the hurt the heart and the healing

why on earth can i not get my shit together lately? i'm so very tired of dealing with depression. i sit here day after day, trying to make sense of life, not living it. that's sort of how depression works. you just wait for the exit. nobody tells you which one it is or how long you'll be driving, you just have to guess at it and hope.

it hurts to feel so alone with depression. it feels like you can't make sense of anything real and you end up interpreting dreams to your partner, trying to squirm out of the muck by some symbolic means. maybe in my dreams i am not depressed... maybe that means some place in me isn't suffering. you hold that there in your mind for a few days and pretend until you wake up weak again without reason. you just trudge on again, another day, another false exit.

in your heart, everything feels blank paged, white and fuzzy. like an old tv station, the black and white sandstorm just blows around not making any sense. you know you can love. you know you are lovable. but not now. not like this. it's hard to press GO on anything because it feels like one big constant fuck up. one huge mistake you're about to make after another. i can do the sexual side of love, because it's a certain exit. but the emotional side of love feels broken into many pieces scattered all over. hurt and resentments keep blowing over the warmth and generous nature i am so used to.

i try and impregnate my ideas with objective thinking and logic. i try and reason with an insane and illogical illness. depression doesn't really care if my house is clean. clean sheets feel good, but it's not helping me get out of bed. if anything, it's the opposite. i drive and get a coffee. it's like the three bears- too sweet, too strong or too cold. nothing fits, emotionally speaking.

healing takes so much courage because it's working hard. it's practice, just living [surviving] with depression. I'm sitting across from my 17 year old, doing her homework, trying to understand how i got here? how on earth did i go from 25 to 45 year old? why did i waste the years right after my gastric bypass, the skinny years, holed up inside my house, dating someone in another country? i have to accept that repeatedly, i have made so many irrational decisions i can't even blame anyone else for what a state i am in. looking back, i did this things to myself. i gave up on me and either on purpose or subconsciously, i failed my dreams.

i regained weight, i started smoking or drinking again, i stopped working out or even walking, i'd repeatedly buy crap i didn't need, i ate horribly, i sank further into the lowest career one could have- and neglected all my bright shiny starstuff in favor of someone who would be jealous, dampening and completely wrong for me. what do i do these things for? how do these people even come into my life? it's as if by some strange law of fatal attraction, the worst things keep denting my armor.

i don't really have any armor now to dent. i just don't try. i guess that's a lot of this depressive episode... i really just gave up on myself. i figured i'll not go back to school, or change my status or class or net worth- i'm 45, not going to be a hot market item, why bother? why not just scrub floors and go to AA meetings and give up? hell, i even gave up talking. i really can't even do that any more. i don't talk. i think that's kind of a big deal, maybe i should mention to my doctor...? who is verbal and sassy for 25 years, then just gives up speaking?

anyway. i am small and i have caused a lo of my own troubles. i have been a selfish child or a traumatized adult and what is left at my age is a really, really exhausted woman who has no idea what to do next.

missing her

i miss you sweet verruca. i wish dogs lived forever.

in dreams begin responsibility- yeats

i sat and applied makeup, arduous as it might be for someone with depression. i have this thing to moisturize, this other bottle to eliminate deep pores, a concealer for wrinkles, dark spots, heavy eyes. this one tube contours, this one makes a highlight across my cheek like a ray of sunlight. this one makes eyes less saggy, this color detracts for thinning eyelids. it's a ritual and one i have not performed in many weeks.

i go to my regular checkup for my adrenal glands today and another nuance of growing older; having my hormones checked. what a wackadoodle sort of career aging is, in itself. someone has seen these posts lately, i wonder who, then i melt away from those thoughts and stop caring again. i have two bets: someone who loves me very much or someone who really hates me, or both. i won't bet on anything or anyone today.

applying makeup is a form of art that i used to rush, because in youth, i could afford to. now it must be quality products, tasteful and not too dry, not too dark. as i watch myself turning this mid-40s alien, i love myself for it. what bravery to just age and grow up without much fussing. i admire women who can do it well. it's a quiet battle, not like puberty where curves jut out suddenly, attracting opinions on various ways to flatten them. it's a slow process, middle age, of daily changes that add up to big changes. gray hair, the relaxation of once tight skin, sagging this or that, little lines here, wrinkles there, slower walking, hips that ache at night before bed. the loss of sexual desire. the thinning out of friends. the contemplation, JEEZ, the sudden realizations about one's own life.

it takes imagination and responsibility. i was reading haruki murakami and something about imagination being a responsibility grabbed at me. aging, living even, takes both -and it takes guts. it's not for the faint of heart. strength, to me, has always taken shape in the form of creativity and imagination, but during depression, like other illnesses, i just want the current pain to be over and done with. i have to literally imagine myself once happy, or future selves happier. that's literally what it takes to muddle through and trudge out of the tunnel of a depressive episode.

this very adult responsibility to stay breathing, to stay alive amidst despair, can require a huge amount of energy. that's not counting the myriad ways one must survive, much less carry responsibilities, like bills, kid, relationship, dogs, home, food, sleep, makeup, doctors, driving, reading, self care. imagine trying to always imagine one's self happy, not just existentially, but truly, a sick brain that cannot remember. a brain that thinks it has always been like this and will always be like this. that's the kind of depression i have. it strikes writers, artists, musicians, mailmen, housewives, book lovers, people who aren't very smart, kids, the elderly... it's not really a type of brain as much as it appears to be a type of universal pattern. every race, every religion, every kind of human can develop this.

i wonder sometimes if the universe places us like sentinels for the rest of the normal people, just to throw them into a state of chaos or gratitude? i really have no idea what kind of God would create depression so i can't say i believe much in them/him/it, to be honest. i also can't say that i don't believe in Gods or Universal jokes as much as i believe that anything can be a better written story through imagination. my reality, it's not terrible, but it's not wonderful.

it's ok. i survive and sometimes i make art about it. writing the story is far more interesting.

that feels more spiritual that just surviving depression. it's the story i tell about it, before, during and after that seems to be magical. there is something in the writing that i process as a neutral being. a meta self, that is in an imaginative dream state, rather than survival mode. that is mainly why i must write. i don't think i figured that out until just now, just to show how writing it out- works. more than medication or talk therapy [those have a great place in my recovery] writing takes center stage as an act of defiance and resistance to depression.

you can have all these things, you shitty mental illness, but not this.

i look fairly decent today, for a middle aged woman, but i guess i am not as interested in looks as much as substance. beautiful people are as they do, not as they appear. in my experience the bee with honey its mouth always had a sting in its tail anyway.

responsibility. i don't have to write. but i have a part to play in my depression recovery, which writing has become a part of more than i care to admit. i am afraid a lot. i will say it's not a very rational sort of fear. it's not like i have anxiety or anything, i just have a healthy, realistic awareness of growing older that is a little unsettling. it's the kind of fear that leads you outside the house, having coffee with older women and going to volunteer so you're not just taking up space. i do plenty, but i really do seek out things beyond my own existence, even if i secretly don't enjoy them.

but again, one can't be too certain about what is enjoyed or not in the midst of a depressive episode. i doubt very much i could or would enjoy my favorite things, because i know that reality and it's true. if i'm being honest, i probably enjoy sleeping and eating way too much when i am depressed. it can be a herculean task to not sleep and eat all day when these episodes appear. so you see, it's not just about a clean happy home, looking good, eating right, sleeping well, getting out, coffee dates or even knowing this is depression. it's a mental illness. it's not an attitude. it's a warped lens that quite truly skews the entire perception of reality. a reality that was fine three months ago, humming along, making jokes, wearing makeup, going to galleries and making salads from vegetables bought at the farmer's market or grown from my own garden.

it's perceptive amnesia -and it kills people.

it has not got me yet. i guess today, i am most grateful to be reminded i am actively participating in my life, however it looks or feels. no matter how much i must imagine myself happy in order to make it through another day. where i wait. and wait. and wait...
to exit this tunnel.

purging the clutter

I have a naughty dog who likes to pee in my crawl space, despite his doggie door. despite having a large back yard enough room for fifteen dogs to all go piss on shrubs and trees and fences, he wants to piss inside. i am displeased tonight.

