An Extraordinarily Long Post

So. I had a heart attack. February 23, 2018. Most people that I know already know that, it wasn’t a secret. I haven’t really talked about it that much, really, except for a timeline of events right after. I tend to gloss over it, and show one of my exceptionally tiny scars. The one that I can show with my pants on, anyway. Here’s the thing, it terrified me. I’m still terrified.

I never expected anything like that to happen to me. I didn’t know it was happening, when it was happening. I thought I had the flu, honestly. Here’s what happened.

I went to bed early on thursday night, because I was so tired that I couldn’t even think straight. I got up fairly early on friday, and it hurt to take a really deep breath, and the more I tried to breathe very deeply, the more it hurt, my whole chest. I couldn’t stop crying. I mean, I cry quite a bit, but I really couldn’t stop, at all. I called someone to ask to borrow some money to go to Urgent Care, because I don’t have insurance, which hurt me almost as much as the physical pain. People were dying from the flu. Worst flu season in a long time. I kept trying to tell myself just to go back to bed.

Money acquired, i set off to Urgent Care. I filled out the form, and sat down in the lobby. Within five minutes, a nurse came out and knelt down to talk to me. She said that with my symptoms, I needed to go to the Emergency Room. I’m completely alone. Only one person in the world knows that I was going to Urgent Care. I say okay, and get in the car and drive myself to the ER of the small, local hospital. My grandmother is home, alone with my dogs, one in a crate, one she can walk. It’s about 10 in the morning when I get to the ER. I walk in to the nurse at the counter, and fill out the paper. She takes my temperature, and blood pressure, stares into my face for a minute, steps through the swinging doors, and comes back with another nurse, who asks me if I’m okay to walk (uh, yeah, I just walked my ass in here….) and says that she is going to give me an ekg and draw some blood. She gives me the ekg, and I am immediately put in an ER room. No one has really talked to me about anything at this point. A doctor comes in, and tells me that a nurse will be in to do an echocardiogram, so I need to strip to the waist on put on a gown. Sure. Echocardiogram gets done, IV line gets put in. I am somewhere that a nurse can see me at any given moment. The lady in the room next to me is apparently nonverbal, and sounds like she is the beginning of the zombie outbreak. She’s retching and heaving constantly, and I can hear people asking her questions that she clearly can’t answer. I feel so bad for her. The doctor comes back, and says that I am going to be taken to the CT lab for a CT scan (like, WTF else would they be doing in there?) Okay. I’m wheeled around a couple of halls, and into the CT lab, and transferred to the CT bed thingy. I actually stood up and moved myself. The CT technician gets a call, and tells me to hang tight for a minute, she has to step outside. Sure. Like I’m going to argue. Up until this point, I’ve been chatting with everyone, small talk like, being sarcastic and all. I’m chilling, waiting for the CT nurse to come back, and the swinging doors fly open. There are three people standing there in completely different uniforms than anything I’d seen so far, with a huge looking gurney, bed thing. There’s a red headed lady, a tiny, boyish lady, and a dude with glasses and an extremely neat beard. The red headed lady comes in, and hands me a tiny pill to let dissolve in my mouth. She’s super cute. The guy says, “Okay, you might get a pretty severe headache from the nitroglycerin, we’re ready to go now.” I look at his uniform, which clearly says Critical Response Unit. As do both of the ladies’ uniforms. I look at him and say, “Go where?” And for the first time since taking action, I cried.

Keep in mind, at this point in the tale, you actually know more about what is going on, than I did in that moment. No one had said the words heart attack to me. No one had said much of anything to me, about what was going on. Apparently, at that moment, everyone else realized that I had no clue what was happening. The doctor was found, after they transferred me to the big gurney, and gave me another IV port. He told me that I was having a heart attack. Thanks, dude. I figured that out. They are taking me by Critical Care Unit to Rex UNC Hospital in Raleigh, 45 minutes or so away. Okay.

