Blind

Usually, when I think about my future month or year or life in general, I get a feeling. It's a general feeling. Sometimes it's stress, sometimes dread, sometimes it's a casual, carefree hope, sometims there's an element of excitement or wonder. Lately, however, I feel nothing. I feel blindness or numbness or a lack of perception of what I can expect, even a day or two down the road. Maybe it's a numbness in response to fear or guilt. Maybe it's a refusal to push through and own up to the consequences of my actions. I don't know. Yes, I do. Until I get my period, and the next two weeks have passed uneventfully, I can't be certain that my future is secure.

I can't believe how I refuse to learn. I have such a lack of will, or personal integrity. I'm a jellyfish in the face of pleasure. When did I become so weak? I was a very principaled little girl. And something changed along the way. When I started to grow into a stinky, oily, awkward teeneger, I experienced an astonishing lack of aceptance and love. And it seems as though the enjoyment that people get out of me now is so intoxicating that I completely lose my nerve, and put my better judgement to sleep. It's like I have to be in trauma in order to remember any lessons I've learned. Of course, that can't be sustained... I always "heal", and so I think I tend to re-traumatize myself so I can keep my"lessons" in mind.

Why do I have to keep hurting myself, or puttin gmyself in risky situations in order to do something that SHOULD, by all accounts, be natural? It must mean there's something unnatural about what I'm trying to adhere to. Either that, or the natural and good is more difficult than the supernatually wrong. Something to do with entropy. Tension within order. Relaxation in chaos. There's a problem with minimum energy in chaos, however. It's almost as if order has a life of its own, and presses itself on chaos, forcing it into line, into cause and effect... into consequence. INto a plan for the future. And so when I delve into a certain chaos, it offers me temporary relaxation, until the narrow path, the rocky truth, the real life moves in, and forces me to come out of chaos. BUt the reality I enter into is changed in my absence. I've damaged it, at least that's what I fear. I guess I fear that I've ruined my chance and coming back home. Perhaps I feel like I do't deserve it. In fact, I DO feel like I don't deserve it. And I feel like when I AM there, I won't be hapy in it. I guess this is how hell feels. God's love is there, but your soul hasn't learned to delight in it, coupled with a deep feeling of unresolved and unlifted guilt.

This is the biggest sin. Not trusting that I'll live through this. Not loving God's love enough to submit to my path. I need to love God's ways, and all will be well.

What is God's way? Why can't I totally physically love my husband? Is there a different reality I'm meant to experience? No. There's very real danger associated with tht risky "Other"... dangers that would really tear at the family.

So. My future holds tenacity. It holds the promise of me living through "It"... living through my choices, and thriving. Lord, have mercy on me and have mercy on Ben. Lord, Jesus Christ, have mercy on us, this married couple, preserve us and keep us protected and strong together. Overcome all evil forces pushing in on us, subtly and strongly. Keep me strong, willfull and brave in Your Word and on Your path. Have mercy on me. Keep me. Keep me together and healthy. Banish illness from my body, and keep me pure and strong. Have mercy on my womb and keep all wrong things from it. Take away things that don't belong there. Keep my eyes open. Relieve my blindness. Help me see. Give me hope. I'm a chronic sinner... I can't stay out of the mud. Help me wash it away and get through to dry land. I have courage and hope in You.

I Am My Own Best Lover.

Came from a night of dancing. A short one. I got to sweat a little bit, got to feel that music and those bodies a little bit. Had to come home early. Parents. I live with my parents, and they have an opinion about when I should be home.

I'm 30.

With kids.

I can never escape those things, those wretched qualifiers. I don't really want them to be stricken from the record, but I wish they didn't carry the weight that they do when it's midnight and I'm listening to really good music. Alone.