I have been purging things from my house. general disorder and clutter wear on me, mentally. I do this about once every five years, where it feels like EVERYTHING MUST GO. The only way for me to come out of depressions is to make major shifts. I am better at not ending relationships in the midst of depressive episodes now. that took a long time to hurdle over.

i am lucky in that i own nothing of value, really. i have mostly thriftt store items decorating my home and so it' not a big loss when i let go. it gets easier to just box it up and take it to goodwill, knowing it already had a second or third life with me and will move along the conveyor belt to some other home.

i don't know why i write any more. i know i have to, for some reason. i have learned that a depressed mind is an unquiet mind, despite the silent way i go about life these days. i was once loud, obnoxious even, and would write or tell anything to anyone. then a wall slowly started building and since then, i have become a quiet person. my mind, however, is not quiet. it runs through scenarios and obstacles and past traumas and failures every day.

i think the need to declutter is to give my very real life a larger, more vast space for this mind. i need an echo, something large and empty to speak into. besides my partner, i am mostly alone. i don't gravitate toward people or social places. i think i used to in order to feel i had a place i belonged, but i really don't crave that in my mid-40s. i don't really crave much of anything, but writing and reading, the occasional classical music listening... a walk, fruit. i really like fruit now, which is not something i ever enjoyed much in the past.

[still pissed at the dog for his naughty pee jobs]

you'd think having a mate in the mental health field, i'd be more prone to talk to him about when i am not well. you'd think that, but the opposite is true. i find myself having surface conversations to avoid telling him i am not doing great. you'd think a partner in the mental health field would notice small signs or ask important questions, but it's just not true. maybe i'm just too prideful or maybe i just don't want to have anyone make a fuss over me any more. i feel like i ran out of my fussing over chances long ago.

being lonely is a gift, really. it's sort of easy to eschew responsibility and just wander off into whatever i'm doing that day. it's also a curse in that i never feel known, looked after, respected, missed or maybe, probably, truly loved. i guess that's just the way it goes. i'm fortunate to have a home, a car, insurance, a computer to write, sweet dogs that unnerve me, a tasteful life, nothing too frilly or big. the same with people. it's a tasteful one or two people i trust. there is not pretense there. they know my mental health sucks. they dig me anyway. nobody in my life expects me to be anything i am not. i worked hard for that. when you have BPD, you have to be so transparent for so long, eventually you really do just stop saying much of anything at all. giving back all those personalities to the wind... you kind of become the wind. untouchable, ungraspable, this wild and unseen force.

i am so protective of my recovery that i don't make mention of things like common grief. losing both my parents and still dealing with those losses, 2 years after. Mother was hardest of all. Dad just sort of disappeared. Mom dying after i cared for her for 5 months, watching cancer eat her, that wasn't really what i was expecting. i was hoping she might live forever, i guess. or until i was old. right where i am sitting writing, she laid there and died in my arms. not something you just get over, especially living in the same house, sitting in the same spot she took her last breath.

i'm glad i have my computer back up and running. it feels like an old friend.
i am grateful i have this naughty dog and my two other old, not naughty dogs. after doggie girlfriend died last month, it has been hard to really connect to the dogs. what a loss that was.

she was my sweet girl. :(

anyway, maybe one day i'll have the balls to talk to a partner about depression without being terrified. maybe someday i can just be fully in a relationships without my secrets and silences or muffled resentments that turn everything cold and indifferent in my unresolved mind.

maybe...

The Familiarity of Seasons

I am not supposed to be writing. I am supposed to be moisturizing me face and playing makeup for a family dinner to celebrate my partner’s last day at work. i am not supposed to be reading Murakami or listening to Chopin & Liszt. i am supposed to be turning the lights on in the house, feeding our little dogs, being careful and correct. i am not supposed to be writing again, with some maniacs urge that dwells silent for months, then frantically rushes to my mind, unable to be contained. But i am not doing anything to make it better. i am doing what I have to do. i have always tried to blame myself for doing what i was not supposed to do. i lost whole lives, whole relationships over this kind of thing. Lost years and babies and travels to new places, writing in an old second hand chair, because I have to. because i must.

I twiddle my ring finger and smile, because i know i am loved. I love him, too. My partner brought me a gift yesterday. a coffee tumbler with a little owlet in a snow hat, one of those ear-flap hats, the illustration reminds me of a children’s book cover. the title could be the little winter owl, the snowy day, owlet takes off, the owl that couldn’t stop rushing her writing because she had to. The owlet that is loved by John.

i am not supposed to be typing. i am supposed to be putting on lipstick. i should have perfume on by now.

The dogs know when we are leaving by the scent of my perfume in the air. they get excited and start moaning and whimpering because they think it’s car riding time. It’s not. It’s a simple diner, john’s choice, maybe taxi, maybe indian, probably mexican food. I text John: 

What do you want for dinner out tonight?

He replies…

I want

You

your skin

on my

Skin

Sometimes i feel breathless. I am older than breathless. flushed maybe. A hopeful sigh, more like. I have aged into the category of “will my hormones cooperate?” sex. It’s not Velvet underground sex. it’s chopin sex, and i am trying not to berate myself with the musts in this category. I must write. i must have hot, passionate sex. I must eat healthy food. I must feed the dogs.  must give feminist advice to my daughter with a broken heart. i must quote anne sexton and margaret atwood. i must apply lipstick, staining my 45 year old lips with the crimson of the 90s riot grrl i once was. Still am. Must be. all the obligatory categories carefully crafted into a well-balanced, cohesive narrative. a brand. fuck that.

i am writing while the bird clock whistles. The yellow finch. 6pm and i am full of supposed to dos and failures, despite the fact that i am writing again. something private just for me. you might read it, there is a you out there, for whatever reason, i count on that to keep me going or else i think i’d probably just throw in the old towel.

there is a you. so many. a woman in a college classroom teaching young women about feminism in literature. There is a you in a bookshop where it snows and the walks are long and white. a you in California where the kitchen smells like comfort food. A you in atlanta that is a doctor who is also my half sister, whom i have never met. a you who is a radio dj who is the reason i was able to escape 18 years ago. a you that is the rich guy who wouldn’t know how to react to anything brilliant because his head’s up his ass. A you that is an ex. a you that is an alcoholic. a you that is still trapped. a you that has a cage for a heart and can’t cum because it’s too depressing. a you that is a drag queen. a you that makes small gifts for friends who stays quiet. a you who has a house full of kids who never dared to write again.

and there is a me.

a me who is not supposed to, but must.

When John gets home and is in the shower, i might stop writing, just to go see his skin, his chest hair, the little black circles of fur around his nipples. his long hair wet and soggy like an afghan hound in the rain. his hips, just in the right light, make me grin devilishly and i still feel in awe of the other things. I am not supposed to be writing.

This Murakami novel is not bad. Now, i am not even doing that. The classical piano in the background,a warring faux fireplace, a dog snore, a dog sigh, a little happy home full of sounds and life and musts. I have an inexorable urge to write these things down, lest i lose my mind or memory or both. I have done both already, many times.

today is ordinary. except i had a feminist art urge to show someone my bloody maxi pad. I talked about periods with a friend i ran into at walgreen’s. i painted my nails red. this shade of red is called “berry” but the last one was called “daddy’s girl.” but fuck that.

i am not Velvet Underground sex. i am a slow, sunday morning drive that crescendos into hills and valleys in autumn. A familiar season. A haunting cold, followed by the flushed cheeks of a once-been Lolita. I am a fund and full, healthy mother, full os sex in everything I do. A lazy & phone-it-in sometimes partner, sometimes hot. Not usually. I have to stop debating what my sexuality is supposed to feel and look and smell like at my age. i don’t know. It’s ripe. It’s maybe a little over ripe. does this matter to the man who wants to come home and feel my skin on his skin for dinner?

not really.

the ghost in scotland

I have been doing little else besides saying "dinna fash" to my 3 dogs and staying cooler by watching outlander & enjoying cooking. i had a big garden this year and made lots of food from it. my eyes finally went south this year, i don't draw or make much or write often. so frustrating to lose the gift of sight. i do wear readers, but it's not the same. i also developed a lot of grey streaking in my hair. i imagine due to age & the stress of losing both parents in the last 4 years, 2 years apart. Dad died on mom's birthday and then mom passed away on my sister's 50th. I held out for a few years even writing about it. there was a time i couldn't imagine being silent, creatively, but i have a community now. people who need me and who i am grateful to in my recovery. i suppose i spend more time living, than creating art about living.

it's in the 90s today here in arkansas. i am book-ended by hot and cold extremes, very few places on the planet experience. I miss writing. i miss the sound of my keys and my voice overlapping in the written word, not silent, but not spoken. I actually speak a lot. MANY time over women and men have heard my story in public, and it has been therapeutic, but it's grown almost, dare i say, annoying and cringy to hear my own voice. I do love saying things in an accent, however. not a lot changes in that world. New week, new accent! My dogs & daughter think i'm kooky and that's fine. i am. Worse things than kooky, if you ask me.

