I want to be the fire you need

Epiphany last night: I haven't been the "aggressor" in a very long time. It's no wonder, then, why my assertive nature has been lying dormant, tucked down in order to save itself from rejection. Etc.

I round it off and say that I've had four serious, long term, "monogamous*" relationships with women. I qualify serious with the in-love factor; there are two other women that I consider ex-girlfriends, but I was never in love with either of them. And there have been dalliances, but again, regardless of the nature of those blips on my radar, they never became serious.

So! My first girlfriend- we got together when I was growing into my own gay skin. I was 20. She was six years older than me, and obviously far more experienced than I was. But that never stopped me with her. Hands down, that was the relationship in which I was most assertive, even aggressive, and I felt so unbelievably confident-- despite the fact that I, at first, really had no idea what I was doing. She provided a lot of firsts for me- I don't know that I did any of the same for her. But the bones of this: I was fearless, with her.

Why? BECAUSE I DIDN'T HAVE ANY LESBIAN BAGGAGE WEIGHING ME DOWN!

Enter my next girlfriend: El sotano. She is the most sexually aggressive woman I have ever been with; I have serious doubts that I could ever find anyone quite like that ever again. (I suppose that's why we've continued to fuck here and there over the years since we- so justly- parted.) I never had to do a damn thing, initiation-wise. I became very, very accustom to her assertiveness and watched my own start to fade into the background. Of course, there's an explosion of other pieces that go along with this sexual union, and that helps to explain my lack of assertion- she had another girlfriend for a good part of our time together. Ah, yes. I didn't know how to handle that at the age of 22, 23.

After that came a string of not-much-at-all (those 2 semi-serious relationships fall into this time frame), and then came A. I don't have a nickname for her; I rarely mention her. But we spent about 9 months in a relationship that progressed so sweetly, so non-aggressively. I remember initiating here and there, being perhaps a little assertive, but we were so not a match when it came to the bedroom. I oh so fondly recall her saying to me: "You don't have to fuck me like a jackhammer." Awesome! Yeah, so not a match. But again... my assertion was sleeping.

This leads us through another bout of random, semi-sexual encounters. Then comes Great Lakes. She dominated my life for the better part of three years- and I've been completely free of her for nine months. What remains is this fucking block I have with my assertive nature. Great Lakes mutilated that. Totally fucking destroyed it. I was told that I could not initiate sex- and then, many months later, when I voiced my annoyance with the fact that we were not having any sex to speak of, she blamed me. For not taking charge. This is just a shiny little glimpse into the utter bullshit that circled around our every waking moment together. I was never on steady ground with her- mentally, vocally, and certainly not sexually. When there was sex, it was pretty good, but that's what crazy people are good at: fucking. It was a major control issue with her. And within her issues, I totally lost my ability to be A) forthcoming (sexually), and B) assertive (in any way you can imagine).

Now, the healing. I did a lot of that over the summer. I dated quite effectively and did my thing, whatever. I was entirely conscious of everything I did. I dated C for a while and knew it wasn't going anywhere. Sexually- so not a match. I was relying on her to be assertive, and apparently she's not. I wanted to be taken care of, I think. I wanted someone to provide for me all the things that were so severely lacking in my previous relationship. I didn't want to be in control.

It's been a few months since I stopped seeing C. It's given me a chance to continue to claw back to the roots of who I am- and last night, it finally hit me. I was so much fucking happier when I had a heavy hand with control and when I was more assertive. So what the FUCK am I waiting for?

What's going on now is... well, it's interesting. It's a very -be here now / stay in the moment- kind of thing. & it's fun. & sexy. & it makes me smirk, a lot, because it's under most people's radar.

Part of it is almost demanding me to be assertive. I've been doing a fair job with that, I think, and it's helping me to reclaim that part of me I so miss. I've had to realize that there's very little threat of rejection, now. And that commands me to let go of that nagging fear and just go with it... which, again, I've been doing. It's hard, though! Being the non-assertive piece of a (oh fuck, what can I call this... hmm...) fuck-pair (hah!) is SO much easier than being the assertive piece. But if I'm not assertive, I'm sure as shit not going to get what I want, and I was an incredibly patient, hint-dropping factor in this equation for quite some time. There's no reason for my patience now. My caution, yes, and consideration. But patience? Uhm, no. I see no room for it.

