0 Love & Loss

I admit it. I suck. I promised to be more diligent about posting but alas, I have failed. It has been a really crazy couple of weeks. So let me fill you in...

A couple of weeks ago, JC lost her cat in a violent way. A dog attacked him and it was very traumatic for her. I happened to be off the day it happened so I was able to go over to her house and comfort her. She was really close to her cat and so the past few weeks have been really rough. It is so difficult to see someone who you care about so much feel pain. I have been doing whatever I can to be there for her. I am actually very surprised that she was as open with me about her grief. It was touching how vulnerable she was willing to let herself be with me. It definitely deepened my feelings for her. I can in all honesty say that I am in love with JC. Having worked through these tough times together I have seen a whole new side of her. I hope that my being there for her has also shown her that she can trust me. 

Not to say that there haven't been ups and downs. The pressure of taking care of someone who is grieving is intense. Although I know I am a good comforter, I have a really difficult time identifying with people in grief. Ever since my dad died, things just don't rattle me as much. Having survived the death of a parent, and not only a parent but an awesome dad who was my mentor and friend I just can't really understand sadness in the same way as I used to. I also lost an Aunt who I was very close to a couple of years before my dad. The loss of these people in my life changed the way I process grief. I can understand why JC is so upset in a literal sense but not in an emotional sense. Because I feel this way it has been hard to know how to comfort her. I just do the best that I can. 

JC has been very grateful for my help and I know that letting her guard down isn't exactly easy. But is it easy for any of us? I feel like I have definitely walked deeper into this relationship after these past few weeks. I am really drawn to JC. The most magnetic thing about her is her life experiences and how she views life. When we discuss family, life and our pasts although the texts are different the themes are very similar. I felt this from our first date. Yes, there are bumps in the road and some things that need to be worked out but I just feel like I have to keep moving forward. Fuck yeah, it is scary. My feelings are definitely involved at this point.

Although this sounds completely crazy to say, especially someone who is 29, I feel like for the first time I am making love with another person - that I am fully present when we are together in the biblical sense. In my past relationships I always had to separate myself from the act to get through it. I was never that turned on my men and really never enjoyed sex. I would use booze or mental blocks (like fantasizing about women) to remove myself. As a mater of fact I don't think I ever had sex while I was sober before JC. Learning to be present hasn't been easy. I am learning true intimacy for the first time. It's a pretty mind blowing experience; both beautiful and frightening. Beautiful because I can finally understand the intense bond that sexual intimacy can create between two people. Frightening because it is a state of true vulnerability and surrender of control.

My friend, Dutch made a keen observation the other day. She commented that for me, coming out is is like I am having to learn life all over again. And many days that is exactly how it feels. Sex is just one example. But I am finding out that many of the ways I relate to life, other people and social situations has changed. Some days I feel like it is the first time that I am learning how to relate to myself. 


I have been listening to this song lately and on top of just being an awesome song I think it speaks to where I am right now. I hope you enjoy...

Try

Nelly Furtado

All I know
Is everything is not as it's sold
but the more I grow the less I know
And I have lived so many lives
Though I'm not old
And the more I see, the less I grow
The fewer the seeds the more I sow

Then I see you standing there
Wanting more from me
And all I can do is try
Then I see you standing there
Wanting more from me
And all I can do is try

I wish I hadn't seen all of the realness
And all the real people are really not real at all
The more I learn, the more I learn
The more I cry, the more I cry
As I say goodbye to the way of life
I thought I had designed for me

Then I see you standing there
Wanting more from me
And all I can do is try
Then I see you standing there
I'm all I'll ever be
But all I can do is try
Try

All of the moments that already passed
We'll try to go back and make them last
All of the things we want each other to be
We never will be
And that's wonderful, and that's life
And that's you, baby
This is me, baby
And we are, we are, we are, we are
Free
In our love
We are free in our love

0 Winetastic!

One of the best parts about starting a new relationship is learning about new things through your partner. Recently JC brought me into the world of wine and I looooooove it! I know my sister is out there cursing at the computer because she has been trying to get me into wine for years. I had people in past relationships also try to get me into it but I just wasn't having it. Who knows why it's working for me now, but the point is I am really excited to find a new hobby and also to be able to share it with JC. 