I feel that grief plays a large role in creative block. Also, depression. I have learned so much about the process of being a person with a disability & that sort of liminal existence, as well as being very successful and happy where i am, but only due to gratitude. this year, i gave away more time than i earned a wage for. but it has a incredible feeling of joy behind it. money canna buy that. sassenach. :) I always hope, in some delusional part of me, that certain people I have loved will read my blog. without interrupting their lives or emailing or causing a muck, I hope people can see an update & figure i'm still out here, alive and hopeful. I never sold rings or got desperate and left my home. i am in the same spot now 5 years later. My mother passed away here. I developed my spirituality here. i made recovery happen here. sometimes, i feel it's time to move on, but my kid is only a single year from college now. i stay put & wait for that. then i can go... to california. to scotland. to just about anywhere i please. that was the right path and that was smart. i do not regret the wonderful relationship we have, nor choosing it.

i might also never wander off this arkansas hill, and that's okay too.
i might make art again. i might follow my lover to colorado in a converted camper van and sell trinkets and crystals. i certainly have so much vitality and life left in me. in many ways, i feel this is just the beginning of another entirely different story. letting go all the frustrations of the past and moving forward without them weighing me down any more. not trauma or resentments or addictions to feed- but just one unceremoniously serene day after the next, which are all just fine. unremarkable is, as unremarkable does. i certainly have had a huge adventure in life.  i hope to have many more.

my work and publications in a stack in my studio

when is it time to let go?

when is it time to let go? that has been a daunting task since i was a kid. then as a wife and a mother, i faced a similar task. i am a bit of a serial monogamist, but largely, living with mental illness has kept me from truly coming out of my box. a friend once told me i kept my world very small. they were right. as i sat on my back porch again today, i thought "kelly, you have not written in so, so long... what's going on with you?" so i decided to write.

i am really stressed right now. i have been caring for my mother who has stage 4 cancer. i have a teenager who is going through an immense amount of teenage stuff and also social and existential stuff. not to mention, being the teen of parents who divorced when they were 10 months old. i am a gastric bypass survivor and my youtube channel has had hundreds of thousands of views on that topic. but mostly, i am a free spirit, or so i thought. when i was 38, i developed some of the worst depression symptoms i had ever know, after i was sexually assaulted. it was not easy to talk about, so nobody knew that happened. my engagement the year prior ended to dishonesty after we had bought a house and i started living my dream. when that fell apart, i turned to an old friend who then assaulted me in my home. i spent months drinking and trying to figure out what had happened to my life. i asked myself many times, why i, as someone who had endured so much, now had to face this? it would be 3 years later before i went into therapy. my therapist is my most favorite part of my story. she has been the one person who has cheered me on for years, even when i was just about to flunk out of life.

the last year has been trying, difficult, but not impossible. i have learned to live one day at a time, not getting to far into the story before have thought things through. i do have a tendency to overthink now, which makes me slower to act on what needs to change rather quickly. i had been with an alcoholic for a few years, who was sober. when things started really heading downward, we decided to separate but he drank and continued to drink heavily until i faced the decision to end it completely. letting go is so very hard. when you love someone, it can seem like a job you will never be able to complete. i had to decided to make the break and move away from all contact. when my mother got sick  & came to live with me, he really emotionally bailed & i was actually fine with that. it helped me grow and be a caregiver to mom, but it also helped me to see that i wouldn't be able to depend on this person after several 'emotional check outs' so i just stopped contact. occasionally i think about it and if i made the right decision, but i always come back to a few dramatic moments that were key and free me up to feel anger and disappointment rather than guilt or sadness.

i started to make more art in that space. i started to stick up for myself and ask for more out of those around me. my teen, included. it was time for those whom associated with me, do more to be like my therapist and support me, not ignore and check out on me. that  is not a demand, but it means i am now discussing what i need from people as a caretaker, parent and friend. i am no where near the romance arena. i have a lot of growing to do before that. i am in the art-making and processing [and now, writing it out] phase of my recovery. it is not easy to care for someone who is dying. especially while going through a breakup and having a teenager who needs a lot of love & supervision. but i am meeting the task most days. a few days i am troubled by small stuff, but i have no way of eliminating the small stuff. noisy neighbors, barking dogs, mosquitoes, weight gain and aging are just not the most important things any more. so i try to just take a few deep breaths and get it out on paper. [or screen, as it were]

i miss my art being a source of secondary income. i certainly miss two incomes and a shoulder to cry on... BUT i am so grateful i have stability and when i need to step away from the world, i can, by and large. i hope to keep writing, to keep letting the emotions flow. i know that is healthy. i have been discouraged from writing before due to over-sharing, so i went very quiet for many years. i became a silent social media voyeur but that has been way too stressful to watch lately. so i am returning to my blog, a small little corner of the world where i can express what is really going on with me.

this drawing is from a few weeks ago.

it's me handing it over to the universe...

and letting go.

Living with Depression [for those who do and those who don't]

I am supposed to tell you, the audience, of my unbelievable recovery. How the last 3 years, I knew where I went. That I did not billow into a strange Arizona cloud of desert dust. Yet, I cannot. I have been tucked so tightly inside myself, that growth and evolution are all but mirages in the heat. I think, for a time, maybe the words were on the tip of my tongue. Depression and confusion and isolation create amnesia, you see. I can't really recall if I was close or it was just a dream, a story I told to remind myself that I was not dead-yet.  I thought I was in love, I thought I was gay, I thought I was psychotic, I thought I was sick many times — and through it all, I kept scratching the surface and recoiling.

Why am I like this? Do all the pretty journal entries about birds and flowers and lovers kissing my spine matter when, in effect, I cannot recall the very next week? I can recall details, but mostly it feels like a macerated  hunk of meat that a dog puked on the road. I literally feel like nothing is certain or cemented except the unwavering illness I suffer with, and have since I was 14.

I am not sad. I wish I was sad. Because sadness, you understand, is a feeling I can identify and it is exactly 100% better than numb. Numb is an inescapable weight. It crushes with its silence and abundance of nothingness. Numbness has no sexual energy or orientation. It fears nothing, not even death itself, because even death would provide a feeling of overtures and success. Truthfully, the worst part about death is knowing I am not brave enough to give it a go.

I think that depression seems a lot like sadness because it can often follow long periods of grief. When a lover leaves, a parent dies. It can last and it can and does, take many people down a long, torturous road of emotional drudgery. But eventually, even with antidepressants, people usually come back and stand against the wall, and finally, come forward and join the crowd. Sometimes, they even dance.

I think with chronic, long-term, whole life-long depression… the feeling becomes less hopeful. Year after year, the crimes seem more against the act of living than of daring to let go. Who will I hurt this year with my inability to feel? When will that person let go because another night with the crying is too much? And can I fault them? But they will fault me. For an invisible disability. For trying again and again to dance with my broken and mangled legs. And every attempt, every year, it feels a little more awkward. A lot more terrifying… and as inertia and gravity become cruel, unforgiving mistresses, not even the impulsiveness of youth is an excuse.

I don't want to die. I have said this over and over, alone, at night. Holding an adopted dog, into journals and art and pillows. I want to feel that something in this life matters. I see my daughter and I watch her grow into a young woman who is brave and talented. Even in times of great anxiousness, she muddles through, stumbles and puts her head into the wind and works her magic. I admire it. Watching someone I created, teaching her to be brave, it's hard. Very hard. Maybe that sounds awfully selfish, but I forgot how to be that brave. Depression constructs a mythological world where the creatures are both heroes and evil monsters alike. Her brain is not a normal brain, either, as she has ADD. But hopefully, she can avoid the years of waiting for a depression cure like her mom. And her grandmother. And her great grandparents, and the great uncle who killed himself. The bipolar and depressives who fought and fought & waited on the storm… and waited until the inevitable parting of the clouds.

Let me tell you something you may not know. Depression is unbearable at times. I mean, there is not a person who has severe depression who did not just pray for a break, where no words, no guilt or shame or "friendly recruiting" to social events existed. There is not a single one of us who have been in the middle of the black sea abyss of depression and felt like fucking, eating, dancing, making art, doing anything. It's not for a lack of want, but a lack of connection to the purpose. The reward of life-STOPS. Like a cold death grip around the throat of living, depression cuts off the air, suddenly and without warning. Sometimes, it even feels like warning us, but it doesn't matter. 