Tonight, I could have been drinking a lot of wine with two very lovely people who would have locked me up and exquisitely whipped me. Tonight, I could have met them at their home while we talked and drank and coaxed pleasure out of the night. But I had to run. I felt wild. I felt smooth. I felt happy and beautiful, and the music I was listening to was rocking my ribcage, my shoulders. The strap from my pink satin camisole slid down off my shoulder, then my brastrap did. My hair was wild and puffy and my eyes looked dark and sparkling. The window was open and the almost-warm-enough air gave my body the idea that it wanted company. I wanted a car to slide up next to mine, window open. I wanted a soul inside that car to hear my music and see my smile and nod at me. I wanted someone to follow me to a dark spot somewhere, get in the van, lay down the seat wordlessly and listen with me to the passion pouring out of the speakers. I wanted to touch skin without sound, I wanted someone to taste my sweat and pull my hair, making my head snap sharply to one side, chin to shoulder, eyes cast down. Then the hand would release my hair and rake paths over my white shoulders, down my back, over my ribs. A hand would lift my chin and lips and tongue would devour mine.

All this... all this, alone, when i could have been in a bed with two lovely people with whips and wine. Or on the dance floor with sweat and pulse. And I'm here. 30, alone, with kids. Even if my husband were here, I would be alone.

I want a lover who understands this. I want a lover who loves the drama of lovemaking. I want to be touched the way I touch myself, and I want words to burn a path into my body. I want motion, tightness, firmness, locked bodies, smooth bodies, undulation and celebration. Desperation. Honest passion. Delicious skin.

So I will touch myself in the way I know how, and imagine there's someone there who knows this, who feels it, who can surround me with themselves. I want to walk right up to you, sink myself onto you, dance on top of you, feel the art and the music of my sex filling up the room and taking us both away.

My new motto.

Lebenskünstler = master of the art of living (Sourced from http://leisurearts.blogspot.com/2006/08/lebensknstler-leisurearts-notes.html )


I received a God-given phone call today from my grandmother. I've been feeling very VERY down after being cut from a dance team I shoudn't have been on, anyhow. I've been trying to deal with increased work and a feeling of needing to nurture my professional life, while feeling quite guilty about the time spent away from the family. My grandmother called just now, and told me to pass a message onto my mom, that she had foudn the bridge for her cello that would replace the broken bridge. She was fearing she'd lost it. My mom is napping, however, and I got to chit chat with her for a little while. I was explaining my life a little, and trying to describe that staying home with the blinders on was stifling and miserable, but being out and about too much was too manic and caused a different kind of imbalance. Omi said "there's a word for this in German, 'lebenskünstler', and it means, 'artist of life'. You need to find the happy medium and live well." there you have it. It made me cry. It's something I've heard like every day my entire life, but it was exactly what i needed to hear right now.

Those Germans have a word for everything.

I want to be a lebenskünstler, and I will be. If I feel the yearning to master something, it will be this. Not an aspect of of what I must balance, but balance itself. I will be my zodiac in perfect symmetry. If I feel the need to shine and perform with astonishing mastery, I'll dedicate myself to health, to the perfection of the art of living. Everything else is not only soul-killing, but murder on the peace of those who need and love me.

Oscar Wilde once purportedly said "I put my talent into my work, but my genius into my life." A suitable introduction to this week's entry, Lebenskünstler. Literally translated, it means "life-artist." ... He is a Lebenskünstler. Someone who pieces together his living from various activities that, collectively, bring in just enough money to live. No office, no suit, no boss, no rules. German has a word for such people, and English doesn't. There's even a higher form of Lebenskünstler, and that is the Überlebenskünstler, or "survival artist." -- from the blog "LeisureArts"

I'm going to find out more about Oscar Wilde. He's been placed in front of me for a very strong reason. I will follow through.

Question for the Clerics.