They start wheeling me to the CRU ambulance, the tiny lady is telling me that everything is okay, I have the best crew possible. They are going to take care of me. I’m in the ambulance, seeing my commute to work facing backwards. I pull out my phone to text my Mom. I text her that I’ve had a heart attack. Yes, text. That’s how much I hate talking on the phone, in general. The red head suggests maybe I should call her. So, I do. By now, I have four IV ports in me. One in each hand and each elbow. They have injected me with something that makes me feel kind of warm and fuzzy. I call my Mom. She asks what is happening. I still kind of don’t know, other than that I’m in an ambulance. So, I ask. The red head and the dude start explaining what’s going to happen, and I relay it to Mom. I’m on the way to Rex UNC Raleigh. When I get there, I’m going directly into the cath/stent operating room. There is a doctor waiting for me to get there. I tell Mom I’m fine, and ask her to go to my house after work, because one of my dogs is in his crate, and I don’t want him stuck there, and Gramma can’t open the crate, and can’t walk him, anyway, because he is a bit of a tasmanian devil on a leash. He can’t be loose in the house when I am not here, not because of him, but because of her. She’ll just let him out of the house. If I’m not here, he might not come back. He’s my baby, I never said he was perfect. I learn during the rest of the ride that they were there, because the small hospital is part of the network, but always has CRU from the big one during some of their operations, just in case. If they hadn’t already been there, I might have gotten to ride in a helicopter. Yeah.

I completely flip off somebody who is tailgating the ambulance. I’m still joking around. The guy says I look familiar. We start talking about my favorite gay bar, where he might have seen me at some point. We hit a bump, and the red head ends up partially in my lap. I tell her it’s fine, she can stay if she wants.

The tiny girl is the driver. When we get to the ER driveway, there is a landscaping truck partially blocking it. I hear her yell for someone to move it, and hear a male voice saying to give them a minute. Then she simply says no, and tells the two in the back to hold on. There was no hit, and no rocking, or violence, but she did slide the ambulance across the front of the offending truck. The guy asks if there was contact, the tiny girl says not to worry about it. Apparently a giant heavy duty ambulance can move a parked landscaping truck back a bit, if necessary. They wheel me in to the operating lab. Just, straight in. There are a team of people, standing there waiting for me. I receive the most epic de-pantsing of my life. One moment, I’m wearing my baggy jeans and panties and the hospital robe, the next moment, I’m just wearing a hospital robe, like a magic trick. Ta da!!! I’m transferred to the operating table, and the room goes mostly dark. A very tall man who is all mask and glasses tells me that he is the doctor, they are going in through my wrist. He is on my right side. There is a huge flat screen on my left, almost as long as I am, with numbers and stuff. This mechanized box thing over me moves closer to the doctor. The table raises up, until I’m chest height to Dr Jobe (I find out later that he’s 6’4”.) He tells me that he’s going to insert a stent. I honestly don’t look at the giant screen, I just watch the reflection of it in his glasses as he stares at it. I have no clue what kind of anesthesia, if any I’ve been given. I’m pretty calm. At one point, while getting a stent, it’s possible that you will have a lag between heart beats. This happens. Beep, beep, beep……. Everyone in the room says “you’re okay, it’s okay”.....beep, beep, beep. The box thing over me moves, I guess it is how he sees what he’s doing, from my wrist to my heart. He stands for a moment, watching, his hand touching mine, but not over it, and looks at my face and says that I did so well, he’s going to do it again. So, he puts another stent. That’s two. My heart stops again during placement. I’m a little better prepared this time. They withdraw whatever the fuck alien tentacle is in my arm all of the way to my heart. They slap a bandaid on my wound, and I’m off to cardiac ICU.

Mom is still at work. I’m still completely alone. I told her not to come, and no one else knows where I am at this point. I meet the cardiac ICU nurses. I am told that I have the best male cardiac nurse on the ward. He’s the only male nurse there. He says it’s good that they could go through my wrist, it’s a little easier to heal from. He’s talking to me, asking me how I feel, because I should immediately feel better. I don’t. I actually feel the same. He stops and looks at me. He makes a call. And I’m going back to the cath lab. Honestly, I don’t remember this part as well. But I get a catheterization for a small pulmonary embolism, and a small artery expansion catheter. Back to cardiac ICU. At this time, I’m exhausted. I talk to Mom. I am freaking the fuck out. About money. About how long I will be there. Because of money. I haven’t eaten today, the nurse says I can order something. I don’t. Money. I’m really freaking out about money. I text the special person friend that I had then. I tell him what happened. I make a casual facebook post. I completely break down. It’s about 7pm now. I’m terrified, and crying. My cousin says she is coming by, her boyfriend was on the way to visit someone in the same hospital. She comes up, he is in the car with their daughters, because that is easier. She is supposed to report to Mom as to how I really seem. She’s there for about twenty minutes. My special person friend visits later. He seems completely at a loss. I feel like I have to keep reassuring people. He hangs out for a while, but there really isn’t anything he can do.

