable – how was anyone to guess her intentions or distinguish her solemnity from sarcasm without her eyes as meters? Worst of all, she felt her avenues of expression choked off with no mouth from which to pontificate, question, argue, no lips with which to kiss, no tongue to wag, no molars to grind in disgust. Drenched in vacuity, she grasped for completion and found potential within the remnants of her face. Eve was born of a rib; she could be reborn of a chin.

Secret Sex Idiot

He was doomed to be a rebound and the relationship was a bit of a paradox. I was looking for some steamy rebound fuckboy sex and I found the guy, knowing his emotional integrity was weak. He kinda seemed like a broken bird but I was pretty past trying to fix those ones. I knew he was kind of a shit human, I wasn’t looking for a life partner. So, the rebound. We all know how that can go. Either you attach emotionally or you don’t. I was good on emotional attachments, I’d just separated from a very abusive person so I was alright. I didn’t need anyone. Perhaps that’s why he liked me. Soon after we started sleeping together and I took care of his desperate dog, he rapidly expressed his love for me. How crimson red this flag he flew and how sad it made me. I knew, I knew. Yet, I stayed. I stayed. So dumb, dumb.

I don’t speak much about this one, we’ll call him Mick. I think it’s because I feel pretty responsible for all of it. I knew from the very beginning that it was a shit show. Now I get why men are so stupid when it comes to women. The sex was outstanding and walking away was nearly impossible. So many men suck at the sex and this one was incredibly good. I don’t know exactly how he did it, but well done Mick.

Moving on. I have not fully realized the pain it caused of course. Since I blamed myself fully, I didn’t want to admit that this breakup sucked really bad, pretty unnecessarily. I don’t know, maybe not. I kinda put up a fight at the end. Oddly, I started really liking him once we get into it. We were getting into a groove, we had little jokes, it was kinda great in a way. When he ended it, I was in a deep depression over our dog’s death (that story is for a different time). He didn’t really seem to know how to handle my grief and kinda wanted it out of his life. So, he kinda shoved it away aggressively. He said this thing, “I’m kicking you out” multiple times. I will never forget it.

Once I remember that phrase, the rest is too painful to even speak of. I know it was about him and not me. No rational person with emotional maturity would say something like that. It still hurts, the repeated blows, the attempts to hurt me when I was already so down. Depression during a relationship, rocky or not so rocky is difficult. As you may know, depression is about trying to appear not depressed - all the time. That work is difficult and then add a relationship’s extra issues. Add someone else’s childhood trauma, add your superpower of empathy. It becomes all too much. Mick was also a bit secretive. I honestly found myself feeling crazily suspicious, a new feeling for me. I knew his ex wife was religious and held him to standards of near chastity and perhaps he turned that into a secrecy fetish. I don’t really care anymore.

Here’s what I do care about - after I was no longer able to live in our place, I had to make some hasty and thus, bad life decisions. I chose a very bad roommate who affected my life to this day. I know what you’re thinking, how bad could it have been? Bad enough to have put me in jail and make me move to Michigan with my parents and abusive sister. My dog died, I went through a bad breakup, I had to move in with a crazy stanger to a shitty apartment, I lost my job, I went to jail and had to go through a year of very expensive court appearances, I had to move out of state and into my parents home where my sister abused me, I called the cops on my sister and my parents kicked me out and I had to move in with a friend and his wife and the wife kicked me out because “they no longer had sex because of me” and I eventually got my own place in a shitty apartment and for some reason, that shitty apartment was like heaven. Then, my only friend in town killed himself. After that, I got a job at a grocery store right before covid and then got a very very bad case of covid and the symptoms lasted two years. I went back to work and the brain fog was so intense, I walked off a ladder and broke my arm in two places causing me to be out of work for 6 months on workers comp. During that time, I started trying to self improve. I started learning Korean, it helped a lot. This began my path to healing.

I know it seems like I went off topic. But, I think about a particular night and it was what changed things. It was a trivia bar night in the neighborhood of Logan Square, where Mick lived. I went to trivia with friends and immediately texted Mick. He met up and that started our trysts. We could’ve simply ended it after one night, we didn’t need to meet up at all. He was the one who gave me HPV after all. What a complete pain in the ass that’s been. I try not to think about the what ifs. What if I hadn’t gone to trivia night? It’s that kind of thinking that paralyzes me now. I tend not to go out these days, afraid of the what ifs.

