awakenings

public display of affection.

It feels delicious to walk through a crowd, my fingers intertwined with hers, and feel her thumb caressing the back of my hand. Or to stand next to her and feel her hand slip into the back pocket of my jeans, pulling me a little closer. To lean against her in a booth at some random pizza joint, and to feel her softness against my back and hear her voice in my ear. To sit next to her in the second last row of a darkened concert hall and enjoy the feeling of her arm around me. To turn my face toward hers and kiss her without caring or noticing or wondering if there was one person watching or if the whole world had pulled up their chairs for front row seats to the show.

It does not feel brazen, or bold, or even liberating to be with a woman in public. To be affectionate with her does not feel like a political statement or some sort of personal crusade. It’s not defiant or in-your-face and I don’t have a damn thing to prove. It just feels good, and right and so comfortable I wonder (once again) what on earth took me so long to get here.

I wasn’t always this comfortable. At first when we were out together I was a little antsy, cautious, unsure of myself. I didn’t realize until I took my wedding rings off that my reluctance had nothing to do with the act of showing affection to another woman where others could see, but instead had everything to do with my guilt.

Although I know logically that likely nobody but me noticed they were there, the rings felt like a flashing neon sign pointing directly at me saying “Look Here! Cheater! Bad Girl! Leaving-Her-Good-Husband-To-Be-With-Women! SHAME, SHAME, SHAME!” As soon as the truth was out and I stopped wearing my rings I felt the shift right away. All of a sudden I could be out with her, could BE with her without feeling that sense of anxiety – and then it just slipped neatly and naturally into something so undeniably right.

It is still a novelty to me to feel comfortable enough in my own skin that I’m not constantly wondering or worrying what other people are thinking of me. I have had many freedoms in my life, but the freedom from that debilitating self-judgment is brand spanking new. Never before have I been able to escape the need to define myself based on the opinions of others.

I once wrote a blog entry (that’d be on my old, straight blog ya’ll, the one my mama reads – so no linkage here) and referred to myself as an approval whore. That about sums it up. I not only cared what people thought, I based my entire sense of self-worth on what I perceived those thoughts to be, and I acted in order to cultivate the sort of approval that I was desperately seeking.

Now it doesn’t matter to me if the sight of two women holding hands and kissing bothers you and you think I’ve bought myself a one way ticket straight to hell. I could care less if you think it’s hot in a ‘girls gone wild’ sorta way, and you elbow your buddies and make rude comments. Perhaps you don’t even really see us because, like most people, you are so wrapped up in your own life that the actions of those around you are peripheral and barely warrant notice.

What does matter to me is that I am with someone I want to be with, and I feel free to be with her just as I would be with anyone. I finally feel free to be me.

And yea, that feels damn good.

I have to stand up now, unflinchingly and resolutely, and say yes, I did this thing. I cannot hide from it. I cannot deny it. I cannot escape it. Why did I do it? Why did I betray everything that was solid and real, for something that is ultimately as intangible and elusive as the wind?

“So now I will be waiting for the world to hear my song
So they can tell me I was wrong…”

You want to know the truth? You want to know the part of this where my guilt takes root and grows until it threatens to overwhelm, my truest confession…

I don’t regret it. I cannot regret it. I will not regret it. I cannot even fathom speaking of regret because it felt like everything in my life had spiraled to that exact point in time. It spiraled to a point as sharp as the blade of a sword that sliced into my skin and left the thinnest line of blood-red desire. Spiraled till the edges blurred and my head was spinning and I could see with a clarity that was so brilliant that it was blinding.

I did it because I NEEDED it. I needed it like I had never experienced need before in my life.

[And, when it all comes down to it, doesn’t that sound like the biggest crock-of-shit-justification for bad behavior that you’ve ever heard?]

I made a choice that wasn’t ever a choice at all. I was in the most egocentric, selfish, self-centered place I have ever been. I needed, I needed, I needed. And my need came at the expense of his heart. My wholeness at the expense of his brokenness, of OUR brokenness. There is no justification or excuse or explanation that could even begin to cover it, and I have to own it. I have to own it like I’ve never owned anything before in my life.