Me, I write. I write down anything that makes me feel real. To remember I am not dead in the midst of this chokehold. Music makes it tolerable, if only to sink into something besides my mind. People can be good, too, if they get it. If they know the black dog. But if they can't understand the ebb and flow of what it means to be depressed and live with it- and God forbid if they ever turn their back in the middle of it-i just can't bear them. I also make art, walk, take a benzodiazepine. Believe me, it helps sometimes in that cold prison cell of the mind-to be allowed to just sleep or walk in a fog that doesn't reverberate with what a total fucking loser I am.

I don't think this way. I really don't. Most days I make dinners, I go out, I make neat art and craft pieces. I love decorating and shopping and dressing up and wearing makeup and fixing my hair. Most days, I cuddle my chihuahuas and I write the plan for the day- and I live.

But there are weeks, months where I can't tell you who I am or what I want-or what I did last week, nor why- or if it was in the least bit gratifying. I don't remember love or feeling loved. I do not want to say I can't feel or empathize, but after watching people be hurt by a mental illness I can't always control [nor can the unmentionable number of meds doctors have prescribed over my lifetime, which are always hit or miss] I have to put up walls. Not your average "healthy boundaries" but thick, heavily constructed walls to keep people away from the damage. They fall. sometimes I let them because I am human and like most humans, I love warmth. It feels safe and nice. But when they fall for me, hard- I run. That's to protect them as much as myself. Here's something else about depressed people you may not know: We do not want to run. We want you to ask us to stay. We want you to sit it out, knowing that is the most selfish damned thing we could ask of anyone with a normally functioning brain. So our gut reaction is to push you out of the boat before the thing overturns.

When you see a depressed person, when you think they have nothing to offer, I promise you, they are thinking within the asylum of their chemically fucked brain, ten times worse. Ten times the shame. Ten times the guilt over it all. And do we drink, do we get high, do we hide, do we write it or fuck it all away…? Maybe yes, maybe no. But it's how we survive. And while I have learned not to destroy myself in the sea, crashing from wave to wave in the storm, it takes a lifetime to navigate a tumultuous ocean. Seasoned sailors, then finally Captains of depression. That's what we become, complete with salty language, robust bellies and scratchy beards… and yes, weary eyes that have seen many of our crew swallowed up by the unfairness of the high seas.

the terrible sadness of us

I see you in this photo. Barely comprehending the date and time. I know the texture of your hair. I can feel it perpetually coarse, grey and thick. Slightly oily and poorly washed, as you loathed the shampoo's irritation of your skin. Delicate British skin that I wore as a soft, cooing love affair for two years. i knew when it started to flake off and die, the affair, not your skin... but it feels like that, some days, i guess. Love starts out in that way; babying, pampering flesh- then malignant, misshapen, cancerous and oozing. Before we know it, we've no course of treatment. no more salvageable days. We only have mourning. Moving out and beyond the shore, to a blue abyss where nothing feels real, stable or directed. It's just afloat. That's the only place for me, that love enters. It has always been so.

I wish I could have held your wounds in my palms and washed them, licked them, taken you to my breast and fed you milk to nourish your pained heart. I know it was broken and i know what it feels like. I know from both sides, more than once, the pain of leaving- and being left behind. It is not a part of being a human being I find agreeable. Most of my life I have been "with someone" and so, to be without, on purpose, especially a decent man, seemed ludicrous. The guilt, the sadness, the loneliness was awful, but not as awful as it was for you. But you left so fast. If I were testing you, it was a failure on both of our parts. for me to do it, and you to fall for the trick. 

Admitting I am capable of love has been so hard. I knew we had friendship and i knew that your hands touched my dogs in such a kind way, I just had to try. I see now that i must feel lust, passion and some thwarting of my sensibilities for my heart to alight with fire. I knew it never lit in such a way, but I couldn't understand if that was just "getting older" or a new, gentle kind of love. As it tired out, I think it was friendship that should have stayed as such. but I am a stubborn ass... and relight, retry, relight I did, as many times as needed. It feels silly even saying it.

the sadness in my heart tonight is for the memories we did not make. The chances for forgiveness that were never to be. The sexuality you may to discover and how I have this unforgivable ego that seems to believe I have a magical vagina. I am sure you will go on to brave your way to love again. you're not a dumb man. not at all. Just too kind, too quiet, too giving and too closed off. These walls are constructs of emotional frailty and they did you not one bit of good. the same way my hyper vigilance  doesn't suit my anxiety in the least. Not once have I worked about a headache being a brain tumor & my anxious hunch was correct. Silly brains and hearts. They are but dwarves to reality.

Lately, I need you to know, i am mad... at myself. I wanted you to be here with me and things to be relaxed and ok. I would find time to write and I would passionately break out of my shell to make art again, to crate this magical world. I was so good at narrating the story of us. Remember? but I have found this guy... who is so brilliantly beyond my own mind, reads everything, touches my tenderest heartstrings and - makes me want to care for him, I just can't imagine it's even real. I wish in many ways, I could tell you what he means to me. i wish I could sit down and be adults together and you could feel happiness for me. but that won't happen and i am ok. I do not know if you will ever find this journal and that, too, is okay if you do or not. I write this to know I am in loving kindness, forgiving myself for the pain i caused you. for the life i denied you and the things i took from you. I hope that you learn to give them back to yourself some day.

Femme by birth? not quite.

I am trying to imagine a life without all the tools of a Femme Warrior. No more heels, lipstick, no shaving, no drag show clothes, freaking out over glitter makeup and MAC cosmetics or the absolute RUSH of finding nail polish on sale. It would suck. To quote Kelly Clarkson: "My life would suck without Femme." OK, not an exact quote, perhaps.

I do have some complaints. For one thing, there is a shortage of *me* in the world. I see girls aplenty, but not enough of us are open or out about being gay. That gives me a sense of cooling toward my Femme sisters when they say: "I don't need to come out. My butch does it for us." I can understand that, but what a sense of pressure for one person to bear the outing by herself, and frankly, butches have enough to contend with. I was once, for a brief time, quite *butchish* in my dress and short-short hair. 

I thought while I was 20, I'd get a short pixie cut, but I was 220 pounds, wore oversized hoodies and wide-leg skater jeans and Doc Martins. So...while I thought my Tony & Guy pixie cut was cute, My mother proclaimed I looked like a "dyke." which, I assume she meant "butch," it hurt because I was young and trying new things. It hurt because I wanted to be seen by her as beautiful. My mother's emphasis on beauty growing up was militant. By 14 I wasn't allowed out with her unless I had on makeup. It's ok, don't start crying, Argentina. I really liked my makeup and hair and all that jazz. 

My *butchish* nature started as a tomboy girl, climbing mimosa trees, dancing around campfire and shooting guns with my step father. I knew what a deer scrape looked like by age 6. I could point out a good tree for a deer stand, I knew what foxfire was, [we lived in the Louisiana swamp area] and by age 10, I was schooled in scaling fish, skinning rabbits and I could estimate what kind of pond had either frogs, catfish, bass or crappie. I was NOT a Femme child. I was the most outgoing, talkative little girl and sided most often with mange-ridden dogs and butterflies. Dressing *up* was a sundress and my red cowboy boots. I called them my "shitkickers" and was told by my 1st grade teacher that was "not what little girls were supposed to talk like.-"

Shrug. Who knew? Cuz here I was a little girl and I already had a foul mouth.

The lessons I learned farther down the *butchish* road were from women, who while not always butch or lesbian or even tomboy, taught me to be strong and that learning was the most important thing a woman could do. My grandmother told me she never learned to drive and I had to learn in order to be free. My MeMe Lena taught me to sew, to be gentle with things, to slow down because I  was always in too big a hurry. She also taught me in Taco Bell one afternoon to take back food I didn't like because life was too short to settle for what I didn't want.

My mom taught me things in nature on our walks to escape my often abusive stepdad, who while a great sportsman and outdoors hippie, had his own battles brewing inside. My mom would languidly, as if in a dream, hold my hand and show me tulip trees, explain when the persimmons were okay to eat, taught me to tend a fire, how to reel in a fish slowly, without breaking a line on the pole. She taught me hummingbirds and birds, flowers and leaves, how to listen for the thunder and lightning to tell stories. I knew what time of year it was and can still smell a rain coming. That's intuitive, my grandpa Sam told me. Indians know the weather. We know how to use our sniffers. He knew how to drink whiskey and Budweiser and made the best crackers and buttermilk in a glass over Sanford & Son, too. He showed me how to garden, how to tend a yard. 