The thing is, I’m not regretful of Ari. Perhaps he’s regretful of me… not the point. The point is, I’m here now and I feel like I’m healing. Things have even gotten better with my mom. I feel even grateful. Yes, the last 4 years have made it difficult for my career to get back on track. In fact, I worried I’d ever work in my field again and I still may not. But I feel hopeful, some days more than others. It is difficult dealing with life without Pippin but I’m even better at coping with loss and change. Who knows, maybe I’m full of shit. I still think about suicide, that may be part of who I am forever but I’m better about voicing my bad days. I still feel tears well up so I know there’s still work to be done. I’ll probably always be a cryer and I have compassion for myself now, whereas there was a lot of shame before. I have every reason to cry and have triggers.

If there were to be a point to this rambling, it would be this. Don’t waste your time on people who aren’t good and empathetic. Had I walked away from that hot steamy sex idiot when I saw red, I might have avoided some pain and perhaps even been emotionally capable of meeting someone good and empathetic.

Secret Cat Saddies

My grandpa and his second wife had a cat I used to call Sam-Catty. I’d say “get that Sam-Catty away from me!”. This makes sense to me now as I think about my only exposure to cats being my other grandparents’ cats named Cinder and Skeeter. I don’t think Skeeter was born mean but years of my father’s torture hardened her into a skittish, pissing, scratch-first, hiss-always creature. I’ll spare you the details of the torture but this is how I know my dad was truly a narcissist to his core and possibly even a sociopath. I’m not a doctor but I am pretty versed in recognizing a bad apple.

Back to the cats. Poor Sam-Catty probably wasn’t mean but I was terrified. This led me down a path of cat aversion. I was 41 when I moved into a house with a cat I could stand. Pippin stole my heart with her big green eyes and her round tiny face. She’d barely make a sound and then she was there, under your feet, the whole 9 lbs. I can’t imagine a more perfect 9 lbs in the whole world. Her purrs and light-footed walks over my chest would lightly stir me awake. She’d sometimes quietly be chirping at the migrating birds outside our Detroit window overlooking Canada.

I’d met cats before and even periodically stayed with them and their owners but I get it now. It’s a VIP experience, you gotta earn it. I was not prepared for once the love was finally mine. All the cliches come to mind but mostly - cat lady. I realize it’s not an insult but a statement of pride. I used to feel left out and then quickly dismiss cat people. I feel like I’ve just been leveled up. Somehow, my allergies have diminished and I’m free from the chains of having to lie about loving these sweet creatures.

The last few days have been particularly difficult without Pippin. She’s gone to live with Ari, who has missed her terribly. I have been cleaning up tiny claws that have been shed under the couch, cleaning up toys under the bed, finding her hair in little corners, storing away her cat trees for some reason and trying to responsibly deal with all the leftover food and litter she didn’t use. Unpacking from a trip is hard for me, it’s really hard to deal with the sadness and clear out old things. Ari is nice to send me daily photos of her. It makes me happy to know she’s well. To think that 9 lbs holds the key to my sanity.

Secret Walter

My friend Brandon died in October 2019. It was one of 2 ways; I still don’t know which but both are heartbreaking. I moved to Detroit right before he died and then the pandemic happened. He was basically my only friend here and then he was gone. We had a plan for him to meet my dog Marbles and then he was gone. He ranted about Trump and then he was gone. He was gone and then the world shut down and I was very sad and then I was very sick. A million people have died of covid since then and I can’t get over his death.

His sins were many but considering the life he was born into, he was a saint. He was blessed with the voice of deep and smooth and he peppered it with years of smoke and drink. It was what I called Walter. His birth name wasn’t enough for that bellowing tenor. Brandon Young White - Young was a family name and it was in relation to Brigham Young. His youth seemed a bit more hopeful than adolescence. Drugs and alcohol plagued his family. Divorce followed and money troubles followed that. He was left with trust issues, a sense of independence and obligation to provide for his sister and mother. Before his father left, he was able to glean how to fix cars, fix radios, fix machinery. He was aware how to charm and swindle and he used it later in life.