I understand that heaven is more a state of existence than a place. In my Orthodox upbringing, we're taught that heaven is how, after death, a soul that loves God and His ways is in union with God, and in ecstatic joy, wrapped in the fullness of God's intimate love. Embraced by His love, the soul is now home and one with its creator. Hell, on the other hand, happens to a soul that has not grown to love God's ways or God's love, and now that it has passed over to the other side, lives in the eternal torment of not being able to accept, perceive, or take joy in the boundless love all around it. I would also add that it lives in contact, eternal yearning for a love and peace that it can never have, even though it exists more closely than ever.

So then, the idea is that our time on earth is time for us to condition ourselves to be open to God, to allow Him in to shape our souls, in preparation for living with him after the end, so that we become something that can receive his love, totally. In this way we will be enraptured by Him, and not alien and unfit for the love He has for us.

Question is, is it enough to WANT to love God, to yearn to be with him, to know the relief his love spells, even though you cannot stop sinning, even if you try? Is repentance enough? What if I can never truly repent? If I confess and weep and long for change, and I go and do the same thing again, have I really repented? I know this is the exact issue Christians lament and rejoice in at the very same time. It's this state of totally predictable and inescapable sin from which we are delivered. It's very, very hard to accept, sometimes, that we live in a redeemed state, no matter what we do. While the joy of Christianity lies in the idea that if we repent, believe that we are saved and forgiven, and are loved in God's eyes, it's so hard to let go of self-loathing when you steer yourself wrong. I guess, ultimately, it's more humbling to accept that you're loved despite your mistakes and your hurtful crimes, that you've marred a beloved soul, that all you have to do is keep loving yourself the way God loves you, that you have to continue to love in order to grow love. I can't explain it well enough, but it's almost humiliating to be shown love after you've messed up, royally. You wind up feeling like a dirty-faced, crying child.

Is it enough to want God? Or do you have to be living some kind of better life than what I keep getting seduced by? Or is everything I'm experiencing and choosing part of the plan to break me down, so I will finally allow His light to shine in? I've seen it before, I've been filled and warmed by it, I've been saved by it. I yearn for it now, and desperately hope I'm not unreachably far from it.

Catch and Release.

One thing I've discovered in writing this blog is that it seems to permanently release whatever it is I'm obssessing about... the things I write here, when captured in words, get released into the universe and don't come back. I don't want them back. I give them up as if I were igniting them and allowing them to become ash. The universe can have it.

In the few private moments I have right now, I wish to release my hate. All day long I've been saying, in my head, like a broken record (or scratched CD?), "I hate my life. I hate this. I hate living here. I hate him." It just keeps burning a track in my brain, and I'm afraid it'll burn so deeply I won't be able to emerge. Right now I feel like I love this track. I want to sink into it and destroy everything I hate, or run away from it, at least. I want to indulge it, and with a great amount of self-discipline, and maybe a smear of hope, I write it here. I want, more that I desire the indulgence of these passions, to be free. I read a post on a forum I visit that quotes Dostoyevsky; a quote about divine and universal love, despite all things. Right at this moment, when I feel like I'd love to crawl into bed and simply cement my feelings of hate with the seal of sleep, I read the thing I need to hear to free myself. Love is a choice. The quote is imperative.

COMPASSION MANDALA...from The Brother's Karamozov, by Dostoyevsky


...have no fear of human sin. Love people even in their sin, for that is the semblance of divine love and the highest love on earth...Love all of creation, the whole and every grain of sand in it. love every leaf, every ray of light. love the animals, the plants, love everything. If you love everything you will percieve the divine mystery in things. Once you percieve it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love.

I can live freely and openly and deeply in love, or I can indulge this hate some more. Is this hate serving a purpose? It's making me mope around like a teenager. It's also making me want change, which we need. What do I see that needs changing?

I see our children really being ignored. We use the TV so much. We choose to play on the computer rather than engage with them. This is so far from the lifestyle I encouraged at our former home. Why has it become the status quo here, so easily?