It was as if, even amidst such an abusive and tumultuous childhood, people all around me were teaching me things. Our trailer park landlord would know a fight had broken out in our trailer between my mom and Danny when I'd show up one Saturday morning to "help milk cows," there was nothing like kneeling down and squeezing those udders. They were soft and the cows seemed so relaxed. I'd forget all abut how strong I had to be for everyone and just milk and squeeze and the warm milk hitting the metal sides of the bucket always made me happy. Even for a little while. Animals, to me, were my most valued and trusted friends. They talked with smiles and tail whisps and wags. It was a language I knew very early.

My Femme desires came when I wanted to be accepted and cared about by friends in junior high school. I wasn't much of a pretty girl, but I was funny, loud, willing to be ridiculous and I was good with thrift stores. Sill am. I believe I have not only a right to my butch and Femme sides, but that I honor anyone who would have me by not denying both. I will gladly shoot guns or hang out in a tree or put a worm on a hook for a girl. [or a dude, if need be] It's not something I think is unfeminine. I just think it's knowledge and the more of it, the better. Why label that as "girl, butch, Femme, tomboy?"

When I realized I was not ever going to be beautiful, not to me, I developed a shield of flowery dresses, fishnet stockings, cute miniskirts, heels and makeup techniques taught by drag queens on youtube. I learned most about how to be Femme from queens and old women. I think that perhaps says a LOT about my style and Feminine presentation. I am gentle and loving, but loud and invite unquestionably difficult diva moments a lot. It's okay, I know how to behave, too, but given the choice, I'd rather be a mixed bag of obnoxious and crude with a sprinkle of classy dame. The other way around, for me, is just too hard & maybe a bit boring.

Femme to me, is not a closed book. It doesn't end in cold cream at 11pm and it doesn't always start with lipstick. I got dogs to feed, bills to pay, several online side businesses I check everyday, social media and art updates, appointments, gardening, cooking, mending, tending-home, fires to keep going. I run, I walk, I hike. I like poking at things with sticks. I enjoy looking at another woman, the more masculine version of me who probably isn't going to slip into a thong, or a bubble bath, and I like knowing *she* appreciates that I do. (And will, most especially for her.) It's easy to be Femme, alone. I think the task is like any relationship; not to dissolve into a strong personality of one, but to remain autonomously sexy. I see it. I don't want that to happen. I like the contrasting colors, textures and shapes of femininity in those ways. Her up is my down. My pink is her black. Her pocket knife is my lipstick. But I also want to watch the fire with her, both of us warmed by the same flame. I wanna sleep under the stars & feel safe. I want to cook for her, who ever this elusive dandy girl is who can tie a bow-tie and build a good fire.

Femme is important to me. it's my swan song... a late in life lesbian's identity that says "hey, it's okay. you see those girls over there, they know you. they have always known you. they looked away, not because they didn't think you were amazing, but because they knew, even before you, you could't see yourself yet." that identity is the chant of my grandfather's people. It's my beautiful Native American blood, it is distant, but very real to me. As I grow more into this skin, I hear him from above, saying "intuition, kid. It's in the belly." He'd usually then turn it into a play fight where we'd spar in the front yard until my grandmother would break it up with a call for dinner. I never forgot how hard his gut was. I could hit him for days & he'd just laugh.

I'm lucky, really. Even though I do not know what it feels like to be in the tornado of a butch/femme love affair, I have the wisdom of knowing who I am and what I want. It's not an easy thing to explain because even with very few words for my sexual orientation, I am still vehemently not attracted to overly feminine women. It's just... not at all what I like. Let me explain it like this.

Every year my mother has these night-blooming primrose bushes that she has trained to come back. Year after year the things spread and get bigger. They are yellow flowers that open at dusk and once 20-50 blooms are opening at one time, the whole bush shakes. It's an incredible sight as the flowers literally unfurl right before your eyes. Now, come an hour early, you'll see nothing but a bush of wilted buds from the day before. Come an hour late, and it's just a bush of yellow flowers.

But in the perfect cool night air, while they are blooming, it's pure magic. It takes a special in-between time and place to see that magic. I feel like that bush. For years I was just a bunch of wilted blooms leftover from yesterday. Then for a while, I was a bush of yellow bursts of color, but stagnant and pretty. Not much too it. But when I came out in my full Femme lesbian glory, and gladly accepted my Femme stance and my butches appreciated me and showed their support, I was a bush shaking with magical mystery... I was, and am, in that moment, perfect. I can't say if every year I'll come back to that magic. I hope I can plant gardens with my wife someday. I hope for a lot of things, not the least of which is to be seen as I really am. But you know what? I've already won half the battle.

My life would suck without my Femme identity and I can't wait to share that with some brazen warrior like myself who knows her life would suck without being a strong, tough butch. Protectress & Angel; child and mother. We are all these, each of us embodies all points of the divine Feminine... that's what I want and what I need. I'll wait until I have found that. Lord knows, I have waited this long.  & yup... I'm bringing my heels, lipstick AND a lighter. Because you never know. x

skin

Things I have not done since I became a lesbian.

• laundry
• thought of a man sexually
• written by hand in my journal
• embraced a love interest 
• balanced my budget
• cleaned my bedroom 
• cooked a big nice meal
• meditated daily
• played piano, written anything new
• planned my garden for spring
• given much of a shit what anyone thought

Things i have done since i became a lesbian.

• made art in my studio
• talked on the phone to another lesbian
• went out to dinner with lesbians
• came out to my family
• hugged all my family members in loving kindness
• went to UU church
• hiked/walked/ran 50+ miles
• lost 5 pounds
• written numerous times, poems, fictional story and essays
• read many books on lesbian culture, community & relationships
• made brownies
• got my nails did
• put money into savings
• had coffee, dinner, went out with friends, been socializing
• drank champagne without consequence 
• cried about 10 times
• continued therapy
• built more muscle

backseat, 1992

you were crouched over the white leather seats
a giant oldsmobile and street lamps dripping orange light
through murky windows, "fuck, this thing broke"
i believe i said "let me try" but was thinking
"is it too late to stop, to end it, nevermind, just get it over with"

when you want to see it, smell it
i rinse my brain of fight, i hold my power down to my sides
clenching it in my fists, small and pale
Richie Sambora plays on your mix tape
my heart pounds, everything is loud, even the foggy moon
it moans like a whale
the trees creak, my ghosts move within my body

after, we walk to the river's edge and the smell of dead fish
permeates the air; years later you will ask me to marry you
in a similar fashion, quiet and with great pause,
with river stench awake on the shore
and mud between the soles of our shoes

saying "yes" was an easy ordeal for me. always "yes"
because "no" signifies a terrible resistance to happiness
and hope and belief in boy/girl fairytales.
there is hardly any sweet, delicate sunday afternoon spooning
in the word "no." so "yes" it was

even the dead things understand, washed up ashore,
we long for corporeal mirrors and touch that is warm, words that are soothing
even these small creatures know, there in the depths of
brown river water

reaching out for another
only to return great armfuls of air
is a lonely & unsatisfactory ordeal
even if "yes" in the backseat means we are giving away the last
vestige of a dream

sublimation [stream of consciousness]

what eats at me, is what i most desire to dine with daily.