When I first met Walter, he was getting free daily venti iced vanilla coffee from Jackie at Starbucks and I had no idea how he pulled it off. While everyone else at work was waiting in line to pay, his drink was waiting for him when he walked in. Sometimes, he’d have people pick it up for him and the person picking it up would get a free coffee too. He was the first older man in my life who would truly empathize with me. I was once crying in front of him at work in the back hallway, embarrassed. Instead of making an awkward moment worse, he volunteered that he cries almost daily. I remembered the feeling, the revelation. It relaxed my shoulders and I remember my fears melting, I empathized for him and I was hooked.

He exposed me to music I’d never heard. At the time, Band of Horses was just coming out with their big album and we’d drive around and listen to it. Serendipitously, his car broke down and I remember driving him home and it was as if time stopped in my 99’ Toyota Corolla. His voice filled the air as he went on about Carl Sagan, the cigarette smoke kind of encircling him. After that, we’d secretly meet for lunch or we’d stop at a dive bar and he’d finish drink after drink while I nursed one. I was 24 and he was 30. I remember it was near his golden birthday and I made a big deal out of it. I thought we were more monogamous than we were. I was unaware of how much Walter’s orbit had filled up. My roommate had also taken a liking to him and it hadn’t ended well with the three of us. To make matters more dramatic, all of us worked together. Despite all this, I continued to orbit him. I stayed loyal until I had full confirmation of his exploits. He never lied but he did omit. As a knee jerk, I slept with the guy that persistently expressed interest in me at work, a friend of Walter’s. To boot, this one had a girlfriend (ah, our early twenties). In my heartbroken upset, I hitched my wagon to Chicago with the new guy and we broke up 6 months later. Somehow, that managed to still break my dumb young heart. Despite that, I maintained residence in Chicago for 12 years and Walter and I mostly remained in contact. Sometimes, it was just phone sex. Other times, it was love of music or crying or drunk phone calls. We were similar. Neither of us had family we could depend on and neither of us had an emotional roadmap of any kind. We didn’t ask for forgiveness, explanations or even life updates. We just kept on.

Walter’s family was in California and often needed money. His sister had several kids with multiple men and his mother was more or less a junkie. He tried to move to LA for a while but it wasn’t the same LA he remembered. He tried to live with his father who repeatedly disappointed him. After his mom died, he moved back to Detroit and it seems that’s when his drinking leveled up.

I began to understand my codependence on people and my desire to escape reality. Often, Walter was someone I would call for escapism and he was happy to help. However, I felt I was using him and I didn’t want that anymore. I didn’t want Walter to expect that type of relationship from me. I didn’t know how to have a healthy boundary with him or anyone. The last few years, he seemed drunk or high whenever we spoke. Perhaps he was always like that and I never noticed before because I was too. The last years of his life, I had been having chronic migraines and was barely drinking in order to keep them at bay. When I moved to Detroit, I was afraid to call Walter. I was trying hard to have a healthier life and even though I didn’t know what that meant, I knew it didn’t include drinking late into the night like I did when I was 24. I regret that I didn’t have the guts to talk to him about this when I should have.

I think about how he would’ve dealt with the pandemic, what he would’ve thought. Was it a gift that he died before all this bullshit? He would’ve hated anti-maskers, even though he would’ve been terrible about wearing a clean mask. He was terrible about wearing underwear. The man never owned soap as it was.

Would it have hurt his business? Would he have gone broke? He loved being social, would it have made his depression worse anyway?

Often, he would sit on his dirty Hamtramck apartment floor for days, mixing sounds on his iMacs, cables everywhere. His cats would cuddle around the technology as if it was furniture they were using for warmth. Cat hair and cigarette ash was gathering in corners. Dusty records and tapes were catalogued on shelves along with endless paperbacks he’d gathered from used book stores. He’d take time away to work, which was usually websites and various coding or design. He often freelanced in some way, just to get by. It suited his life. As he got older, his good looks, his hair and his confidence began to fade a little. I wonder if this affected his ability to get new gigs. The hip new designer look didn’t match up to the greying bald man with a pot belly and smoker’s teeth. He was lean but in bit less sexy way and more of thin old man way. At the time, I didn’t appreciate the aging process like I do now. I saw how smoking, drinking and poverty had aged him on fast forward compared to his peers. His cavalier attitude wasn’t adorable anymore, it was frustrating. What is more frustrating is that I’m getting older, perhaps a bit wiser and I’m seeing the 24 year old me. Maybe I’m seeing what he saw (without all the pheromones tied in). It’s difficult to forgive the me I was and the hurt I caused him. However, he never said a mean thing to me, never once. He delivered every word like a kindness pillow wrapped in a delicious voice.