Speaking of computers, we use it for our pleasure and release. I use it for communication. To say what I really feel. He uses it for his entertainment, to feel connected, while he was NO CONNECTION to friends in the real world. He also uses it to look at naked ladies doing what he wishes I were doing, but can't, because he'd rather be entertaining himself at the computer. I hate this. I always have. And it never seems to change. I'd like it to change. I'd like him to come to me and start a conversation. I'd like him to ask me to go for coffee with him. I'd like him to offer me a massage, impromptu. I'd like him to talk to me. Have fun with me. Want me exclusively, find ways to entertain me, find ways around our situation to sneak in some love. He doesn't work at it. We're never a we. I've talked about this before. Do I need to talk about it again?

We're in my parents' house. I want that to change, too. I feel like getting a house is an inordinately heavy task for me to strive for on my own, and he seems content to wait here. I am not. I need out. I can wait a couple of months, and then I need my own space again. Money. It's pressing its ugly foot against my neck. I vowed to never become enslaved by thoughts of getting a house, getting more money... because it's soul-killing. I've done it once before, and I'm not interested in feeling that way again. Can I be like a patient Jedi and just sit and breathe and wait for the proper time? Why am I so impatient?

Because I'm filled with loathing, boredom, disapproval, restlessness and hate here. I don't want to deal with the things I see, the piles of work that never seem to get done, the effort it takes to get anywhere. I'm tired of the floors that need work, the walls that have been done poorly, the paint job that needs to get FINISHED after six bloody years. I'm too close to everyone, and have no space in which to be creative. Or alone. Or sexual. Or relaxed. This is why I want to leave.

I need release from all of this. If my mind could open up and find the space it needs just inside my head, if I could just feel love and enjoy the closeness, if I could just embrace the faults and have patience and talk and change the things that can be changed, I think I would feel that freedom I desire so greatly.

And even as I write that, there is a hard little seed in me that hopes somehow, my wish won't be granted. I have a miserable little grouch inside that's sabotaging these desires and tells me I'm not speaking the truth. All I want, it says, is true freedom, and to abandon everything for the sake of me. Truth is, just me is boring, useless, disloyal and misanthropic. Too quiet. Rash. Impulsive. Lonely. Desperately, coldly lonely... a loneliness that seems to echo and clang in its harshness. I don't even find very many people pretty anymore. It's as if the loneliness is taking from me the ability to be intrigued by anyone, thus stabilizing itself. It likes living in me. It seeks company, but hates it at the same time. Because weirdly, it feels good feeling so shitty. You can say so many awful things when you're stuck inside your head. You can utter things that feel like truth, that may actually be truth... but I suspect are not the bigger truth. The Truth with a capital "T". Loneliness and despair is like some kind of miserable masturbation. I hate it. I've fought it for a long time, and I'm standing on the verge.

The true me is asking the universe to take this from me, along with all the other junk, and hear the feeble voice that wants to be full of light, forgiven, pure, loved and loving again. Please help me forget this misery. Make me ready to release it.

Dreams: Your All-Access Portal to the Other Side

There has been a lot of intensity in the last few weeks. 2007 has begn a year of earnest change and revelation, and also a year that focuses on forgiveness, truth, courage and change. I've met nearly uncomfortably strong or intense people that have affected me deeply, and I've also felt danger more acutely. I'm standing on a knife's edge.

A few weeks ago, I spoke with my mentor, and asked her a question to which I already knew the answer. I asked her if my grandmother was with me, intimately. My mystical mentor confirmed that she was, and that she said "hi". I couldn't stop smiling. I asked my grandmother to talk to me, or show herself to me. The last two nights, she's come to me in dreams, in a very intense way. She's different... she's part of me, more. Her body has changed. She looks younger and she's more vigourous, but in the dreams, she's been preparing for death again. She and I both know it's coming, and the dreams have revolved around the emotions that exist surrounding the idea of anticipation of the end. In the first dream, she was getting ready, walking around my maternal grandmother's house, and every chance I got, I was hugging her and begging her not to go. She was preparing the stuff that she wanted me to have. In the second dream, which was just a few hours ago, she was in our kitchen, and we were making food. Her eyes were round and wide and reminded me of my childrens'. She was putting ingredients into my bowl so I could use some crazy noodle-making instrument. I remember that it was her hands. When I saw her preparing the food, I instantly got a rush of emotion and held her in an almost childlike embrace, and kissed her the way I kiss my youngest son. I asked her why she was here, and shouldn't she be somewhere else? To which she responded, "it's going to be so much better when we go to meet Him together, don't you think?"