I am fully aware that I am a compulsive person and that when I get into something I really get into something! Wine is no different. Last week I went out and bought 6 bottles of wine at the most heavenly place on earth, Total Wine. I usually do my beer/liquor shopping there because their prices and selection are phenomenal. So when I went to buy some wine, I was totally overwhelmed. There was so much to choose from and I am just a novice over here! I will say that there was a really helpful wine department clerk there who answered some questions for me and gave me a few recommendations.

I have started off with red blends, pino noirs and bought a petite syrah although I have not opened it yet. I tried to stay under $10 a bottle because I figure there is no need to blow big bucks until I at least know what I am doing. I have tried a couple from TJs and Fresh & Easy that were really good and around $5. Finding a good wine for a good deal is exhilarating! I have even added an app to my phone that allows me to take a picture of what I am drinking and make comments about it. Right now I don't have any lingo, so I am just commenting on the price, where I bought it and if I would buy it again. I am hoping to be able to keep track of what I purchase so I know what I like and don't like. The app is called Corkbin. It was $0.99 - the first app I have ever paid for - but I believe I have reaped my investment back already. I installed a widget on my blog that displays the wines I am trying. If you have any recommendations for me, just shoot them my way. Even better, download the app and we can follow each other! 

Anyhoo, I am sitting at work with 2.5 hours to go and wine was on my mind so I thought I would share. Looking forward to leaving work behind and starting the weekend! It has been a pretty crappy week at work because we have been short staffed. Ugh. But the weekend is upon us! I am heading out to a show tonight with Banana. Should be, as usual, an epic evening. Not sure what the rest of the weekend holds, I just hope I get to see JC! I haven't seen her since last Friday and she had a friend in town this week so I haven't really had the chance to speak with her either. My goodness, I miss that woman! Hope you all enjoy your weekends! Have fun and be safe!

0 Coming out to grandma

My grandma and I have always been very close. I was the youngest of her 4 grandkids so I was always extra spoiled by her.To this day, she still calls me her baby. When I was a kid she used to pick me up from school on the weekly minimum days and we would spend the afternoon together. I also spent many weekends with her and my grandpa when I was growing up. We would go to evening mass and then she would cook or we would go out to eat, followed by watching some Lawrence Welk (grandpa's favorite) and then some Golden Girls. Throughout college she cooked me dinner nearly every week. She was there for me the night my parents split up and I was there for her when my grandpa died and when her dog died. We have always had a very special relationship that has been open and honest. So keeping details of my life from her has never been something I have done. 

Although she is 87 and a very devout Catholic, my grandma is a very open and accepting person. She has always had a "live and let live" mentality. In my family we have all made mistakes. We don't hold them against each other and love each other through the good times and the bad. I knew in my heart that my grandma will always love me and that something like coming out to her would not affect our relationship. But I was still a bit apprehensive. My grandma comes from a very different time and I wasn't sure she would really understand what I was going to tell her. 

So I decided to just bite the bullet and come out. We were discussing another family member's relationship when I started the conversation...

"Grandma, I am not dating men anymore."
"I understand. When your grandfather died I knew I was done with men too. Although some asked me out and bought me presents I didn't want to be involved with them. But don't worry, you are young."
"No, grandma, I am not dating men anymore, ever...I'm dating women."
"Oh, I like to go out with my friends too. That's nice.
"No, I am dating women...I'm gay."
"...well that is your own business. Sometimes I think it would be nice to live with another woman and go places together...but not date them. But as long as you are happy then I am happy for you. You will always be my baby." 