So. I’m alone again. Freaking out about money, and not having insurance. I lay there, all night, staring at the tv. I have no idea what was on. Nurses check on me every thirty minutes. I don’t even talk to them most of the time, I just smile. The sun rises, eventually. A nurse helps me out of the bed to pee. I learn that I pee a lot more than the average person, at one time, over the next days. They make me order breakfast, I’m not hungry. Of all the things I can do to keep costs down, food seems my only controllable variable. Mom comes. She hangs out for five hours or so on Saturday. I get moved from ICU to the regular cardiac wing. They threaten to not send me home if I don’t order food and eat when I’m supposed to. I hate hospitals. I don’t even like visiting them. So, I eat. Special person friend visits again. He brings me flowers. He leaves. I stare at the tv for another overnight. Mom comes back Sunday morning. She leaves for a bit to pick up a couple of things. She hangs out until I am released. She watches me tell a cardiologist that I have checked the prices of every drug they are giving me and that there is no way in hell that I can afford one of them. He tells me that there is a new generic. I tell him that the generic is $197 per month instead of the $450 a month for the name brand. We agree on a completely different drug. I am discharged. I go out to eat with Mom. I pick up the one drug that I have to have immediately. We go to hospital number one to get my car, and I drive it home. There is literally no one else to do it.

I get home, and I’m still the caregiver, here. I’m the sane one. I take two weeks off of work. Life goes on.

Now. I wrote all of this out to ask some questions. I am not looking for any flattery, or any pity, or any guilt, I honestly want to know some things. I did start a go fund me. I am beyond appreciative of those that could donate, there, and just through paypal. I didn’t raise enough to do more than one follow up with my cardiologist. I could not do cardio rehab, at all. I simply could not make it work. I have a part time job, as it is, because my grandmother got herself in a fuckton of debt before anyone realized how bad off she was. I’m doing everything I can to stay afloat. I don’t know how to say the next thing that I need to say. So, I guess I’ll just go for it. I know that I am loved. I really, really do. I know things are shitty, everywhere. I started making jewelry again, while I was recuperating, just for something to do with my hands. People told me that I should sell it. Cool. I ripped back BattyCatty from my former partner, which caused me days of crying, even though he said it was okay. It was mine before it was ours. I followed every avenue offered, to seek help. I know that I am a background person in most people’s lives. I’m not loud. I don’t stand out. That’s okay. I’m an observer, by nature. I am also hella supportive. If you are in a band, and you are on my friends list, I have seen them perform (except for one. But I will.) If you are a DJ, I’ve danced while you mixed or spun or whatever. If you are an artist, I have shared your work, or own your work (again, one exception.) If you are a burlesque performer, I’ve probably seen and tipped you many multiples of times. I have been to innumerable benefits for sick people, even those that I don’t know. I support art. I support my friends. When I needed people, and help, I felt almost completely abandoned. Again, I really appreciate those that did give me monetary help. I feel horrible writing this. I started writing a blog again, because I don’t really talk to anyone anymore, and I’m just really afraid that no one will know some of the things in my head. I feel that I must be a horrible person, because me nearly dying didn’t bring anyone together to help. It didn’t even bring visitors. I did have one offer of a visit, I didn’t forget. As at a loss as I was after the big, crushing, split in my life, I now feel completely worthless. I’m pushing the jewelry thing as hard as I can, and there is minimal interest even. I want to grow. I want to do better, to be better. I’m trying really hard. This isn’t a suicidal thing. I’ve recently done something, completely unlike me, that I would really, really like to do again. This is the opposite of me giving up. This is me fighting. Please tell me what I can do to be the kind of person that people want to support. How can I improve my jewelry? How can I market it better? I’m starting with less than nothing, dangling over a giant pit. I am begging for any input. Please.

