herthoughtsaredope

[herthoughtsaredope]

3 ways I knew THIS love was NOTHING like ANY other love I’d experienced.

1. My FEMALE COMPLEX dissolved immediately in his presence.

There’s a quote, by William James, that reads “if you wish to upset the law that all crows are black, it is enough to prove that one single crow is white.”

If you grew up anything like me, not seeing strong examples of relationships or marriages, but instead relationships that were chock full of public disputes, infidelity [almost ALWAYS on the part of the man], drug/alcohol addictions, relentless cycles of emotional/verbal abuse [between BOTH women & men] that ended up in some form of abandonment, then YOU KNOW what I mean when I say FEMALE COMPLEX. It’s a term I use to describe the complex I developed, early on, before my teen years, wherein I did not see men as capable of RUNNING homes, but rather RUINING homes. This complex grew exponentially as I matured into an adult woman who was never taught about the power of manifestation, that the more I thought of something, the more of it I’d experience. Plagued with memories of men who were weak in their flesh & character, and women who publicly voiced their disdain for this behavior, but privately perpetuated it, I tended to immediately draw my attention to these characteristics in the men that I met; I also tended to draw inward, speaking life into my insecurities and then unleashing them onto my partners. Prior to becoming my most evolved self, I would secretly punish men, in advance, for atrocities they hadn’t yet committed.  Some of them went on to actually prove my preconceived notions about men correct, and others just left confused by the entire experience, i’m sure. Most of the time, men didn’t have a fighting chance with proving themselves to me and any man who expected me to believe that he could be the exception to my bias, was a damn fool in my mind. UNTIL…. one day, the EXCEPTION walked into the room.

I was the most hardened women I knew, complete with childhood trauma, trust issues and untreated emotional wounds….Until I met him. For the sake of his privacy, we’ll call him Don. The day that Don walked into my job, was the day that my “female complex” disappeared, not all at once, but gradually enough to slowly disarm me, allowing me to experience the divine synchronicity that is now us.  

2. My voice modulated to the point I didn’t even recognize my own “pitch”.

I use the word “pitch”, because that is exactly what many of my interactions with men consisted of, me “pitching” myself to them, persuading them into purchasing me as a service, and by any means closing the deal. In retrospect, I’m embarrassed of how little faith I had in my ability to be a strong enough woman, one whose integrity of character could be a pitch in itself.  

Don walked up to me and said hi and suddenly the tone of my voice changed. All at once, I was speaking without motive, I didn’t feel the habitual, nagging, need to  “let him know” I wasn’t the kind of girl he could “fuck over”. In fact, nothing in me cared to defend herself. The nature I had suppressed my entire life, for fear that I’d be taken advantage of, peeked out from behind the curtain. Rather than to immediately start spouting out about all of my accomplishments and offering up my perspective on how others view me [because female complexes come with EGO’s and ego’s are figurative sales agents who constantly over-sell their products for maximum profit], instead, I felt an urgency to say nothing at all. I remember thinking  “If the only sound I ever heard again was his voice, I would be completely fine with that”. My ego was transmuted into selflessness in an instant.    

3. I left the lights on and then got dressed STANDING UP after sex

As crazy as that heading sounds, It’s more common than men understand. My experience with  fidelity, coupled with my unhealed insecurities, left me feeling like all men wanted from me was sex; My fear of being used often lead me to attract men who would do exactly that, use me. I found myself twisting and turning myself into pretzel shapes in bed, in order to present my most attractive angles. During sex, I laid down, fully-clothed, and removed my clothes from that position, because breasts look “less saggy” when we’re laying down; I had to have the lights off and any sign of a man getting up to turn them on would have sent me into a body-dysmorphic panic. Of course I’d never tell a man this, and If he did reach for a light I’d play it cool, but the reality was I was freaking out. As you can imagine, I never really enjoyed sex with men, It gave me anxiety. And OMG, the sex wasn’t even the worse part, having to get dressed was. I’d roll over on my stomach and search around for my clothes, grabbing any blanket, towel and shirt I could find to drape over my breasts and stomach. SMH. Just thinking about this is making me cringe. This all changed with Don. I remember throwing my robe on right away after we’d have sex, but that was short lived. Something about his nature spoke directly into mine. The way he looked at me felt “safe”, I could almost hear him appreciating my body without him actually having spoken the words. I had never before felt this kind of peace during sex. Don is a LIGHTS ALL THE WAY ON kind of man, which I also found myself having no reservations about. Not only this, but when he would stand up to get dressed, there was an inexplicable gravitational pull that forced my body from it’s laying-down position, up onto my feet, and there I was, getting dressed, standing up, after sex, with no signs that I might spontaneously combust. After the first few times, I wasn’t the same woman I had ever been for another man. THIS woman did not exist before Don. Relaxed and at peace, I was finally able to experience sacred intimacy and well...ORGASMS. And as you can imagine, I went from the woman who could find any reason not to have sex, to a woman fully-emerged in her most erotic self.

[herthoughtsaredope]

Before I was a woman, I was a little girl, who was taught to interact with things that will never interact back. I spent the next two decades comfortably dancing around men, putting words in their mouths, having tea for the two of us, desperately bringing them everything I thought they'd ask for if they could speak, dressing them to suit the occasion, holding them close at night, and feeling empty without them. The day I became a mother, I refused to allow anyone to buy my daughter teddy bears and even now, she's not allowed to interact with anything that doesn't have a pulse, or a reciprocal response.