My dad told me that dreams in which the dead speak, are simply reflections of our own emotions, and that the departed one is a construct of your own making. Or, on the other hand, that God is telling you that it's alright. When the dead do not speak and answer questions, that's when they're really there. I don't know. Why did he say that? Daddy knows some things. But does he know about this? Greeks know a lot about dreams and have a very rich superstitious/occult kind of cultural life, that's oddly braided together with very conservative and rich Christianity. I tend to believe all of it. The issue is, of course, spiritual safety, and what to acknowledge as helpful and truthful. Are these dreams me, working through my terrifying, panic-like response to my grandmother's death? Or are they her, because I asked her to be with me? We have the same name, I was her first girl (my first cousin never bonded with her like I did), and she always walked past me, when I was around her, and told me that there was "something about you that makes you different, special, important." Then she would tell me she loved me and kiss my eyes.

I'm living a life, now, in which I'm permitting behaviour she never would have considered. I don't know at all whether or not she'd be shocked. I get the strong, odd feeling that she wouldn't be shocked at all. I think she's concerned, but she's showing a profound amount of wisdom and love.

Am I going to die soon? I have to start preparing for the end, because I very well could. I'm not off my rocker. I have to come to peace with my life and my choices. I have to be forgiven for a lot, and I have to admit to God my wrongness. I don't, for one second, think I could have avoided the various things I've done. We are imperfect creatures, and we're ruled by our passions (in the classic sense of the word). This is not a romantic notion, and it's not a write-off. We are simultaneously fallen and redeemed. I have to place myself squarely in the nexxus of truth and forgiveness, and the only way to do that is to prepare for death, and wash myself, and dress myself, so that I can be presentable when I meet Him. Even if it's not coming tomorrow, my grandmother is reminding me that it is coming, regardless. Wisdom! Let us be attentive.

Affair with a bed.

I want to find a bed that puts me to sleep. I want a big, nice hotel room that's all my own. No... maybe I want a big bedroom in a house that's mine with no-one else in the house. Yeah. A big bed with a footboard, with a mattress that's long enough to hold my toes when I'm laying face-down. I want a very warm feather duvet and lots of big- fluffy, soft feather pillows, and very soft and clean sheets that smell like lavendar or rain or Downy or all of the above. Then, I want brand-new pyjamas that make me look really hot, and I want to be in them after I've taken a long bath where every bump or errant hair has been smoothed away, and I've been moisturized and perfumed, and my hair has been blowdried and I look sweet and feel warm. A bath, where there were jets, and I sidled up to a jet and it gave me a sweet, hard orgasm. Then, I want to crawl into this empty bed and wait for either a lover or sleep, and I would feel that sweet, hot sinking as I drift away happily.

I'm so cold, and jittery, and itchy and uncomfortable. I hate my pyjamas. I hate that my son is in the bed. I hate my pillow with great zeal. Was it the green tea I drank? The nap I took this afternoon? Is anyone available to take me out for a drink and maybe some kissing? I want to get a call right now and get invited out for chicken wings or pizza and some booze. Or pot. Yeah. I just want to feel pleasure. Warmth, and happiness. Because inside I feel so utterly lost and cold and jumpy and generally worried and sometimes self-loathing. I feel sad a lot, listless, and I can't sleep. This seems like depression, but I don't get depressed. I feel bored with people when they talk about themselves. I'm not bored all the time. Sometimes the conversations are great.