Current State 7/13/18

It’s Friday the 13th! Thirteen is one of my favorite numbers. Currently doing work stuff, listening to Puscifer in the head phones, thinking about tattoos. My next two tattoos are planned (one is even paid for, I just need some gas money, you know, if you want to donate some gas money, or buy some stuff, that would rock!) Then I want a banner with purple roses that says Deeds Not Words. It is not only one of the most important tenets of my life, it’s a suffragette thing. Then, I think I might actually want a Queen B tattoo, which is a Puscifer thing. I’ve never seriously considered a band tattoo before.

Tonight is a dancing night. Dancing nights make me happy. I’ve been paying a little more attention to my outfits and makeup, lately, just for me. I actually have days when I don’t completely hate my face, lately. I took a bunch of silly filtered selfies the other day, even. I know what I’m wearing tonight. Pretty sure about the makeup, unless I do something completely unlike me and go to Ulta and get something new. I suffer extreme guilt if I buy myself anything like that. I don’t even know if I’m going to see many people that I know tonight. While I am still maintaining conscious, chosen singlehood, there is someone I might not mind running into. I may have a tiny crush, of the basest most physical sort. I may not want to date, but I also am not up for the nunnery.

I’m in a pretty good mood. Life in dementia land will get it’s own post soon, It’s getting harder and harder to navigate.

I have quite a bit of stuff to take pictures of and put up for sale, mostly earrings. I’m having a hard time not becoming totally freaked out by trying to sell the stuff that I make. I’m keeping an eye out for smaller vendor opportunities and finding places that might carry it. Once upon a time, I had a partner in this venture, and he was supposed to do all of the peopley bits. He didn’t really. It was the first really big lie between us. That I know of, anyway. It’s back to being all mine now, so this time, the failure will be all mine, too. (I’m not that upset about it currently, it just causes me some anxiety.

So, yeah. Today, I’m better than most days.

(Music) Dance With Me

What song I consider my “favorite” kind of changes with my mood. Music can drastically change my mood, as well. I keep seeing this meme on facebook that says if you want to know a woman’s mood, don’t ask her how she’s doing, ask her what she’s listening to. Currently, I’m listening to a near constant stream of Mindless Self Indulgence, so I guess I’m feeling juvenile and angry and  frustrated in every way possible? Oh, sounds legit, actually.

So, back on track, (I have ping pong brain a lot of the time,) it is quite rare that Dance With Me by Lords of the New Church is not at the top or in second place. Dance With Me is a perfect fantasy. It is one of my favorite songs to dance to, as well. (My most melodramatic goth dancing is always done to Slice of Life by Bauhaus, however. I need a lot of room for that one.) I even like the Nouvelle Vague cover.

Funny thing, I always dance alone.

Lords of the New Church also taught me to take head injuries seriously.

Dance With Me Lyrics

Let's dance little stranger

Show me secret sins

Love can be like bondage

Seduce me once again

Burning like an angel

Who has heaven in reprieve

Burning like the voodoo man

With devils on his sleeve

Won't you dance with me

In my world of fantasy?

Won't you dance with me?

Ritual fertility.

Like an apparition

You don't seem real at all

Like a premonition

Of curses on my soul

The way I want to love you

Well it could be against the law

I've seen you in a thousand minds

You've made the angels fall

Won't you dance with me

In my world of fantasy?

Won't you dance with me?

Ritual fertility.

Oh come on little stranger

There's only one last dance

Soon the music's over

Let's give it one more chance.

Won't you dance with me

In my world of fantasy?

Won't you dance with me?

Ritual fertility.

Take a chance with me

In my world of fantasy.

Won't you dance with me?

Ritual fertility.

