Pondering my own mortality

I realized today that both my personal journal writing and this blog have touched on issues of growing old.  Sorry to veer off the sex/kinky path for a bit, but I can't help but think about my own mortality.  

This thinking got me started when I visited my mother during Thanksgiving weekend.  I hadn't seen her for awhile and was worried about her.  Her itinerant/independent ways have taken her from a strange journey from uprooting herself from the SF Bay Area after she retired, to Kansas, then back to California, where she is staying where my roots started.  She is among family and friends, so I need not worry.  Nevertheless, her memory isn't what it used to be and her sense of adventure have subsided quite a bit.  I look at her now and she looks like she's aged 10 years.  But she is 70 years old now.  Why did I just noticed that she is old?  

Then this past Thursday, my aunt called me to tell me my uncle died.  I was stunned, then a few hours later I cried, at work.  Yes, we were close.  He was, at one point, close to a father figure I had as a child.  So his death hit me pretty hard and I regret not visiting him when I had the chance.  As of now, I'm still awaiting news of when his funeral will be scheduled.  I've already told Mom I was attending both that and the burial.

When did I become old myself?

I've known many years ago that I stopped being "young".  Heh...I would argue that I never felt young even when I was youth.  All those things I'm suppose to do when I'm young, like sexual experimentation and having a wild life?  I did once I turned 30.  I don't feel old, but I know I'm not going to be able to party (and recover) when I was 18.  Actually, I don't want to be 18.  I like the me that is now. the over-the-hill, "bitter" woman who should be angry at my younger counterparts because their boobs are perkier.  But...I'm far from bitter, and I'm having better sex now than when my boobs defied gravity. (Not that my boobs look awful now, the guys in my life love my boobs.) 

The only thing I have for posterity is my writings, this blog and my written journals that I've written since I was 18.  I'm not so egotistical to think that they will be as interesting to read as Anais Nin's diaries, but I want to keep them until I die.  Then, I don't know, have one of my nieces read them and destroy them?  Then there's this blog.  But in the end it doesn't matter, for I will no longer exist to care of such things. 

As someone who holds Buddhist philosophical views, I don't believe in an afterlife.   I will come back to where I came from, back to earth, with my energy back to the universe.  My ego would like to think that I influenced some people, that I did some good, that my love will be remembered in fondness, that people will be sad when I go before I die.  At least I don't believe that I will live my life where I will never have regrets anymore.  Even if you live an intentional life, you will have regrets.  Because time is finite, and it  will destroy you like a Mexican God.

Intentionality

I felt the need to write this post because my life seems to be not in sync at the moment.  A financial roadblock, accompanied by some unusual hormonal activity in my body,  followed by some light seasonal affective disorder (even though it feels like spring here), has forced me to slow down and be introspective again, just when I really wanted to be social and gregarious.  Oh well.  I do know that I have friends and lovers who understand me and love me all the same, even if I'm feeling under the weather.  I'm also better at voicing what troubles me now and seeking help.  Still, this current blue period has me worrying that it will influence how I think about myself, which simply will not do!

As I was making brunch, it occurred to me that one of the things I wanted to do this year is to begin to live my life with full intentionality.  What I mean by that is to live with intent, to be positive and be proactive.  Well, to be honest, it's been what I've been doing all along, probably what has been motivating me ever since I started this blog.  I set out on this journey to live my own truths, and the first half of this blog was about finding those truths.  The past year was all about integrating my kinky and poly self into the whole of my personality and being.  Seems like the next chapter of this seems to be focused on what to do with all of this knowledge.

Well, one of the most obvious thing for me to change is my finances, which the universe has graciously allowed the space to happen, even when I wasn't ready to face it.  Thanks universe.  But, I paid off my car and I have some side gigs, so it's not all that bad.  This turn of events let me to think about my future.  Having no children nor own any property, the one thing I can do now, aside from paying off my debts, is save for retirement.  Why not!  Even if I retire (Which is doubtful), I will be living my life for another 40 years.  If you think about that, it's another lifetime.  Then I had this wonderful conversation over NYE weekend with my roommate about his idealized plans living in a semi-itinerant lifestyle by setting up a base in a commune like community in upstate New York.  It sounded delightful, although my version of it would be like a Buddhist retreat.  It made me wonder how much money would I need to live in a place like that.