Joni Mitchell performed at a folk festival out east last week. She was slower and lower and still enchanting. I thought of Walter and how he probably would have cried watching it, so I cried instead. I’m glad he didn’t have to be here for the death of John Prine, Bill Withers or Chris Cornell. There are a million bands he loved and I never understood. I imagine it had a lot to do with male angst and California 70s punk, mixed in with his parents’s taste, which always rubs off a little.

Walter was never without a book. How can you forget a person who prefers books as their media of choice? At his memorial, I was able to take his copy of Tropic of Cancer. I truly believe he would have been so happy to know that his books had a safe home. I found out recently that his ashes were spread on Belle Isle, along the beach on the Canadian side. I have so many things I could say about Walter, one of which is that he didn’t mind me calling him that, after a few failed attempts of correcting me.

Is this an homage? Homages are typically prettier than this and he would’ve hated pretty. I’ll give Walter what he deserved - a place in my heart that won’t be filled by someone else. He never owned a plot of land to call his own, but he will own a place in my memory forever and I will always feel his absence. When I hear a great song or see a good film or read something that breaks my heart, I wonder what he’d say or if he’d laugh his great laugh. He gets that rent free.

One last thing - I dare you to listen to Both Sides Now by Joni Mitchell and not cry.

Secret Mania

There’s a lot of back and forth about how I honest I want to be with you. I want desperately for you to like me. In order for me to like myself, I have to be completely open about all my shit. First, I never know when to use a semicolon and you’ll likely never see one in this blog. Also, I suffer from debilitating depression.

There are a bunch of other fun acronyms that I’ve been given but that’s the one I’m feeling in my bones right now. I am writing to push through it. I’m talking to you so that I don’t crumble. It’s not easy right now. A lot of life is happening outside my apartment, it’s loud. There’s an actual outdoor concert a couple blocks away and it’s painful to absorb. In these moments, I crave stillness. I crave peace.

Those of us who suffer this disease are aware of the shame. We’re told to reach out and ask for help. It’s not that I don’t want to. It’s just that I don’t want to be known just as the person who needs help all the time. I want to be known for more than that. This can’t be my whole identity. This can’t be all that I am. It’s really hard for me to ask for help for anything. To ask for help about something so personal and so concerning, it feels like there’s no point to existing if I’m going to require this kind of attention. I wonder, will it ever cease?

These are my honest thoughts and I’m deciding to tell you. I know many people share these viewpoints it’s never spoken. Sometimes you hear about someone admitting they have attempted suicide years ago or that they once suffered from depression. These people seem like mythological creatures.

This goes into the lies a depressive brain tells you. I’m learning all about my liar brain. I’ll admit, that pisses me off, I can’t trust my own fucking brain? So many trust issues and now this? I suppose the lie I’m trying not to believe is that everything is not going to work out for me and that things will never improve. I’m not capable of improving my life.

To think that other people wake up and don’t have shitty liar brains.

If you’re still reading and have never dealt with depression, you might be wondering a few things. I imagine it is frustrating to be around anyone dealing with depression. I can’t even imagine. It’s so frustrating being the one who is depressed because it’s so illogical. It’s so counterproductive. The entire time you’re going through a depressive episode, you’re typically immobile in some way. You usually can’t speak well, can’t leave your home, can’t eat, can’t contribute to your society, your job, your family. It feels like people are judging you and assuming you’re being selfish. You feel like shit. Yet, there is no gas in the tank to get you there. Nothing left. You are asked to do something you could have done once upon a time and the idea of performing is so panic inducing, you have exhausted any resource you have left. Sleep is all you can do because it might replenish the fuel. By the time you wake, your laundry list has piled. You’re so overwhelmed, another panic and you’re back to zero. Asking for help? It feels like asking for the world.

Perhaps my feelings will change tomorrow and I’ll be tempted to delete this. This blog torments me. It’s about writing my truth and putting it out in the world and I suppose it’s for my own catharsis. Part of me secretly hopes it reaches someone and helps them. Everything in my lying heart is telling me to take it down and keep it to myself. My untrusting mind is telling me that it will just be used against me later on. Perhaps.