I haven't felt lately like falling in love with myself. i do the things that need doing, and i smile a lot. but there is a seething and tearing at my skin, something deeper. trust. relevance.

there is performance for family and friends. there is an angel inside me who is sweet and tender.
also, the left out, starved tigress who needs to fuck shit up.
from the inside out, i want to devour, restrain, go for jugulars. hate you. completely rip you open until there is nothing to hide from, not even yourself. violently open your mind and heart.

but i smile, i nod, my way: self-deprecating and awkward as i do, glancing down away, then loud.
i hate this about myself. i want to be the girl not afraid of anything.
instead there are hugs and tears, questions and deep listening.

i talk in kisses.
i write in fists.


i am filled with the angel and devil dichotomy. you want to be seduced [and not] i want to be seduced [and not] so this hummingbird chase, light, deflect, take off, fly away, all day and we burn everything, all the nectar just because our wings beat so fast.

it's never enough and won't be;
interesting. frightening, too.
bad form for a wife. which is why i was shit at that task.
mother guilt. female guilt. shame over not finishing things.
shame over not having a degree. who is going to listen to a woman with no degree, and i cut my throat, rip out the music as if there is none, as if playing by ear is a nasty fault, instead of an incredible gift.

writing is hearing. hearing is touching with sound waves.
i touch her with music, from some soft place i can only find when i am still and writing or creating in deep listening sessions with myself.
i keep fires going and sometimes the fire itself says to me: "ya know? no. i am here to burn, you are there to build rocks around me and i do not want that. i have had that. let's get bruised this time. let's burn to the ground."

i fucking hate being needy.
i think a lot about butches. specificity. the action and reaction of male gendered bullshit, i am suspect. my trust knows nothing about my heart or my cunt. the sexuality of a desire is guilt. sexuality of a brain function is something, i am inhibited about, mores than vagina pleasure. that isn't guilt to me. i feel bad about wanting to taste your head and get into your mind. because it is vulgar and violating and constant, if done well. i did this to men, for money, for what i thought was adoration- i was constantly in control, making the story up as i went along.

omniscient love is boring as fuck.

i don't want to write the narrative of love. i love complex, unwritten, dissatisfactory, gibberish, chaotic, unpredictable, dysfunctional bullshit, noir/black/dysphoric.

i like complicated situations and very complex, smart women.
i like a drinking woman, though i, myself, reserve that for once a year or less.
control, but not bing in it, fear of losing it and loving it. i love being out of control.
i love that shit. i can easily become addicted to that sensation because i am always thinking and reviewing and when i cannot plan or write it or GET IT, just fuck yeah. I want to fuck *that* place in life. where i am about to tear my mind in half, better yet- you do it for me.
so so sick.

i love being drunk and out of control. i love taking drugs and just puddling down on the bed and having my way with you, nothing keeping my hands rigid or soft. wrestle, fight, throttle and take. it's stupid leftover anger/repression and i need to work this out, but i can't get it out. not out OUT.
that's where i must write it. pissing it out, like a dude.
when i stood over that one poor submissive and pissed on him, missing and hitting his eyes. that was awful. a moment of skill which i failed the once, but never forgave myself. he adored me after. but it was not my intention to blind someone for even a few seconds.

i pledged to be a grown woman by now. edging closer to 40. i might sleep a little and camp out in the stars, by myself. that's a good thing to do before i turn 40. i also wanted a degree because i fel weak and invalid when i have no audience. i can eat, dance, work out, walk the dogs, make my art, write- all this alone. the shopping, the caring of the house, the repairs, garden... all these things i do, alone, as a strong fucking woman, but yet- i feel completely alienated from women who make more money, know more, have more education.

stupid guilt. imposed by a societal standard of education.
when education isn't anything to the cunts who creep in and out of classes without interest in anything other than a degree. fuck that.

i am too emotionally generous because when i am angry, i get withdrawn and sullen.
i always think i can give enough for two or three people.
truthfully i am a fucking horrible person. i lie constantly for love.
my words are lies. they sit here, heavy on the screen and pretend i can do relationships.
they sit there, black and blue, like bruised stepchildren in front of a social worker-
but the stories are all false. they hate, they instigate. but they seek pity and difficulty and even though they shit on the couch and slap their mother, these kids, they just keep taking the victim role.
and it's so tempting to keep writing that shit down.
i hate victims. i hate whiney victims but i am the biggest one i know.

i felt sexually excited in church. i wanted to be brave and big for Jesus.
i needed him to see me as a daughter of warriors. my mom said my name "Kelly" meant "warrior woman" and I believed if i fought hard enough, with words, paint, men, sex- fucking and fisting the pain inside me, God would welcome me into his heart. i would think of how Jesus had a penis.
I did think that in church, looking at boys, thinking that i hated them for having it so easy. I could not piss standing up. Classic penis envy.

I was told by my brother the daddy butch paradox is so fucked up.
i agree to some degree it can be, but i want it to be taken down for me,
butch/father/mother and the equal and opposite "femme" self, but i struggle against both. like a packed cock inside foreign underwear. i am somehow in this state of between the male and female, with a phantom cock that needs to be used, touched, choked, subjugated and respected.

i do it in makeup and lingerie and heels for men.
not sure about navigating around a butch female, because that phantom cock is visceral and hunts. i am not that strong in it. not with women. not true, i am.
i do not WANT to be this strong any more.

I want to get the patient, smiling girl into her bed and be completely eviscerated by her great huge butch cock scimitar. wow. that's hard to actually write. nothing is hard unless it's truth. getting somewhere!!
finally.i'll leave it dripping.
like a painting right when it needs to be left.
like a bad, bad girl.

coming out intoxication

"The world and words fuck each other."-Kathy Acker

I am trying to find the place where my tongue can say "lesbian" instead of hiding behind a computer. I suppose this is rich with sophomoric newly out lesbian ridiculous anxiety, but there it is. I have a very hard time saying I am a lesbian. I usually quell this thirst to admit my trueness in words like "I've come out," [that's very diva-like, anyway, which is my style]. My 1950s and 40s aesthetic is pretty girly. I have to come *OUT* about twice a day, but I had that practice when I had a gastric bypass.

I came out by having gastric bypass surgery in a very big way. With a youtube channel, emails and sharing and lots of pictures of my progress. I have come out similarly, as a lesbian. But both provide me with dread and slight shame whenever I say "I had weight loss surgery" or "I am now a lesbian, and yes, I was married, have a daughter and was engaged not once, not twice, but three times to men. [none of which provided actual marriages]" I am not ashamed of either, but I know what the thoughts are because I had them.

Weight loss surgery is the easy way out.

You will probably gain that weight back.

Why didn't you buy something useful with that money?

You've set a horrible example for women.

What does your body look like naked, with loose skin?

The answers I give if asked usually result in my feeling awkward and paranoid that some stranger is going to go home and Google my weight loss project and find out I was a horrible mess when I had that surgery. They might watch only partial bits and leave out the recovery, the coming to Jesus, as we say in the South, of what that surgery did for me and my whole outlook on life. So while I am not, personally, ashamed, I feel bad for not having the desire in me any more to educate the ignorance. Just judge me, fuck it, right? I cannot possibly make all these opinions go away.

Then I came out. I came out publicly, with love and passion, as a feminist, as a Femme, as a butch dyke loving girly girl who isn't afraid. But really? I am so very afraid. That's what I don't talk about in the narrative of Facebook or daily Instagram photos, or even with Twitter or Youtube. I am out as a LESBIAN and perfectly delighted, but incredibly terrified of the label. What does a 38 year old lesbian even know about this new tribe she has been magically embraced by? I thought I'd instinctually get it. That I'd feel brave and not at all vulnerable, now, that I was just being my correct Femme gay self.

HA.

The questions come, much like the weight loss surgery questions.

How long have you been gay?

Why do you like girls who look & act like 'dudes?'

Are you going to cut your hair?

My darling father even told me he didn't care about my gender... as if that was suddenly changing, too?

Well-meaning as the comments and questions are, some I just have no answers for and am not prepared. I have been gay since I had sex with a girl which was in junior high. I was crushed when she left me and dated my ex boyfriend. She had the most beautiful lithe body in her pink swimsuit and I recall her standing on my family's pool diving board in 7th grade, dripping wet, the suit pale pink, and her dark nipples were visible. I was kinda DONE with boys then.

But I was like every other girl in the world: I wanted to belong. I hid from first kisses [sorry Jason] and I lied about sexual promiscuity with a sarcastic slutty authority of someone deeply afraid of being gay. I was hyper sexual for years before I came to another, fully grown woman, married, only to find out she wanted something more and I couldn't do it. Maybe it goes back to the Golden Girls and Bea Arthur? Or maybe it goes back to "Just One of The Guys" when the girl dresses as a dude to go to a school undercover, and in the end reveals her breasts under a tuxedo jacket. I am not sure.

But I can say that my most fond memory of a full blown, hardcore honest to goodness BUTCH woman, was in Wyoming. I was in Girl Scouts and she was a guide. I saw her chain wallet. Her hips, that swagger. No, woman's hips ever did that. None I had seen. EVER. She was pure mythical, magical warrior, full of something not girl, not guy-but butch. That term, I have fallen in love with. I used to shy away thinking it was bad. But believe me, a butch knows what a femme knows; our labels are symbiotic in many ways if we connect. Pure fire.

so Wyoming Butch would walk, talk, laugh, hug, act really immature for her age, and i had never seen anything so fine. i was developing my feminine wiles with boys from emulating other girls my age, and i had really big fancy boobs, so you know, that didn't hurt. but the good hearted, funny butch lady was where i was at, mentally and sexually. i wanted to pull her aside, say "hey, can we talk about what's happening here?" but Wyoming Butch would hardly look at me. I was kinda girly. even though I was funny, too, I didn't want to use a pocket knife on anything or break limbs and make fires. I wanted to watch her do it, sure... but that's it. She ignored me the entire time she was with us.  Except once.