What needs to increase is my level of assertion/aggression. Not anger-aggression. More like sexy-hot-fuck aggression. That want has been voiced. I'm still working my thoughts- certainly not my feelings- around this. It's hard to instantly turn that dormant part of myself back on, full volume. So I'm slinking in. She's doing her part, too, which surprised me at first but I so obviously fuckin' love it. It's been a long time since a single sentence has made desire so thoroughly flood through my body. And that very much helps with ye olde nagging fear of Rejection. The little bits- words, notions, suggestions- are helping me steel up, stand taller, drop the past and focus on here & now. It's working.

We're learning~



*monogamous in theory, of course. Not always in practice. ALL ARE TO BLAME!

The more I want to let it go

I wonder if it's redundant to put honey on my Honey Nut Cheerios. This isn't a critical thought process, but really, the honey in Honey Nut isn't as bold as I want it to be. & I seem to have a slight addiction to honey. It's one of the fucking coolest substances out there- seriously. It's luxuriously thick, so much so that it sinks to the bottom of my bowl and when I scrape my spoon against the underbelly of the ocean of soy milk (alright, it's more like a small pond of soy milk), I unearth clumps of smooth honey. Totally makes my mouth happy, and that's important.

A couple years ago (three? four? : time overlaps anymore and I have a chronological impairment), when I was dating A, two things happened. We fell in love and therefore overlooked everything we ate, AND we began to put honey on everything (excluding ourselves, as far as I can recall, because I don't like being sticky; food + sex is not appealing to me, probably because when I was in high school, I was "hanging out" [he'd never admit we were seeing each other, and we couldn't qualify as dating since we never spent time together outside one of our houses, so apparently we were just Hanging Out] with this boy, the only boy I "dated" that I actually went to high school with, and we were experimenting sexually and once upon a time I do recall chocolate syrup [how cliche, how 1999 of us] being involved, and just, ew, now). The best part of the honey addiction was when we put it on ice cream cake. Hindsight says it was probably sweetness overkill, but thanks to my grandmother, I have an incorrigible sweet tooth. I'd eat ice cream for all 3 meals of the day if I wasn't so influenced by society's heavy-handed food rulebook. A and I did get our terrible eating habits under control, and then I started going to the gym a lot, and then I cut off all my hair, and then we broke up, and she was mad because now that I'd gotten "really hot," she wasn't dating me anymore. We haven't spoken since we broke up, which is strange considering we still live in the same area but because I don't go out much when I know a lot of the gays are out, we never run into each other.

The whole food thing is bothersome, though, because it's always on my mind. I lost my natural curves during a particularly shoddy relationship about five years ago. And admittedly, I really liked the fact that my hips & boobs shrank and finally allowed me to have somewhat of an androgynous body. It didn't last, though, because real life came back/the relationship ended, and all of a sudden, my stomach unclenched and I could eat again. Fast forward to seven months later, and I had my old body back. The curvy, in-your-face-girl body. Since then, I've been trying to shrink my hips. I haven't succeeded, but I have done a fairly excellent job of tightening my quads and calves, as well as honing some pretty kick-ass triceps.

I don't really eat well. I don't care to, because I like being alive, and I like enjoying my life, and therefore I like indulging when I feel the need. I go through spurts where I lack an appetite, and I have weeks where nothing but pizza/ice cream/french fries will quell my appetite. The key to me liking my body has to do with recognizing my limits, the most important of which is realizing when I'm hungry. This is such simple logic, really, but I can understand how people overeat. I eat when I'm bored and when I'm thirsty. Totally not proud of that, but it is what it is, and at least I recognize it. The good news is that I don't eat when I'm upset... I am definitely not an emotional eater. What I forget, sometimes, is that I don't have to eat when I'm not hungry just because all the food authorities tell eager listeners that you need to eat three balanced meals + three light snacks a day. Sometimes I'm not hungry after I eat my fucking Cheerios, okay? Does that mean my metabolism is going to collapse in on itself if I don't eat again until 5pm? NO. Well, actually, I'm !!!! I was going to say I'm right-brained, but the quiz I just took is telling me I'm 65% LEFT-BRAINED. This can't be! Oh shit, I think I'm becoming logical in my late-twenties. That is the suck. I'm losing my creativity/flexibility because I'm not writing. See, no one to blame but myself!

Anyway. All that just to remind myself to do what's right for me, fuck people who tell me what I'm doing is wrong, and eat when I'm hungry and leave it at that.