I can't get excited about that wedding tomorrow. I'm not excited about much. I think I'm excited about splurging what little money I've earned on a new dress for it, and dancing with the man I want to have an affair with. Wouldn't it be great if I could do just that in a dark corner AT the wedding? Breaing rules and causing mental chaos is such a turn-on right now.

Then I tuck my kids into bed and relish that feeling of sweetness and remember what it feels like to be happy for a moment. Why can't I hold onto that?

Because I can't sleep. And all I want is a big, warm bed that can hold me.

"Tell me about your mother"...

One more thing. I might as well get it all off my chest while we're here, getting to know each other. This way, we can move forward. I'm not going to waste any time confessing all the old ugliness, so we can get into the newer, juicier stuff.

My mom drives me crazy. Sometimes I love her to death... there were times she came to visit while we lived out of the country, and when she left, I would cry for two or three days. I remember when I was a teenager, and I would sit and her feet while she sat in an armchair, and I would rest my head on her lap and she'd run her fingers through my hair. I remember walking up to her, needing hugs. It wasn't that long ago. I keenly remember her telling me about a movie she'd seen with my dad, and I interrupted her, telling her that she was a great storyteller and that I was so interested in what she was saying, and how she was saying it.

And now, I hate the way she sounds when she eats. I absolutely despise how she deals with the kids. I hate her knotted brow. I hate her depression. I go bonkers when she describes things in too much detail, with way too much enthusiasm. I can't stand how she "suggests" and tries to diplomatically phrase her wishes;

"I was about to show something to you."
"What was that?"
"I pulled out all this yogourt from the fridge. There are five containers (as she's progressively getting more and more agitated). Let's make sure this doesn't happen again. This is such a waste."
"Ok... it's ok. It's not a big deal. We'll just use it."
"It IS a big deal! This is money, hun."

It's yogourt. And I wasn't even home during the day for about two weeks in a row due to work. I'm not the one processing what's in the fridge! And it was my money.

It's all so trivial. This is the stuff that annoys you when you're stuck in a cabin in a blizzard with no communication and limited rations for a week or a month or a year. So. Cabin fever? Maybe a little. More than that, I suspect. As you can likely tell, I'm going through some rather difficult reflection lately. All the things she exhibits stress me, they always have... and I simply have no tolerance for it anymore. I find it hard to even be friendly during the good times. She doesn't deserve that kind of behaviour from me. (I edited that phrase. What I originally wrote was, "She doesn't deserve it." Interesting. Mr. Therapist, please take note.)

I deserved to be tolerated better when I was little. Even today. I deserve forthrightness. I want directness, and solidness. I don't get that from her. I want SPACE. I want relaxed intimacy. I want to feel like... I'm totally alright. Like I'm not doing anything wrong. Like I'm not required to do anything differently, or that I'm missing point 897, subsection a) of the Family Book of Etiquette and Protocol. I want to be ok. I thinkI imagine I'm not doing enough to make life easier or do better in the house or contribute enough. I get a very strong sense that I'm indeed pissing everyone off, all the time. At least I worry that I am. I feel observed and evaluated.

How much will be solved once I finally get out of this house? I shouldn't be so eager to leave... honouring my mother and father is a commandment. I should title this blog, "Commandments, Schmandments". We'll see how many I can break before I'm done publishing.

This isn't major. This is one of those things I can live with, since I know my mother will always be my mother, no matter what. I know I love her, and I know how much of me IS her, and I know it will come and go as the conditions surrounding us change. This isn't like the other stuff. The other stuff changes life inalterably. It threatens my kids and my husband and his family and mine. Wow.

Ok, mom. You're off the hook.

Underneath

I'll model for the University again. I can show my scars that way, I can lay on drapery again. I can be interpreted and brushtips can caress the outline of my curves, bringing me to life a hundred times, in a hundred different ways.

Does sacred mean secret? Does sacred mean unshared? No. Churches ask more and more, and forever more worshippers to enter into the Lord's chamber. They ask soul after soul to come into intimate contact with Love. They commune Love with Lover.