I asked to take her picture at the breakfast table and she stuck out her tongue and had oatmeal on it.

I still have that photograph. I still look at it. It was the playful spirit that I just wanted to sidle up to and just be with, understand, grapple with, feel in the cold night. When we left, and I knew I would never see her again, I went to my sleeping space, a colorful girly sleeping bag, zipped into it, and sobbed for hours alone.

And I zipped my entire life, all my misunderstood feelings into that sleeping bag. I was "bad," I was a "pervert," I dated the most hyper-masculine black athletic or pimped out men you can imagine. I hated women. I listened to rap and to anything violent. I tried to fuck my way out of this head-body-soul disconnect, but I came back to "I am gay" and just shut down. I would have little affairs, no biggie, I told myself, because I was a powerful sex-positive feminist woman. I can have sex with whomever I so choose. Suck it. Then I had my "50 shades of Gray" experiences and more male-centered sex, where it was, or so I thought, enjoyable to be degraded and used, completely disrespected because that edge was something new. Better to go there, with a man, than have a really satisfying relationship with a, holy shit, GIRL.

I still feel guilt over things I did. Places I went, physically, to fix my head. Because tears were weak. I was a survivor. I was not weak. Not even pissing in the street, homeless, because of addiction. I was never going to be anything but GREAT in my head; normal was great. Great meant desiring men, having a family, owning a home and driving a mom car. That's the Femme issue. We are conditioned and raised not as wild free spirited "tomboys" or loners, but as pack girls. Chicks. We like beads and crafts and clothes and hair shit and makeup techniques and Pinterest. But we're gay, too, so where is that safe place with our female straight friends to say "well, I love all these ties, but I only see them on other women in my mind?" thinking about a sexy tie on a butch makes me melt completely. But for 20 years of my sexual experiences, I refused myself that image. [unless I played with it myself, boyish fashion, but it was silly. I am not turned on by myself as a dude... at all.]

Now, though? I put on my girly clothes, and all out lesbian Femme and feel so sexy, so appropriate. Not like a slut for having cleavage, but a girly girl and adored by a butch. Totally different dynamic, and that is just what it is. "DYNAMIC," constant change, a system of progress. An exchange of positive energy, new ideas. I am not just a girl, not how a boy has been allowed to see women his whole life, no. I have new lesbian and butch eyes seeing me. I also see them in ways that are new and fresh to me. The collars and sleeves, the tugging at and wearing of pants, men's underwear. Brogues. Loafers. Boots. It's a drunken feeling, much like watching Wyoming Butch back in 1989. Only now, I am not hiding. Now, at 38, I let myself enjoy the scene and my very strong reaction to it.

I have one more thing to admit before I end my thoughts on being out:

I am a Butch Virgin.

you don't need to understand that, unless you're a butch or femme and you know. "oh." she has never really even HAD that fire she speaks of, and the truth is, no, i have not. i have known it in fantasy land and dream land and imaginary play with my writing stories, but not HAD actual Butch/Femme relations and it is pretty scary. i am kind of a virgin. not in the "Well, I like a Ducati but I have yet to drive one" way-but more in a "I was born with legs and just now discovered i can walk with them, but they are too weak to move."

So I stare at butches. I flirt with butches. I try and look unsuspecting in the coffee shop when a butch holds the door. I try and not focus on my lack of sex, and more on what I know in my heart. We know. When we don't know, life is miserable. [and I was] But now I am alive and while, yes, the very object of my Femme affections is not present in my life, nor do I know what the hell i'd do with her if she were, I am okay. I am fine with all this coming out. I was born alone, I have lived alone, I am alone. But it feels, just, unsettling and hopeful. I hold on to the Femme in me, proud of my bows and curls and rhinestone pins and 1950s pencil skirts and corsets and heels and stockings and fish net. I am quite the fashionista and "femme" is my bag, baby. I have to keep it fresh, for how am I to know?

She could show up tomorrow, in her butchbest or dressed down in jeans, chain wallet and chucks. I want to be the Femme who looks at her and she knows "I am seen." And I want to feel the butch gaze and know I, too, am seen. That's all I can do at the moment. So when people ask why do I like girls who look and act like dudes, all I can say is "there are no words for it. Like there are no words for the feeling when you see a girl or guy you are completely mad about & the air chokes right in your throat and chest and your body responds with a boner or wetness..."

It just is. and I love it. It is mine and all of ours, lesbians, gays, butches, Femmes, subs, bottoms, Doms- straights Queers.

That choke in the chest when you see something you know is your place in the world...

That's got to be right. I know I am somebody because the universe doesn't make too many mistakes.

all i'm in is just skin.

I had a gastric bypass in 2011. It will be 2 years in April and I am not sad about it. I took some power back from losing weight and while I do wish it didn't have to go to surgical removal of my intestines and hacking of my entire digestive system, it is done. Over. I'm okay with what happened, though it took two years of therapy, mood swings, body dysmorphic disorder and three months of anorexia to be at this place.

I documented my journey from the time I knew I'd be going into the room to have my body permanently altered weeks before, to the most current video blog a month or so ago. I have become increasingly disturbed by the sheer numbers of follows and visits to my page. The Adsense google contract alone took me into another level of video blogger. I was making extra cash now, too.

Time has healed some broken & damaged parts of my thinking. Time and meditation and therapy and books and self-introspection and a LOT of fear-facing changed me. I wish my sorry ass had done this before my surgery. But I often wonder if the catch 22 will always be happiness in retrospect. Life is kinda bittersweet, so I am used to happiness as a "reflection" rather than an exact moment or thing.

In my videos, I try to use myself as an example; showing skin occasionally, dressed up and down, relaxed and at my worst, so that there is a narrative that is honest. I answered emails for a long time, but then an exchange back and forth between myself and 20-50 people became an impossible task. I felt ashamed to have begun to want to give back, only to be stretched, ironically, too thin.

Today is no exception. A new follower used her airtime to comment and scrutinize 4-5 videos of me, scattered timeline-wise, from my beginning to one of my worst moments as a dehydrated anorexic. Her comment was "you look so old here" when I mentioned I was sick. First of all, who the fuck does that? Second, who the fuck does that? And dehydrated people who are starving look terrible. But let's not restate the obvious. Did you even WATCH THE VIDEO?

I knew I was sick. The process of a documentary of self is not about fear. It took some huge balls of brass which I carry even when I am playing my own victim in a bad TV show. In many ways, my life was suddenly sprawled awkwardly all over the internet with 50,000 views, numbers, international data, followers and comments, stories, inspiring and sad. I was trying to manage it. So I stopped making videos. I virtually ignore the comments because I gasp for air when I get an email now.

A series of things might run through my mind; "is this gonna ruin my morning?" Am I going to connect and need to help someone, for free, and put off my writing, art, blog, walking, yoga, LIFE again?"  It sounds really shitty and whiney, but it's a reality I deal with. I created it, sure, and a monster it has become. I don't resent it or my followers or the newbies who are looking, as I once did, for inspiration to help them get to a place of self-love. But that's NOT what a gastric bypass does.

Meditation, daily walks, time to reflect, independence, farmer's markets, new friends, coffee... my dogs and daughter, my strength of will, (my body... the last on that list), is what gave me powerful insights and a new perspective. That's a LOT of work out there to teach. I could only do it in sections. But here's THIS COMMENTER, telling me I am looking old. And it hurts. I was so very sick. My hands cold constantly. My hair fell out in clumps and I harmed myself to deal just with the emptiness anorexia caused me.

You say to some of these prospective patients that a stomach surgery is not going to last forever. One day you'll eat candy and chocolate and have hunger return, so where are you going to be? What skills will you have implemented? So I reveal, I just became anorexic and trained my brain to love the hunger. But that screwy thinking made me dead. STILL, some of them [the viewers] are sickeningly obsessed that a fat girl would -and could- become an anorexic. It's like a lottery ticket for fat girls who hate themselves.

FATTY BECOMES ANOREXIC. WOW.