Attraction is Weird

Attraction is weird, y’all. I’ve been thinking about this, a lot, lately. I am attracted to all kinds of people. There are things that immediately attract me too, or repel me from people. I can quantify a lot of things that I find physically attractive in people. Personality has a huge amount to do with how attracted I am to someone. There are things I can quantify that I find attractive in male identifying people and female identifying people, physical things. I think all of my friends are beautiful in very different ways. If you asked me who the most physically attractive of my male friends is, I could hands down tell you that it is a tie, no hesitation. Even though I know that others would have different answers. It makes perfect sense, in an evolutionary way, that people would be attracted to different things. But, from a purely physical standpoint, I have two very different male friends that are more handsome than any movie star that I’ve seen. It gets more complicated, for me, when considering women. The two women that I’ve ever met that I would consider purely the most physically perfect, I don’t find attractive. One isn’t interesting to me to converse with, and the other is a horrible person. I know that there are other things that come into play, chemically. The scent of some people drives me nuts. Pheromones, I guess.

Do you tell people that you find attractive that you think they are? Even if you aren’t trying to date them, or have sex with them? Do you let people know if you find them utterly compelling? Why, or why not? I sometimes have a tendency to.

Well, where the men are concerned, I told one of them that I used to drive 6 hours to watch him dance, twenty years ago or so. When I get really stressed out, or wound way too tight, I run. I get in the car, and I run. I come back. Most people never know that I was gone. I actually find it funny that in my life, right now, no one knows where I am, ever, in general. I live with my Grandmother, she has dementia. She has no clue if I am home or not. She’ll forget I’m home if I’m in the same room. I work for a private individual, I don’t work a set schedule. No one knows when I am there, except him. Only two people on my friends list have been where I live now, at least since my Grandaddy’s funeral day. There is no one that I talk to on a daily basis, really, that knows where I am when they talk to me, as I generally only text. Do you have any clue how long I would have to be missing before anyone noticed? Days. Days. Wow. Off the rails. So, twenty years ago, if I just couldn’t take being where I was, and needed a break, if it was a night that it was possible, I would drive my ass to Atlanta. Alone. To dance. And to watch this guy dance. I’ve never seen any guy dance like him. He moves like a well muscled panther in a kilt and boots. I could watch him for hours. I have watched him for hours. When I moved to Atlanta, we ended up hanging out in the same places. I actually did tell him that I used to drive to watch him dance, and drive back before work the next day. As I was saying it, I thought, well, this could be taken as kind of creepy, I guess. Luckily, he didn’t find it so, he gave me a great big hug, and said it was the nicest thing anyone had told him, in a while. Turns out, he’s even more attractive than the near physical perfection, once you get to know him. He’s smart, and thoughtful, and nice, and always trying to grow, and understand new things. He’s pretty much perfect. Now, all of that being said, I have never flirted or anything like that with him. Out of my league, doesn’t even cut it. We aren’t even playing a similar sport. In a nearby arena. He has a partner that is stunning. I am not a pretty girl, y’all. I’m oddly shaped, and hella awkward. I will say, though, that the show I went to in Atlanta last year, the show that caused the great and horrible smashing and destruction of my life and future, he is the only person I spoke to, other than the ex that I was physically with, because I knew he would hug me, genuinely, and for a moment it would be okay. Also, he’s always taller in real life than I remember.

The other male that I find physically near perfection, I can look at the two of them in my mind. Do they look similar? Nope. They have similar builds, I guess. The kind you get from working real hard on it. They are different ages. Different coloring. I have spent a lot more time talking to the second one. I know him better, as a person, and he has never become less attractive, which is pretty amazing. I met him in a place that I am comfortable in, so he was easy to get to know. I’ve known him since I moved back to NC, I suppose. He lets me touch his arms, and he can always tell if I am feeling low, and goes out of his way to make sure that I’m okay. I'm pretty sure he knows that he's beautiful, as I know that he can be really insecure. We build each other up, he gets really upset if I say anything about not being a pretty girl. He's an excellent friend. He has a partner that I am quite fond of.

As for women, for me, it’s not nearly so cut and dried. I know a lot of burlesque performers, in Atlanta, and in NC. Most of them have a confidence when they perform that is intoxicating. Women tend to display their passions more, which is always intriguing. Watching someone’s face light up when they talk about something they are passionate about is one of my favorite things. Get excited when you talk. Playing it cool is only endearing to me if it fails in an adorable way.