Just what I had hoped for, and pretty much expected. I was very happy that she took the news so well. Now the last person I have to come out to is my Uncle. I'm sure he will be as accepting as the rest of my family but I am still a bit apprehensive about sharing with him but I plan on coming out to him soon. I would hate for him to find out from someone else and think that I didn't trust him. He is an important person in my life. When I got married he was the one who walked me down the isle because my dad had passed away a year earlier. We have been playing softball on the weekends together for 8 seasons. I'm not sure what is holding me back from sharing with him but I really feel the need to share this with him.


I have also realized that coming out is a continual process. It's not just dropping the bomb and running. It's about learning how to communicate with my family about my life and my relationships. It was really hard to start talking to my mom about my relationship with JC. I wasn't sure if it made her feel uncomfortable. But now I realize that me communicating with her about this part of my life has deepened our relationship and made us more honest. She came to visit me at work today and we went out to lunch. During lunch I discussed the recent ups and downs with JC. She had some really great insights and I am so glad I have her as a sounding board. This journey continues to be something that surprises me and makes me more confident that this is truly who I am. I am thankful for all of my friends and family who have been so warm and accepting and who are helping me along the way. 

Life is beautiful.

1 Why you should at least wait a couple of days to put someone on blast after you break up with them...

Thursday evening I broke up with JC.  Friday we got back together. Saturday I realized that I said some pretty hurtful and spiteful things in my previous post about JC that were created by my anger and sadness. I think I might have gone overboard on some of the details, so forgive me, dear reader for ditching some of the malicious shit I said and keeping the self discovery aspects. I want to see if we can make it work and it wouldn't be fair to keep some of the content up. I had no idea JC would want to work it out at the time I wrote the last entry. Now some things have changed and I realize that I should have waited a bit before flying off the handle. I just keep on learning, y'all!

The breakup: It was an excruciating conversation; sad, angry, remorseful. One of the more uncomfortable ones I have ever had. I confronted her about blowing me off and about how she omitted the fact that she was at the strip club when she told me she was out having a few beers. Her side was that it wasn't a big deal. My opinion - if it wasn't a big deal then you should have just been honest. Honesty is the true foundation of any relationship. She admitted to being caught up in her own drama that day and apologized for being inconsiderate. She also sent me flowers, which was a nice touch but I just couldn't make up my mind about being with her because I was really hurt. I also told her that I had been dishonest. I had camouflaged my true feelings because I wanted so bad for her to like me. I put up with things that I shouldn't have. And these small submissions had a big effect on our relationship. I became someone who would put up with things that were unacceptable to me. I should have been myself. I should have stood up and demanded respect. Well, that night I threw down the gauntlet about things in the past month that made me feel disrespected. I should have brought them up when they occurred, not waited for this to get out of hand. Was it all a subconscious game? Was I trying to see how badly JC would treat me if I let her? Like JC, was I somehow trying to sabotage things? I'm not quite sure. I decided to end things and we hung up on a really awkward note.


I was surprised to find out the next day that JC didn't want to give up. My explosion the previous night had made her see me in a new light and she really understood that how she had treated me was no bueno. She apologized and asked if we could talk later. I thought about it the whole day. I had a great conversation with my friend, Dutch who was my BFF Junior and Senior year in High School. Although she moved away to go to college and has never come back to California, we have kept in contact. Time and distance aside, Dutch is one of the people who really gets me and I am glad to have her in my life. She has always had different perspectives on situations and has helped me talk through a lot of my issues in this relationship and many others. She is never judgmental or one to jump to conclusions. Her rational, balanced advice has really been a blessing. 


As I talked it over with Dutch I realized how truly conflicted I was about the whole situation. I knew that if I walked away I was assured that I would not be hurt by this anymore. That I would move on and heal. But something inside of me was not ready to let this go. There is something special about JC and I really enjoy being with her. On the other hand, I knew that if I decided to give it another try it would be difficult. Difficult to assert my feelings and standards and there was no guarantee that things would work out. It was a hard call. The easy road vs the hard one. Could I really take this chance? 