Suddenly I found my pictures reposted on "thinspo" blogs, Twitter and Instagram. I had failed not only to help, but I was HURTING these precious girls, who were not even morbidly obese. My body became a source of more pain, not for me, but for others. Poetic justice for a girl who scrutinized other women all day, every day for a long time because I was so bitter. That's as truthful as I can be. I hated other women, was jealous of them, carried the burden of resentment toward anyone thin or pretty or happy. But as I grew to be okay with my own body, I found more self-love. I thought in my later video blogs I had shared this, however, the dizzying reality is that those videos are the least watched. The powerful recovery, the dazzling feminist body-neutral strong woman... I have the numbers. People watch the victim. They LOVE the victim.

I guess in a way, I just have to move on and forget about it. Maybe delete the whole thing, half or a few of the videos. But if you are looking for a magical fix, don't go to a doctor unless it's to get your head aligned by a shaman Goddess, like my therapist truly is. Your body is not a factory of misery. It's not a dissociative  entity. It is yours. You are not completely *it* but to alter it, as I did, isn't the first step. Many will say "this is the last step, the final straw" as I used to tout, but that's complete bullshit.

It's truly not the first step. In hindsight, I could have reached out to my fierce female friends for support. I could have held myself accountable and ate properly. I could have read many more books and walked daily. But I chose that victim script every day. Honestly, until we see powerful happy women with huge round curves, I don't know if we will EVER change the body hatred script among ourselves. It's hard to choose to walk, when your ankles hurt. It's difficult stuff which nobody addresses healthy living as a process of heart, mind and body. [unless you are exploiting morbidly obese people for television purposes] We love a damn before and after shot, don't we?

I hope that you think about your process before you allow a man with a knife to enter your sacred body and dissect and reroute parts of it. I am not going to tell you it is awful and bad, because after my surgery, I had an awakening which I cannot say 100% wasn't due to being thin finally, and feeling worthy. What I CAN say, is that your body is sacred. If you fill it with crap food, sugar, carbonation, processed meat... I do not suspect a knife or lasers entering your intestines is a big deal. It wasn't for me. And that's where we have landed as a society.

Why do we need to shoot for the moon?
We can become alien versions of our humanity through surgery.

I hope you all find light, love and your truth ≈ value. Fat, thin, gay, poor, woman, black whatever you feel holds you back. I hope you turn that beautiful struggle inward and learn to strip your fears bare and relearn what you've been force fed; advertising, corporate greed, medicalization of mental health and spirituality; the processing of food that is killing us all with disease and obesity. All of its bullshit and the sooner you learn it and embrace that, the better off you're going to be. You might even find your clothes are loose because you were out with friends instead of Googling thinspo pictures at midnight on a friday.

timing, pace, relating

"she gives her golden radiance, but carefully, pointedly, promises nothing. all the timing in our relationship has been hers." - susan sontag, personal journal entry, 1970

there is rhythm to affection and sharing. sontag in the pages up to this and after deals with the increasing chill of her lover's touch. the connection seems one-sided and numb. sontag is dealing with this great opening of her real capacity to love fully, and rightly celebrates it for herself as a victory, but the slow unraveling is heart-wrenching. she is also deconstructing the parameters of a film, sprinkled in and out of the passages of despair.  it is remarkable. as much as a journal, it is a gorgeous piece of writing.

honoring my own defeat in risking love with yet another man, and realizing i was gay right before a visa approval and a marriage which would inevitably follow, i identify. love is an immense pleasure, and one i always gave free reign to my psyche to chew completely; with the exception of sex. for me, sex made love harder work, and vice versa. i was, obviously, having it wrong. having the wrong kind of sex with the wrong gender and trying to completely love, still... i was going mad. i went mad. sincerely, most definitely mad.

sontag goes on to write about her lover "C." as only being able to love - and *be* - on an intermittent basis. i also identify with this, from the lover's point of view. i tend to write from an emotional place of personal experience, rather than in a communicative way. i resent it in myself, because art and my love life often so readily hold hands, figuratively speaking. it seems a little sophomoric and a *lot* selfish. but i have been for many years weaving this tapestry with two very incompatible yarns. when i came out as a lesbian, when i felt that to be my truth and said it out loud, wrote it, i wanted to keep saying it, over and over...

"i am a lesbian." there is so much power even in that. am i afraid that, like many of my ephemeral studies, this will be another project? i think to some degree, yes, but only in the sense that the sexual orientation is not new, but the excitement is. i feel a dizzying anxiousness, a giddy naiveté and a celebratory reconnect to my heart. that's good shit. it's a drug for sure, and i want to just stick in the needle over and over, because i am an addict and that's what i do.

i have been really digging in lately, not with needles, but opening myself up to non-judgement. to risk, is to be brave. it's the bravery i want for myself and expect of others. when i see myself as the only brave one in giving my love or my ideas, i am so turned off. a coward, for me, *to* me, is the anti-drug. weakness is fine, vulnerability to intimacy all that, we all have it i think, especially those of us with lots of cock in our walk. but the MAIN thing is digging into my true compass, the truth of what i need hypothetically speaking. i have yet to be with a woman in a relationship that is ongoing and sexual in nature, so it's all "research" then isn't it? i do know what love is, but maybe i don't in the context of my heart and mind and body flowing into that true path.

maybe that's a decision. like staying in love. or continuing to go work at a job. or writing everyday. for a writer, the terrible ache of failure comes not when there are no words, but when there is no flow. no timing. no pace that puts our life into context of other people. it's not so much audience appreciation, as it is- a sacred meditation that makes real synaptic connections. and so, too, is love. that pace, wow. i love it. i anticipate it. i love to feel it and write about it. the story of love is so vastly different for everyone, but i have yet to have that storytelling with the sexual connection. a lesbian connection that, to me, feels so right.

i begin new chapters of my life with learning things i never knew. i pick up a sort of cultural evangelistic approach- i code switch. i walk and dress and think in a complete cinematic way. i become my own narrative because my identity and personality as a borderline is so fluid. but that's my own therapeutic way of unburdening myself with being bored or going crazy. i have to step into a new realm and live there for a little while. immersive and often, drowning. i find that in this state of creativity, my art comes alive. a new series reveals itself. new people. new loves. intuitively i know exactly what moves to make, because i let it be what it is, one day at a time, just like in AA.

so how i relate, and the pace at which i relate to another lesbian might be revealing. i have brain crushes, particularly on accidental elitists. i get crushes on words. i get crushes on the sound of falling leaves. i have crushes on good sumatra coffee with cinnamon sitting on a balcony, like a big fluffy cat, watching the world. these nostalgic fancies are what sinks me into life. without them i'd just hang myself. [i always ask this question when i have been suicidal in the past; "will dressing up as another character help?" and usually i do that, document it. and move on to sleep sometime around 3 am.] the truth is, i am a tough nut to crack, not because i am unlovable or slightly mad, but because of my own shifting paradigm. about the only thing that sticks, year after year, is my relationship with my mom, my daughter and my dogs.

i wonder, now that i have become open to the real chance at loving someone i am also physically attracted to, what will become of the pace and tempo of life? i am already, in classic online fashion, relating to another lesbian, sexually. many others as friends. but i am very certain i do not want to run the pace of these potentially lifelong friendships. it's clumsy and awkward, even just being friends, with other women and always has been. so how do i do this?

i think i find out, first of all, what it means to be a lesbian to me. i mean, i just figured out that two girls can enter a girls bathroom and have sex and nobody thinks about it because girls are supposed to be in there. i am also learning that just because my classic role of nurturing mom to most of the people i care about is rewarding, it isn't enough. i need to let myself be nurtured. i need to be surprised. and i need to, at the risk of sounding crass, get fucked. i have been the dominant partner for so long, controlling and micromanaging details down to "send this email and thank this person" that i am literally exhausted. i have not even cleaned my house in two weeks because i just need that to be okay. i need to just play and rebuild right now.

...just a few things i am thinking about as i come out.

i wonder if i am alone, or if many people have a pace for new chapters of life?
do we change eating habits? clothing.
are these mini-mitzfas throughout life reason enough to celebrate and put on some new music, or take ourselves out to buy a new pair of shoes?

i think so. love is an incredible rite of passage. i am finally open to it, in a real way, with no mask, no armor. i want the exchange of power to be fluid. i want to touch and be touched how women do it. i may have had that in another life, but it wasn't my time to be out of the closet then. i was young. i had a husband. then i had a child. before all of that i was a teenager. i am not certain how this version of myself touches another woman. or even how it feels. my imagination knows though. or at least she thinks she knows. it was enough to risk a lot of my comfort zone to find out. whatever is going on, my body is so tender, so responsive- to music, to art, to sexual fantasy... that i literally feel like electric energy pulses through me. and for a girl who thought her vagina was literally broken and all her dopamine used up- this is quite a magical place to be.