Then, I wonder why I think about it. I never think anyone is attracted to me, so why do I spend so much time thinking about attraction? I know people who will say that I’m pretty, and that’s cool, that is what you are supposed to do for your friends, right? I went to art school, y’all. I understand the aesthetics of symmetry, and beauty, and I know my flaws perfectly well. I know how people react to me. Blah blah blah.

Ugh. This post got lost in the woods. I would say that I need to get out more, but that’s not quite true. I need other people that I like to show up at the places that I get out to.

(Music) Mezzanine

I think about music a lot. I rarely get to talk about music. So I’ll blog about it.

I usually take songs on their own individual merit, which is actually how this very writing started. It was going to be solely about the song Inertia Creeps by Massive Attack, from the album Mezzanine. Which led me to Risingson, another track off of the same album. Then I listened to Angel, and here we are, with the whole album. Have you listened to Mezzanine? If not, you should, right now. I can wait.

Generally, in my blogs, I don’t use people’s names, because even though this is all my story, I am actually pretty private, and I’m not here to name names. Here’s the exception.  My friend Joey has influenced my taste in music more than any other human in my life. When we met, I already had my love of The Cure and Depeche Mode, Rosetta Stone, and Sisters of Mercy. I love to dance, more than almost anything on the planet. Joey gave me so much more (he’s a DJ) and loud, so that I could feel it. He gave me Sneaker Pimps, which led to my love of IAMX. He has played all kinds of nonsense for me, over the years, just so I could hear it really loud. Without him, I might me missing so much from my life, like Faster Kill Pussycat by Paul Oakenfold. Joey has affected my enjoyment of my world and my life more than pretty much anyone else, and I can never, ever express how much I appreciate it, or how much it has changed me. There is not a single day that I don’t hear something in my headphones that Joey didn’t introduce me to in the past 25 years.

Joey gave me the song Angel.

Once upon a time, we had the best Goth Nights in the world. We even got videos. Way back, I rarely talked to anyone when I went out. I don’t think I talked to Joey, even, for a few years. We had a giant screen for videos, too. The first time I heard Angel, I stopped dead, on the dancefloor, and stared at the video. I assume it was 1998, around when the album came out. The video is dark, and a little frightening, and completely compelling. As a first track, Angel sets the tone for the whole album. It’s dark and slow and gritty and obsessive. Technically, this album is thier first excursion into trip hop and heavier electronica. I don’t know what either of those things mean. I just know what I like.

I’m not taking the tracks in order, but, Angel is the first. Almost everyone is familiar with at least part of Teardrop, as it was used for the opening credits of the TV show House. As a track, it’s fine. Exchange is one of the most fun things that I listen too in headphones. It’s laid back, and if I close my eyes, it feels like some sort of really cool, laid back fairy is smoking dope and circling my head. Dissolved Girl starts with a panic attack pulse into really deep bass. The lyrics will feel familiar to anyone who has done something that was much wanted, but ill advised. “I need a little love to ease the pain.” Purely physical, not entirely passionate, sexual, but not necessarily relief.

I enjoy the other tracks, but I want to get to my favorite, Inertia Creeps. Now, I happen to know that Robert Del Naja wrote it about a relationship that had recently ended. It feels like it, like yearning for something that isn’t in reach anymore. I love Del Naja’s voice. I love everything about him, actually. He is an amazing artist, and one way or another, without him, we might not have Banksy. I digress.

Inertia Creeps and Risingson are both aural sex, to me. There are few songs that have an actual, physical effect on me. These two songs might as well be really heavy foreplay. I dance to both of these with my eyes shut and belly dancer hips. These two songs describe in my head, with sound, the place I would like to be. A dark bar, half sex club, dark booths, shiny black vinyl and soft black velvet,  bass you can feel, dancing like no one else is even there, unless of course, you have someone to dance with. Boots spinning on concrete floors. Risingson even has a touch of that familiar anxiety, why am I here, now? These two songs are why I want to learn to hula hoop. They make me want to have someone to grab by the hips and hold on to. The line “toy like people make me boy like,” always makes me smile, you want to be a toy, I’ll play.