Living my life that way hasn’t served me. Delivering my scary shit might not either but it’s a different approach than crumbling. I simply won’t crumble anymore.

Secret Dream Nipples

I had a dream about a woman with 4 nipples in a row, on each boob. My latest Instagram interests have been about plastic surgery so the dream ended with the lady’s quads ending up as singles. The quad-nipples were super hot and I woke up turned on, searching for my vibrator. The cat got wind of my movement and had other plans. The purred cuteness and cuddles temporarily distracted me.

Back to the nipples. Once I remembered them, I started to consider what they meant. Do they have to mean something? No. Am I looking for them to mean something? Perhaps.

First step, masturbation.

…

Second step, charge vibrator battery. That was a close one.

Third, Google what nipples mean in a dream. Here goes… “Nipple dream draws attention to danger, evil or death. Someone is taking advantage of your misfortune. You need to exemplify some of your qualities. The dream is an omen for your passiveness in a situation. Your emotions have literally reached the boiling point.”.

Why did I do that? What’s next? Ask my best friend? They’ll just tell me I’m horny. They’d probably be right. Maybe I’m looking for something freaky. I’m not usually that freaky, relatively speaking.

Sex is a journey, am I right? I’ve spoken about having a few partners. With those partners was sex. Some of that sex was really good. Most of that sex was just like life - a series of failures and opportunities for improvement. I feel differently about sex these days. I don’t really miss it or crave it because I expect most people aren’t very good at it.

I like watching porn - it reminds me how awkward sex really is. Even if it’s made to be professional, it’s weird. Oh look a complete stranger, let me just put my tongue in their butt without any prior knowledge of their medical history. I’ve been in relationships that lasted several years and even that sex was awkward. You get to that point and you’re just cutting to the chase. I don’t really miss that stage either. However, it was less fuss, less maintenance, less hair removal stress.

Now I’m starting to wonder if I even want sex? I miss tenderness, I miss intimacy. I don’t miss being rammed by a cock, trying to communicate that I’m in pain and not kill the mood. I have never been able to figure out how he doesn’t know that he’s physically hurting you. I know there’s a rhythm which can be difficult to achieve and maintain, then there’s the position to find, etc. The point is, none of that matters if one doesn’t eventually hear the special secret pleasure sound from the person who holds your most intimate body part in theirs.

I’m not saying I’m the queen of figuring it out. I have failed many times at trying to achieve orgasmic perfection. For example, hand jobs completely betray me. You can take your hand jobs and you can go fuck yourself, I’m not doing them. I have the hands the size of a kindergartner. As I’ve aged, my hands have gotten spindlier, knottier and less soft. They’re great for working out tiny knots, needlepoint, precision. You want your cock handled? Don’t point it my way.

You know that moment after good sex? You both fall away from each other for a moment and then reconnect to kiss? The kiss is kind of cool because you’ve both been breathing so heavily that your tongue is cold? The taste is unique to after sex, I couldn’t describe it if I tried. I love that kiss. It’s my favorite part about having sex. It’s like genuine gratitude expressed with your faces meeting and it tastes so sweet.

I do miss it. Maybe the quad-nippled dream lady was there to remind me that I’m bit of a sick fuck and that I’m a sexual being who needs to be touched from time to time. For now, it’ll just have to be my vibrator and my vivid imagination.

Secret Crush

Whoever coined the word “crush” was brilliant. I’m 41 and one thing I wish I could put on my resume is “very experienced in relationships” and yet I still can get a little stupid about someone. I’m not really bragging here but I’ve gained some wisdom from the sheer number of people I’ve ploughed through.

I think about my friend Amy who got married at 21, mainly out of fear that was instilled by her mother since grammar school. For a long time, I was jealous of her “success” and upset about losing my childhood friend. We were still kids and all of sudden, a road diverged in life and went two very opposite ways. I tried to hold on but she was wrapped up in newly married life. I was in college and then my world opened up. She remained in our hometown and dropped out of college to pay for his student debt. I wasn’t happy about this. My friend was missing out.