Yet, after all this waxing eloquent about sharing, loving, welcoming and plurality, I get momentarily jealous when my lover loves another. I feel disposed-of. Moved beyond. I'm in an impossible position. I understand that if my "indiscretions" were known to my partner, he would feel much the same way, only worse. Exponentially worse. And I wonder why this is? Is it because, simply, I agreed to a contract with him? Made a(n impossible?) promise? Or is it something more primitive? I feel it too... of, for, and because of people with whom I've never made contracts.

I know there are reams of hypotheses regarding the issue of whether or not monogamy is meant for humanity. I guess this is not a new discussion. Bluntly put, I, like millions of other wives, single women, men, poetic, musical monks, animals and ancient gods, want to fuck many people, in many places, whenever I want. And I can't. It's simply not reality. The Romans tried that, and look what happened to them.

I guess I have to gain mastery over my carnal nature and move beyond. Onwards, and upwards. We're given these philosophical minds for a reason. Freedom and peace come when one climbs that mountain and submits to that mean, old, benevolent Teacher with the long, white beard. Maybe taking Tai-Chi will start me off on the right foot?

I'm happy when I'm simple. Sometimes I have to remove myself entirely from the world, shut my ears and close my eyes, put away that magnetic phone with its marvellous text messages, and in a few days, I'll start to remember that I actually DO like to bake bread, finish a needlepoint, watch a movie and have a glass of wine. Do I like to make love to my husband? I don't know. I don't remember anymore. I'm supposed to. He's the one I'm allowed to have. And I don't take advantage. I don't find solace and peace and release and joy there. I haven't for a very VERY long time. Would climbing a mountain with him to the top, and sequestering ourselves there help?

This mental whirlwind isn't new to anyone. Especially those of you who've heard me yammer before, over coffee and cute waiters.

You know, I've always felt like I was a whore, a madame, in a previous life. I always, since I was a child, identified with it. Maybe a geisha. Something like that. It's odd, but as a girl I would close my eyes and imagine many many partners. I've always known that I wasn't designed for purity. I have this moral absoluteness on one hand... that's been the public part of me. Perhaps, unsurprisingly, it's part of me because the real, seething underpart of me is exactly the opposite. I'm the same as any rabid disgraced clergyman. The strength of my argument for self mastery is only strong because I understand the relevance of it... the only reason it's relevant is because of what I'm trying to fight. And I wish I didn't have to live with this tension.

Sorry you had to see this. Glad you did, though.

There is an increasing schism between my internal world, and the life I've living externally. I need a place wherein I can admit to the boiling, lava-like reality I have, flowing slowly in scalding hot rivers through me. It's not always ugly. But everything here, if told to the wrong person, could result in great pain or difficulty. One day, I hope, I'll be able to live these things authentically, triumph over them, eradicate them, relish them or admit them, without the whole world apparently shifting and breaking open under my truth.

First things first. I'm in love with a lot of people. And that's causing some internal conflict. I don't know what to do about it. I want to be free to love everyone as much as I can, in whatever way I feel. I don't want categories of expression to be exclusive or regulated, I don't want my feelings to be morally metred. I want to fuck people. I want to kiss them. I want to go for coffee with them, alone, for hours, without having to ask for permission or worry that someone will get jealous or offended. I want to offer my shoulder, my skin, my lips, my hand, my dancing, my muscles, my milk, my cooking, my laughter and my need to whomever God puts in my path. I want to spread pleasure around. And this would be ok, if it didn't mean that when I do this, all of these ways of sharing diminish in my homelife. With my husband. Ah yes. This is why it's complicated.

And, I think, if I only had permission... if joy were taken in my love for sharing myself this way, nothing at home would diminish at all. It would flourish. I would be able to surmount the guilt and triumph over it, and the true me could love the true him, and we could marvel at the world together, with honesty. joy and reverence.