On a more moderate time frame, the other thing I've been doing, and mind you this has been subconscious on my part, has been focusing on my career.  I have been reading some great non-fiction, not self-help books per se, but inspirational for me nonetheless.  I picked up Lean in before Christmas.  Despite legitimate criticisms regarding its classist overtones and how it perpetuates the corporate system, I thought it was a great book.  As someone who's career have been in various corporate settings, I found the advice to be practical and refreshing, based on sound feminist thinking.  Currently, I'm reading  Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking.  So far, so good. All of these books is making me consider taking public speech classes, and seriously thinking about going back to college to either get my PMP Certification or MBA.  I'm also trying to learn MS Access. Trying...it's harder than it looks.  Hey, if I can understand and master SQL databases, I can rule the (admin) world :)  Who knows...maybe I can get a new job even.

That is to say, I don't want to set aside the strides I made last year, nor ignore the relationships I've forged within the kinky/poly world.  My foundation within this community has been nothing but astonishing for me.

So here's to 2014.  Let it be known as the year of intentionality. 

What a difference a year makes...and what may come.

I was talking to my co-worker recently about various things in her life.  She had to talk to her mother about something extremely uncomfortable, because she was placed in a precarious position to have to set limits.  As we talked about her situation, I commented about how things have finally settled for me.  I told her that no matter how insipid or annoying things got for me this year, nothing compared to the pain and anguish I experienced the same time last year.   In fact, I've been able to cope with the surprises in my life, and a shift in my circumstances with relative ease, though not without some kind of effort.  It is nice to know that I'm finally on the other side of this, or at least be able to take a step back and look at what happened with a clear head.  I'm not saying that my life has been easy in the past 12 months.  I don't have to say it, just read my posts this year.  But, at least I'm settled enough to be able to date other people, and finally focus on myself. 

Yet, I feel that I have not been alone in having to go through pain and hardship.  It seems that my other friends have endured their share of breakups and disappointments this year.  I know a group of people having to deal with some vile behavior that is going on for 2 years, that involved a possible outing, and legal action.  Still others who are embroiled in some drama, that is spilling into the kink community at large.

Speaking of kink community, if you are to believe everything you see on Fetlife, there appears to be a huge rupture in the community regarding communication and personal responsibility.  The only thing I'm going to say about that is this: 1) It's sparking debate and dialogue.  2) Things are finally coming into the light that needed to be exposed, and 3) There are people who are committed to change the community for the better.   As someone who is and isn't part of this community, from my point of view, it's not as fractured as some people think it is.  It's probably not as healthy as most adherents claim to be.  But some lesson need to be learned time and time again.  I think a shakeup like this is a good thing, complacently is dangerous for this kind of community.

So if I was to give advice to all my friends who are going through a rough time right now, or a community that needs healing it's this, you will get to the other side of this pain.  I can't tell you if it's going to be easy or quick.  I'm not clairvoyant.  But this will end.  You may stumble along the way, make some hard decisions, and make some changes, but pain and suffering have a way of teaching you about yourself and about your place in the universe.  You have to be open and patient to listen to it.  And it takes time and space to get to the other side.   

No, I don't think I'm done making changes to my life.  Right now, it looks like I have to get my work and financial house in order.   Not to mention, I'm not naive to think that I will stop suffering.  I'd like to think that I have the tools to deal what may come, or at least have a better frame of mind.   At the very least, I can enjoy myself, cultivate the new relationships I've acquired, and continue to work on integrating my power into my real life. 

Control vs Controlling

I wrote a little about control here but I wanted to elaborate on my thoughts about this subject.

Just to reiterate, I still maintain that total control is an illusion. I still believe that.  Control is a force of nature, like water.  You can't control water.  It flows to places where it will encounter the least resistance, forging creeks, rivers, lakes, and oceans. 

We think we are in control, because we do things and hold onto small things that make us feel like that we are masters of our universe. But that is not real control; that is being controlling. Real control and being controlling are two very different things.