This was the first time a friend was used to replace my broken family and here they were, leaving me. I went searching for replacements. I was also trying to fix the inner child and went about it in some pretty destructive ways. I hurt many people and many people hurt me. I tried to believe that I was worthy of love but it became more difficult not to think I wasn’t the problem.

It’s never that simple.

So, what does this have to do with me having a crush? I barely know him so even if he turned out to be a great person, he wouldn’t be the person I made up in my head. Thus, he would disappoint me (if we somehow ended up together). To set up someone for failure is unfair and cruel to them. Yet, I’ve done it countless times. I’ve wanted people to save me from my problems and myself. The worst part about me is that I’m pretty good at luring people into my web. I learned this technique from my father - the schmoozer. I don’t know if I can even write about my dad without chucking my computer off the balcony so we’ll just leave it at that.

But let’s get back to the crush. Even though I don’t trust myself to speak to him, it doesn’t hurt to stalk his Instagram. He’s an artist so he has to do a lot of self-promotion, which means he shares a lot of personal stuff.

I’ve imagined my awkward ass trying to talk to him for the first time and mentioning his cat, his beautiful apartment and his love for Omakase.

The irony is that I once matched with him on Bumble, right before Ari and I got together. We even had a conversation and then I discovered he had a cat. I apologized and said I couldn’t date a guy with a cat and he was very understanding. I thought I was deathly allergic to cats at the time. Ari and I went on a date and then at dinner, mentioned his cat. I met her, sniffled and I was fine.

Am I upset about this? No. Ari is lovely. Have I given up on finding someone? No. I just don’t think I’m in a place where I can give much to any other person right now. I have a lot of work I still need to do on me.

One thing I find myself doing is giving advice to people. It’s not usually unsolicited, I’m pretty wary to speak to anyone. Do you remember people giving you advice in your teens and twenties? All I remember thinking is that they were annoying and old. I admit, I think I’m annoying and old(er) but I do wish I’d taken to heart some of the gems those oldies had taken the time to give to me. Some of it got in but my calloused heart was untrusting of elders after a childhood like mine.

When I write things like what I just wrote, I must stop and take a breath and recognize that this is a new day and the past is gone and unchangeable.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

I judged Amy’s life and assumed she was missing out. I went through a lot of FOMO in my life, especially when it had to do with having a crush. We never know how content people are with their lives. I’m currently unemployed, live alone with a borrowed cat, failed an IT certification exam yesterday and my friends live in different states. Yet, I feel more content than I have in years. I highly doubt I’d be more content if I was dating this crush of mine.

I’ll end with advice… have a crush! It’s kind of like a goal. You don’t need to end up with the person you’re crushing on in order to meet the goal.

The goal is to become the person you want to be so that your ideal mate would enjoy a healthy partnership.

And don’t forget to hydrate and get enough sleep.

Secret Optimism

Most things start from a place of pain and I’m no different. I am currently living in the condo my ex bought in Detroit and then asked me to move into with him. We had maybe 2-3 months of awkward bliss and then things became more awkward and less bliss. What could go wrong after 2 years or so of pandemic trauma and 2 weird ass people trying to come together to make a living situation and romantic commitment work? That’s just the pandemic trauma.

This is a great start to my blog. Come on, Shell. You have a lot more to talk about than your ex (I really do). I suppose I should mention that we broke up on my birthday. Is it possible I’m making this blog to ease my own pain? Do I want to give him that much credit? I don’t think it’s about him. However, I imagine I’ll bring him up periodically and I’m hoping that will become cathartic. In the meantime, you’re held captive to reading about him. At least he’s interesting.

The ex (let’s call him Ari), has since moved to California. I am now living here in the condo with the things he bought, his plants, furniture and even his cat. I adore the cat and will revisit that. For now, let’s just say things are weird and Ari and I mainly speak about how I’m going to pay him rent, utilities and my share of the phone plan we still have together. He holds my life in his hands and I hold his (cat).

Every day since this uncoupling, I’ve been trying to find a way to move on and even flourish - trying to live a grateful life. What I’m grateful for with Ari is the love we had, the care we took when we ended it, the fact that we can still talk and the knowledge I gained about how I want to be loved and how I want to be there for myself now. It’s been slower than I’d like. I had a timeline and budget in mind and that’s not going to plan. What great projects ever are? My hope is to become a secret optimist on the inside. For now, I take it day by day as a recovering cynic.