Gotta go dance around for a bit.

Thank you, Joey, for giving me Inertia Creeps, hella loud, in a dark room.

Romantic relationships, and the lack there of

So. I’m single. I’m not looking. Do I want to be single? That, like most things, is complicated. I am, in general, poly. I respect all types of relationships. To me, it just seems unreasonable to expect to find one other human that fulfills every single need or desire in a relationship. I don’t think it’s fair to be expected to have to give up something important to you, just because someone meets most of your needs. I completely respect those who pursue and follow that thought. I can do completely committed, monogamous relationships. I can be a partner to someone who has a partner. I can be a friend, with benefits. I find none of these things insulting, or belittling. I do not need monogamy in a relationship, but I do need safety, and honesty.

I was married once. I never thought he would be my “forever.” I do not hate him, though I do hate some of the scars he left. I do not think that he’s a bad person, I do think that together, we are catastrophic, and bring out the worst in each other. I have seen him only peripherally since the final split. I stood up, in a marriage counselor’s office, and said “I’m done.” And I was. I hope he found happiness in whatever he pursued.

I lived with someone, after that. We both knew it was not forever. I can acknowledge, now, that my damage runs a lot deeper than I had previously thought, before that relationship. I was still highly insecure, and jealous, and possessive, and angry, because that is all I knew how to be in a relationship. It’s all I knew, at all.

I was never a partner in the relationship with my ex husband, I was a possession. From age fourteen to thirty one, off and on. Something to be controlled, and mitigated. I did date someone else in high school, but I don’t even know how to describe that relationship. It always felt ethereal, not quite tangible. We are still friends.

Since then, I have only been in poly relationships. I know that part of the reason for that, is that I am very withdrawn, I like my space. I like having a space that is mine, somewhere that I can retreat to. I am weird about being touched. I am still dealing with how to express my needs and wants, without feeling selfish. I rarely ask for anything.

I found the relationship that I thought would be forever. There was a level of companionship that I have never experienced before. A level of comfort, and support that I didn’t think possible. Someone I was comfortable planning a future with. Someone I was just, comfortable with. He was charming, and outgoing. We seemed to fit and contrast in all of the right ways, bringing out the best in each other. Was it perfect? Nope. But we could always talk through things. We used to take adventure days, just drive and look for places to take pictures, little hole in the wall places to eat, tiny towns and roadside attractions. These were my favorite days, ever. Even now (it really hasn’t been that long, I suppose) I miss those days, most of all. I get panic attacks if I think about it too much, because I can’t imagine another human wanting to spend time with me, like that, ever again. He says, even now, that we could do it again. Anytime. That relationship ending, and the way it ended, broke something inside of me that I thought could not be broken. It was horrible. It’s still horrible. He is still in one part of my life, because I am too stubborn to give up something that I worked so fucking hard for, even though I will always fear that people think I got the positions I hold by dating him. Maybe I’m still trying to prove them all wrong. His choices have left me completely bereft in a way that I was not prepared for, and the totality with which he turned his back on me is unforgiven. In a fucked up way, he made me believe that all of the things my ex husband said to me are true, but with actions, instead of words. That’s enough about that.

What would my perfect relationship look like? Radical honesty. Don’t tell me what I meant. I actually mean what I say, which is apparently shocking. Being poly does not mean never getting jealous. Jealousy is like the check engine light on your car’s dash. It is not what is wrong, just an indication that you need to look closer before something breaks worse. To me, anyway. I expect someone to be with me, when they are physically with me. I need those who will accept me as I am. Which doesn’t mean that I don’t want to be challenged. Don’t fall in love with someone else, and forget to mention it to me. Know the difference between love and infatuation. Don’t hide things from me because you think I’ll get hurt. That’s not how relationships work. You don’t hide your actions to keep your partner from getting hurt, you hide actions so that your own needs keep getting served, to hell with anyone that relies on you. Of course people make mistakes, and do things that they regret, or were misthought out. Hiding it, instead of confronting the issue, is what makes it a lie. And every day after is a lie.

See? I lost track. I’m still angry. This is why I’m single.