Being controlling is giving away your power, and letting your flight/fight response guide you. Being controlling is reactionary, based on fear and insecurities. When we try to push people to our whims, when we try to manipulate situations to mirror our wants and desires, regardless if the players consent to this or even aware of this, this is what being controlling means.  Sometimes these efforts work.  But it's like deception, at some point it becomes burdensome and unyielding.  Then you become a slave at maintaining this illusion. 

Real control encompasses power, influence, effort and luck.  Real control is tempered by responsibility, integrity, and compassion. Real control is complicated and is an exercise in patience.

Only when I learned to let go of control did I understand real control. I needed to step back and see the big picture and that all those small details that I would obsess on were distractions. To understand control, one must know yourself, know your strength and weaknesses, question your motives, and take risks. It is the choices you make and constantly learning from them and refining them.

Portraits

My ex-husband painted a portrait of me using traditional renaissance techniques , using hand-made ground pigments in oil, dammar varnish and gesso on a panel covered in linen sized with rabbit skin glue.  I am posed laying on my side, dressed in my blue pajamas, with my hands laying in front of me, my hand framing my face while my left hand prominently  displaying my gold-leafed wedding ring.  I am not smiling, rather, I am in contemplation.  Not because I'm lost in profound thought, but because posing for a long periods of time is a test in endurance.  As far as paintings go, the portrait itself is not very big.  It is sizable enough that I've had problems displaying it on walls or mantels without leaving an impression that I'm vain.  So, it's currently not anywhere in my home.  I do love it, and I couldn't ask for a better representation of me in a particular time and place. 

When we separated, my ex-husband gave me my portrait.  He also gave me  another painting that  represented love in its early stages for us.  He couldn't be near me without being hurt, so any remnants of me needed to be purged. He took those paintings off his gallery on his website.  For awhile, I couldn't look at my portrait either.  For me it represented youthful idealism long faded.  It hid behind a door for a long time. 

I've since displayed it in my last home, on a the mantel in fact.  It was one of the first thing people noticed when they walked into the front room.  I look at my portrait with fondness.  It wasn't a bad time for me, I just needed to find the true me.  Then a week ago, while I was writing this and trying to figure out where this piece was going, I went to my ex-husband's art website.  I'm not sure when it happened but to my surprise, my portrait was on display.  He even updated the description to say that it was a portrait of his ex-wife.  It made me smile.  We've been friends for awhile, so my portrait has become a fond memory for him.

If someone painted another portrait of me, of the me that is now, I would wonder how it would look like.  Would someone paint me like the stereotypical dominant female, in a corset carrying a crop?  Oh God I hope not.  I do hope that whomever this artist is, he or she will capture my spirit, this new energy I'm emanating.  I would not be so shy, I would hope that I'd be painted in a dress, that shows my figure, with my hair flowing in the air, displaying a look on my face that I am comfortably with the me that I have become.

I feel the need to put myself in display.  It's time to describe myself in my words, to tell my story, to tell you who I am.  It's as if the universe is telling me, it's time to get out of my shell, you have processed enough of the pain of the past few months.  Because the universe have given me more people in my life,  to occupy my thoughts, to wrap my legs around, to feel them, to touch them, and to crave them.  But the universe has not settle with just this.  The universe has felt the need to test me, to see how I would react to others negative influences.  The universe is telling me to ask for what I want.  So, you might see me writing selfishly, about me and distilling what I do and why I do them.  It's time to display my feathers.  It's time for another portrait.

My dominance is made not born.

This post is a response to all the claim that his/her dominance was somehow innate.  I understand that this may be a case for some people.  As for me, It never felt like that.  If anything, I always felt that I was thrusted into this role against my volition.  I was taught I shouldn't be a strong female.  Yet, everything in life has shown me otherwise.  

What I was born with was an incurable sense of curiosity, a strong ego, an independence streak, a body that is sexually insatiable, and a quirky self-defense mechanism aka my self depreciating humor.  I was born to be a shameless hussy.  I don't deny that my personality have a big part of this.  After all, how you react to what life throws at you determines how you are going to act.