I realized that I had to be brave. I have walked away from so many friendships and relationships in my past. Now was the time to test myself. To see if I had the courage to admit to my own wrongdoings, listen to another person and accept their apologies and truly move forward. So JC came over and we talked. We both opened up fully for the first time. I let her in on my deepest secret...although I look like I have it together, I am really a mess on the inside. I am still affected by the things that have happened in my past no matter how much I try to deny it. The way I acted in this relationship was because of how I treated others and was treated in my past. Duh, Captain Awkward. But sometimes it is hard to admit these things to ourselves. Weakness is my biggest fear and being able to admit it to JC was very hard to do.


In addition we laid out what we would need in order for this relationship to move forward. For me, my top priority is having the time and mental space to continue working on myself. I realize that our pattern of seeing each other was not best for the both of us. Yes, things are complicated because we live in different cities. But we agreed that we would both work together to find a better rhythm, one that would allow us both time to grow ourselves as well as grow together. When I saw how open, kind and willing JC was about this discussion and the possibility of starting over, I knew I had made the right decision to give it another try. 


I have a few goals going into this for the second time. The first is to try and release my impulse to control everything. This control came out in many ways; one of the most devastating was my need to do everything all the time. By doing this I didn't allow JC the chance to spoil me and to reciprocate. I can understand how this would be infuriating. I need to let up and allow her to take some of the control and responsibility of the relationship or it is never going to work. I also need to find a way to work on myself while simultaneously being in a relationship. I have never been able to do this and now is the perfect time to try. I need to find the balance between my life and my relationship. Not to focus on one or the other, but how they can work in harmony with each other. I also need mental space. And this means (as much as I am addicted to it) not texting each other incessantly throughout the day. It distracts me from my life and thoughts and I believe that texting is a faux communication. It is not very valuable. I would rather talk with a person on the phone than text. I think it just makes sense.

Both of us are heading into this knowing that there are obstacles ahead and this might not ultimately work out. But I think we have many things to learn from each other and this experience so I am happy to be able to give it another shot. I have realized that now I am free from the constraints of the heterosexual relationship paradigm which dictated that you must find a mate for life because of the need for children, property ownership and security. If your goal is not home ownership or children, what does it matter if you mate for life? I am starting to think that the most important thing in dating and relationships is to find the people who can support you at different times in your life. This is not likely to be the same person forever. Each person that comes into my life is there for a reason and I can never be sure what this reason is or for how long that person will be there so I have to enjoy it, not over think it and be completely present.

On a side note, I have just finished Portia de Rossi's autobiography Unbearable Lightness. It was an amazing book. I was astonished to find that she too had been married and divorced her husband in her mid 20's. Her struggle to be comfortable with her sexuality and overcome a truly mind blowing eating disorder were inspirational. I gleaned a couple of points she made in her book that I found extremely applicable to my own life...


"Sometimes you have to invite the worst case scenario." 
Yes, sometimes we have to look our biggest fears in the face and take that jump to overcome them. If we have the courage to invite these demons, we can release our fears and truly live. 


"...I didn't understand that playing roles in any relationship is false and will inevitably lead to the relationship's collapse. No one can be one thing all the time."
This is a hard lesson for me to learn. I often find myself constructing rigid roles for myself in a relationship. Although I will say that it is easier to have fluidity in a lesbian relationship than it is to have in a heterosexual relationship, it is important for me to realize that I do this and actively work against this instinct. I can be strong and I can also be weak. I can be together and I can be a mess. We are all multifaceted and made stronger by that.


"True nobility isn't about being better than anyone else; it's about being better than you used to be."
I have to try to let go of the perfectionist in myself. Give myself some slack and also offer that slack to those around me. It's okay to make mistakes along the way and to simply be happy.

"I am better than I used to be."
'Nuff said.

3 What's it all worth? And what the fuck?

Howdy, my internet friends. How I have missed you! As you can probably guess, the resurrection of this blog can only mean one thing - that things between JC and I are no bueno. Well, you guessed right. So let me fill you in...