My Caterpillar Girl

There’s a woman in my life that I call my first girl crush. Clearly, I have known her for a very long time. While she is, undoubtedly, my first girl crush, I loved another female long before even her. Certain songs will always make me think of certain people, or situations.

I am pretty sure that this is true of most people. I started listening to The Cure in middle school, but I didn’t meet my Caterpillar Girl until high school. I get asked, upon occasion, how I came out as pansexual. I never did, really. I just realized when I understood the concept, that I always had been. I felt no confusion, or shame, the first time a girl kissed me, any more than the first time a boy kissed me, or the first time a person who wasn’t sure yet kissed me. I fall in love with people, not genitalia. It’s funny, what I am physically attracted to in men is much easier to define than what attracts me to women. But, I digress. I never kissed my Caterpillar Girl. She was my friend, though I now know that I was in love with her. She was my best friend, though I was never hers. High School is hell, you know. I went to a smallish high school. There weren’t that many freaks, so we stuck together. I know a lot of people who say they don’t know anyone from high school, anymore. Honestly, for me, most of those freaks that I needed and loved so much back then are still around and about in my life. For that, I am eternally grateful. My Caterpillar Girl was beautiful, she still is. We are similar in sense of humor and temperament, though she always leaned a little more to hippieness, where I went punk. Thirty years later, I can still tell you what she was wearing the first time that I saw her, her hair falling across one eye, just like mine. Okay. It was the late 80s. A lot of people’s hair fell across one eye. Being so similar in ways made high school, difficult. I have never been much of a casual dater, even in adulthood. Even in adulthood, she and I have been involved with the same men, at different or coinciding times, more than I have been involved with those who never knew her. No, we never had any kind of physical relationship. But I did crave being near her. My high school “sweet heart,” my then future exhusband, was always jealous of how I felt about her, and used it to tear me down, sometimes. He would hang out with her, and tell me how pretty she was, and how he thought I was pretty, too, even if no one else thought I was as pretty as her. If I couldn’t do something that he wanted to do, he would say that it’s okay, she would think he was important enough to spend time with him. But, I was in love with him, he told me so, and it was eventually true. He made me resent her. I carry a fuckton of guilt about it, even now. Things happened. Things unraveled. And one day, she was far away. High School ended. Life marched on. I married him. I knew when she came back, but I was embarrassed beyond belief at my actions. At not standing up for her. At picking the ‘wrong’ side. Then, I went away. And came back. Six months after I moved back, yes, I could tell you the date, I was at my favourite place (a bar) to do my favorite thing (dance) and there she was, twenty six years later. With one of the same friends we still shared from high school. I smiled. She smiled. I lowered my eyes and walked away. Her facial expressions still the same, her laugh the same. At some point during that night, I drunkenly crawled across a picnic table, in short skirt and boots, just to tell her that I had never not loved her. We are Facebook friends. I see her here and there. We chat. I have no idea what she actually thinks of me, now. I am clearly not trying to hide who she is, even though I have never mentioned her name in this. Do I want to have any sort of conversation about this with her? Not really. It was a long time ago. I complicated everything even further, like I do, in recent times. I’m not going out of my way to point her to this, at all. I will just still smile at the memes she posts. The memes that are so like the ones that I post. We listened to a lot of music in high school, driving, hanging out. There are songs that remind me of all of those places, and people, and specific moments, trapped in amber in my mind like personal music videos. We listened to a lot of The Cure. Sometimes, I wish she knew how very, very sorry that I am. That I will always be. A few of my happy places are memories of listening to music, much too loud, in the car. Dancing barefoot in the rose garden, peasant skirts damp with dew, or from playing in the fountain. I was listening to Spotify the other day, and Caterpillar Girl came on, and I smiled. She flickers, and she’s beautiful, she glows inside my head, and she will always be my Caterpillar Girl, even now that she is fully a butterfly. Caterpillar Girl lyrics The Cure Flicka flicka flicka Here you are Cata cata cata Caterpillar girl Flowing in And filling up my hopeless heart Oh never never go Dust my lemon lies With powder pink and sweet The day I stop Is the day you change And fly away from me You flicker And you're beautiful You glow inside my head You hold me hypnotized I'm mesmerized Your flames The flames that kiss me dead