[herthoughtsaredope]

I asked him what was wrong. He replied "nothing". I handed him my camera and said "why don't you take this, go out and shoot, it always makes me feel better". When he got home, I uploaded his pictures. He'd taken shots of places I had never seen, in our own city. I knew right then what was wrong with him, he wanted freedom. They say if you want to know what a person is most afraid of losing, look at what they photograph. And I know that's true, because I take thousands of pictures of myself.

[herthoughtsaredope]

I hate that I waited for you again, that I cancelled all my plans, that I shaved better than usual, that I bought your favorite bottle, strategically placed candles where they would best illuminate my body for you because I know you like to watch… I hate that I believed you. I can’t put my finger on why I still let you do this, why I still get excited that one time you actually follow through on your word, why I am not yet disgusted at the 12 times you left me waiting this month alone. I cooked, only to have another $60 meal get cold. I sure wasn’t about to eat it, not with all this anxiety and disappointment in my stomach. I hate that i’m laying here, sick again, with worry, with humiliation, with doubt, with fear, with loneliness; Sick of all the running around I do when you say you’re on your way, the speed cleaning, hair primping, linen spraying, stretching & breathing. Hate that I daydream through my 9 hour shift and allow my mind to wander to places where trust doesn’t actually exists, but for the sake of preparation, I imagine every position I might allow you to have me in, against my own standards; Daydream about letting you stay, in. I hate that I only have 3 memories of us that I vicariously live through for months at a time. I hate that I know damn well this isn’t what I deserve but I can’t un-do this fucken spell, hate that I love what I love and that I can fight ANYthing except my emotions for you. Wish I wouldn’t have told people about you, God knows all the deserving men are sick of hearing about how good i make mistakes. Hate that I know i’m more than what you could have prayed for; hate it even more that I haven’t stopped once to question wether or not you even remotely live up to my prayers. Crazy fucked up how my love can transcend your selfishness & stupidity; how I can change from liquid to solid to give you a foundation to stand on and then back from solid to liquid to give you a foundation to recreate in. Hate that one day, after i’ve detoxed from you, i’ll move on, with some regular love, that shows up, predictably, daily, and with every intention of loving me the way I deserve, and late at night, i’ll hide in a corner of his home, on this same couch, and crave the uncertainty of your love....still.

[herthoughtsaredope]

Loving me is going to require you to wake up earlier than usual, lose sleep, read more often, grit your teeth at the thought that I may do to you what you once did to other women. This is going to require you to confront every fear in yourself that you see within me, because running away isn’t going to be an option. This is fight of flight, and whichever decision you make, you’ll need to make it upfront and execute the minute after you’ve decided. This is time you aren’t about to waste, past hurt you can’t use as excuse, behavioral patterns that won’t be dismissed for the sake of your comfort, failure I will not allow you to dwell in, communication you’ll need to learn overnight if you plan to survive here. This isn’t an invitation to tell me that my standards are ridiculous because when your mother gave birth to you she was given the same options, with no time to process, no time to herself, no ownership of her own anatomy. And yes, it was her choice to have a child like it is your choice to be in this relationship. This is going to require labor, just like your mothers, pain just like your mothers, tears just like your mothers, blood just like your mothers, heartbreak just like your mothers, disappointment just like your mothers, life long commitment, just like your mothers. Don’t you dare show up here acting like you haven't had a proper example of strength. Even if your mother didn't stick around, she made sure you did, act like that matters.

[herthoughtsaredope]

He loves me more when i’m apologetic, because it gives him hope that he’s got me, hope that I haven’t caught on to it, hope that I might stay around long enough for him to see if he can succeed in a more comfortable relationship, hope that I won’t be upset when he settles beneath himself, hope that I don’t realize he purposely settles beneath himself because it’s easier for him to feel like a man under these circumstances. I just keep saying sorry, but i’m not, and he keeps accepting my apologies, as though he actually believes that my frustrations about his damaged behavior are my fault. He loves when I show remorse for my emotional outbursts, he feels exonerated. I can almost hear the smile in his tone as he tells me, in the most calm voice,  “it’s okay. We all respond differently. I appreciate your vulnerability”. It’s textbook sorcery, It’s that “let me project my damage and then save you with my grace” bullshit that he uses on his desperate subjects. And I play into it, presuming and curious as to what lengths a marred man would go to obliterate someone else. The catch 22 is that the only people that can truly discuss the casualties of war are the ones who stood on the front line. So here I am, front and center, pleading for forgiveness, once again.  I say “I’m sorry I reacted this way. I’m going to do better. It’s me, not you. I’m working on myself so that I am not offended by you. I’m hurt, and i’m taking it out on you”, and he continues with “yes, it is you. I know you’re hurt. You get upset when I don’t love you the way you expect to be loved. Just because I don't show up doesn't mean I don't care, things just come up yaknow? Just because I don't express myself emotionally doesn't mean that I don't feel anything, just because...just because...Just because....”.  The intense fucking validation of every-single-shitty-passive-aggressive display of repressed emotional hostility happens like clockwork. If he could only see my face on the other end of the phone, cigarette in hand, smirking wildly, and documenting the depth of one damaged mans manipulation. “Monday, March 27th, 12:15am: If I connected the dots of this mans patterns, I’d configure a circle, talk about running loops around women, talk about pathological motive, talk about predictability. I’m in a relationship with a mad man that doesn’t realize his existence has been tapped into….and he’s in a relationship with the woman controlling the wires.  Can you imagine how sorry i'll have to be when he realizes he's the victim?"