“But they weren’t there beneath your stare,
And they weren’t stripped ’till they were bare
Of any bindings from the world outside that room.
And they weren’t taken by the hand and led through fields
Of naked land where any pre-conceived ideas were blown away…
So I couldn’t say “no”.”

Truly, I couldn’t say no. If I am going to a place of deepest honesty (and that is what I promised myself I would do when I started this blog) I never really, truly considered saying no. Not once we were in that space, with nothing between us but that spinning, spiraling, all-consuming need and want.

In that moment, every should-have, could-have, would-have disappeared until there was only me… and her.

Her.

I have not written much about her, about this person that I didn’t even know a few months ago and who has now become a forever part of the narrative of my life.

HER.

Perhaps it is too immediate, too entangled, too NOW to write of at this point. Perhaps it won’t ever feel safe to share. Somehow, although I feel comfortable sharing the most intimate details of this transition here, what is between her and I (this undefined, unconfirmed, uncertain something) feels too intimate, too delicate, too fragile to release right now.

But what can I say about it without feeling I am sharing what should not be shared? What can I say that honors what this has been for me, without glossing over the less-than-pretty bits?

It is glimpses of potential and wisdom imparted and lessons learned. It is tenderness and frustration and protectiveness and expectations and growth and softness and electricity and never feeling truly on balance where she is concerned. It is build up, and it is let down. It is hope-against-hope, and the universe telling me to stay still, sit tight, remain open. It is me trying hard to listen and learn and just ride it to the end. It is intense attitude and occasionally unguarded eyes full of all the secrets in the whole wide world. It is putting up walls and tearing them down, it is softness and it is toughness, fighting not to care and diving into attachment. It is laughing and it is tears and it is struggling to understand. It is a beautiful paradox, and a painful one. It is everything standing in the way, and nothing between us at all.

The only certainty about what it is, is actually more about what it isn’t. It is not forever, or even for much longer – it was created on a foundation of understood impermanence. She leaves this place in a few short weeks, not planning to return. She has her own journey, her own places to go, her own battles to fight.

So, she will leave, and I will stay. And no matter if I one day wish I didn’t, I will always carry a part of her with me. And honestly, in spite of it all, right now that feels really, really good.

Complete Lyrics
They Weren’t There – Missy Higgins

You breathed infinity into my world
And time was lost up in a cloud and in a whirl.
We dug a hole in the cool grey earth and lay there for the night.
Then you said, “wait for me we’ll fly the wind,
We’ll grow old and you’ll be stronger without him” but oh,
Now my world is at your feet. I was lost and I was found,
But I was alive and now I’ve drowned.
So now I will be waiting for the world to hear my song
So they can tell me I was wrong…

But they weren’t there beneath your stare,
And they weren’t stripped ’till they were bare of
Any bindings from the world outside that room.
And they weren’t taken by the hand
And led through fields of naked land
Where any pre-conceived ideas were blown away…
So I couldn’t say “no”.

You sighed and I was lost in you, weeks could’ve past for all I knew.
You were there blanket of the over-world and so I couldn’t say,
I wouldn’t say “no”. But they all said, “you’re too young to even know,
Just don’t let it grow and you’ll be stronger without him”
But oh, now, my world is at your feet. I was lost and I was found,
But I was alive and now I’ve drowned.
So now I will be waiting for the world to hear my song
So they can tell me I was wrong…

But they weren’t there beneath your stare,
And they weren’t stripped ’till they were bare
Of any bindings from the world outside that room.
And they weren’t taken by the hand and led through fields
Of naked land where any pre-conceived ideas were blown away…

But they weren’t there beneath your stare,
And they weren’t stripped ’till they were bare
Of any bindings from the world outside that room.
And they weren’t taken by the hand and led through fields
Of naked land where any pre-conceived ideas were blown away…
So I couldn’t say “no”.