But let's not ignore life experience in the equation.  Part of my life experience was forged out of years of mistakes, broken hearts and egos, and wondering who the fuck I was. Every time I was in a relationship with a guy who chided me for not letting him control things, or when anyone told me being a strong female was unattractive and that I would always be alone, would make dents to my armor, but did not break me.  Every time things would fall to the wayside, I would pick up the pieces and move on, because shit needed to be done.  I can add all the thankless little tasks I would do for the people I love, the painful obstacles that I had to endure, the stupid decisions I made that lead me to here. Let's not forget the positive things, the impromptu solutions that turned out to be serendipitous, the discoveries I've made, and the people who've I've met and loved along the way have made meaningful contributions.  

This is what has made me what I am today, and it is what I draw my dominance from. My dominance was forged from my experiences and my personality.  Not unlike becoming a soldier.  All soldiers are made, but great soldiers are cultivated in battle, under life and death situations.  Yes, it's work, but I wouldn't have it any other way. 

Being alone..but not really

When I came out to my ex-husband, I told him that my dating pool just shrunk considerably. He kept telling me that I'll find someone, and repeated that mantra to me, to reassure me. But he just didn't get it. As a poly person, there is no “one person”.  I let it slide. It was late and I didn't have the heart to explain it.

I think I eluded to dating in the poly/kinky world in the past, but even where I live, in what seems to be kink mecca, there's not a lot of poly/kinky people out here.  Actually, it's quite incestious at times. For example,  my hypno/magic friend have dated two women with whom I've been acquainted with in my social circle. So yes...it's that tiny. Now, I've opened up my dating pool to include vanilla/monogamous. But as many a post in Fetlife can attest, dating vanilla/monogamous people, as a poly/kinky person, have their own set of problems. Nevertheless, I was once vanilla and monogamous, surely I'd find some who may be interested in exploring this “lifestyle”, or at the very least can get to understand what it is I am.

Making the decision to become a poly/kinky person made me realize that not only was I going to run into people who probably won't understand what this means, but that I will run into people who will judge me and disapprove.  I'm ok with that. No, I haven't ran into judgy people yet; but then again, the only other person I've told about this, besides the ex-husband, is my roommate.  He's the last person to ever judge me, since he's had open relationships in the past. 

Because I want to be responsible about this, I need to disclose my poly/kinky status early on in the relationship, preferably in the attraction phase, before things become enmeshed.  But in practice, just starting that dialogue is problematic. Many people think that just talking about the subject, ruins “the mystery” of letting the relationship unfold on its own. I will write about this odd communication quirk in another post. Suffice it to say, my own attempts at trying to do just that have failed miserably.  I'm also having to screen for people with whom I can trust to tell them about my status and my instincts tell me that a lot of people couldn't handle this disclosure.

All of this brings me to my main point...that I will be in this semi-single state for awhile, and that I will have to accept that I will be alone for most of it.  Okay, to be fair, I've felt alone in those last few months before I broke up with M, and I felt periods of loneliness in my marriage.  It's just that what I usually do is go from one heavy-duty relationship after another, and this is the first time I haven't done so.  Instead, the universe is very clear on what I need to do right now...that I need to be comfortable being alone.  With my time and space not being occupied to a relationship, the universe would like me to work on myself...by creating,  by being open and expansive with people and situations, and by attending to my spiritual needs.

And one of the revelations that has revealed to me recently is that I'm really not alone.  On a mundane level, I have friends and lovers who love me and who are there for me.  Some of them are actually vanilla folks who don't know my poly/kinky side.  But most of them are my kinky friends and lovers have been supportive of me ever since the break-up.   I can even add my roommate to that list.  On a spiritual/esoteric level, I am never alone.  All of those talks/books on Buddhism, that I've been surrounding myself for the last 9 months, have taught me that I am part of the known universe, from the smallest quark to the largest supernova.  How can I say that I am alone when I keep such meaningful company!

I'm really surprised that I didn't start this whole journey of mine like this over five years ago, when I started this blog.  But then again, I don't think I was ready for it.  I'm not sure why I'm ready for this now.  Perhaps I had to meet M in order to find the poly/kinky side of me, and now that I've found it, I'm whole?  All I know is that I'm not in a rush to get into a primary relationship, although from time to time I do ponder that it would be nice to be in one.  But that feeling is like childhood nostalgia, fleeting and not rooted in reality.  No, I'm not obsessed with it, and I'm really loving my freedom.