The past month has been very intense. I fell in love with a woman for the first time, learned that I like wine, onions on pizza, downloaded a bunch of Ingrid Michaelson music, turned 29, went to Vegas - all while falling in love with a person who just wasn't right for me. How did I get here? I have been asking myself this question on repeat. The month seems to be the longest and quickest at the same time. Falling in love was a total whirlwind, it blew my mind and then my heart up. I see now that I lost a bit of myself in the mix. You know how you can't really see outside of things when you are wrapped up in them? That's where I have been the past month...

Although it always sucks for things to end I am taking some vital lessons with me from this experience. Firstly, you have to stand up for yourself and what you want early on in a relationship. It is far more important to like yourself than be liked by others. I found myself in situations where I was being treated in a way that was not up to my own standards and yet I put up with it because I wanted JC to like me. Now let me say, she wasn't mean or anything, her actions were just reflecting the way I was acting and the way I allowed her to treat me.

I learned that I have to be very clear about what I want before bending to another person's needs. People will treat you the way that you allow them to. And I am not quite sure why I let JC treat me the way she did. I just wanted to be with her, or with someone so bad that I was willing to give up on myself. Like the way I gave up on this blog. Which, by the way was a terrible idea. I think that if I had been forced to write out the feelings and apprehensions I had about JC and our relationship and then share them on this blog I would have been able to see what I was doing wrong. This is a very powerful medium for self expression and self discovery. I wish I could have seen the connection between this blog and myself a lot sooner, but c'est la vie.

I think what it boils down to is respect. Self respect and personal worth. You have to not only have it, but also communicate it clearly or else you will be treated like crap. I had a moment of clarity last night after 1/2 a bottle of wine and 2 episodes of Sex & the City (who needs therapy when you have wine and SATC?) 

I had a great day. I was accepted into the grad school program I had applied to and also came out to my grandma who was totally cool about it. It was one of the best days I have had in a long time. So obviously, I want to share this with my girlfriend. But JC is all wrapped up in her own drama about her car needing work and having to do her taxes. I texted her about the good news and told her I hoped to speak with her later. With the exception of a congratulatory text she went AWOL for the entire day and night, totally blowing me off. So back to my wine/SATC party...


I'm sitting at home and when I should have been so excited for my life I was feeling sad because I hadn't heard from JC. Seriously, I was totally bummed. And then I had a revelation...I need to stop worrying about what JC is doing and focus on myself. My own happiness and wholeness. In order for me to be a good partner, I need to stop focusing so much on JC and our relationship and cultivate my own sense of self. No matter what happens on SATC, the ladies always keep their core friends, make time for themselves and understand that relationships come and go. It is ourselves that we are truly responsible for. I need to find myself and keep myself happy.

Now this is where it gets awkward. I got out of my JC induced funk, walked into my bathroom, looked myself in the mirror and gave myself a toast. A toast for being accepted to grad school and having the courage to come out to my grandma. A toast for having such awesome friends and family who love and support me. A toast for having a job that allows me to live in a nice apartment which I have pride in and keep clean. A toast for working my ass off in the past 9 months and losing 20 pounds. A toast for having a rad cat. I was literally standing in my bathroom talking to myself in the mirror. As weird as it looked, it felt great. I hadn't given myself props in a while. Yes, my friends I toasted it up and the spell was broken. I finally had my awkward mojo back and it felt great!

To be fair, JC is a good girl. Just not a good girl for me. She has circumstances in her life that make her the way she is, just as I do mine. But I can't be bending my standards of respect in order to accommodate someone else's because I will lose myself in the shuffle. She will always be an important person to me because she was my first girlfriend, the first girl I introduced to my friends and family. She was fun to be with and we had a lot of great times. I will always appreciate the time we had together. It's back to learning about myself and sharing those awkward revelations with you all. Oh, how I truly missed it. It's great to be back!