On Sex (or, Why I Still Doubt My Own Self Efficacy)

Something I never thought I'd write about is sex.  I'm all for sex positivity, body positivity, comprehensive sex ed, and all sorts of other things that hang around in that category, whatever it is.

But I never thought I'd write about sex because -- to me -- it's a highly private experience.  I don't recount sexual encounters with friends.  I don't even feel that comfortable when someone else recounts theirs with me, though I generally try to play it cool.  It's just... my own business, yeah?  I don't feel the need to share.

And yet, here I am, writing about sex.  Partially because I write to get things off my mind.  Mostly that, I guess.  And also partially because I like to put things out there into the world that I think other people might be feeling but not expressing; things I wish I'd read before I'd had the experience necessary to write about them.

It's taken me a long while and many tries to get this on paper (/screen), many attempts cut short by crippling fear, doubt, and some tears.  I desperately do not want others to see myself the way I have seen myself, to see myself the way I am about to portray myself.  But I think it's important that this time I just do it.

So, here I am.  Sex.  Let's talk about it.

About a year ago, I read a short piece on Medium about sexual assault, and I haven't been able to shake it from my mind since.  It opened up a can of worms inside of me that I had tucked away so carefully.  It forced me to ask myself questions I desperately did not want to ask.  The biggest, scariest question at hand: had I ever been sexually assaulted?

The answer still eludes me to some degree.  What I can say for sure is that I have had sex I did not want to have.

This admission alone made me want to crawl into myself, ashamed, never again to face the throngs of feminist activists I'd so happily surrounded myself with before.  Because the idea that I allowed this to happen -- that I knowingly, consciously, willingly participated in it -- seemed like a huge slap in the face to everyone who never got to make that conscious decision.  How could I give up so easily when others never got the chance to even fight back?  Was I a hack?  Was I a victim?  What the hell kind of place did I have protesting sexual assault of others when I let the lines blur for myself?

The difficulty I faced answering these questions overwhelmed me.

I didn't feel comfortable landing on "I'm a victim of sexual assault."  And I still don't, for multiple reasons.
One, I didn't count what happened to me as assault.  And claiming victimhood without that cheapens the stories of those with rightful claims.
Two, I could not bear to imagine myself as a victim of sexual assault.  It was absolutely out of line with everything I believe about myself.  I am strong. I have no problem saying no. I am radical. I am not to be fucked with. I am NOT a victim.

The problem was, and continues to be, that I cannot tell which of those two reasons is the true reason why I don't say I was sexually assaulted.  It is because I wasn't sexually assaulted, or is it because admitting I was would tear apart my entire identity and break me down into a person I believed in my heart of hearts I'd never be?

The real hard honest truth is that I don't know.  I think, maybe, it's a little of both.
"Assault" doesn't feel like it accurately describes me agreeing tepidly to act in a way I thought would please someone else.
"Assault" doesn't feel like it accurately describes me, worried about what aggressive mood swings I'd have to deal with if I declined, giving in so the night would be easier.
"Assault" does not accurately describe what happened to me, because I was an active participant.  I made it happen.  I could have refused, I could have ignored the bad mood afterward, I could have gone home, I could have ended the whole thing.

So why the fuck didn't I?

That's what haunts me.  Why the fuck didn't I just leave?  Why was I so shitless that I couldn't muster up the courage to not have sex?  Why, faced with the knowledge that whether or not I gave in any particular night, the moods were right around the corner, did I still do it?

These are questions that I really truly still wrestle with.  These are questions that have fucked me up, in a big way, for a long time.  I suppress them, mostly, and have only ever voiced them out loud maybe once.  But they chip away at me when I read a blog post about rape, or I hear a friend question the truthfulness of another's claim to victimhood, and I can only wonder: what would they say about me if they knew?

(By the way, let me tell you: that cannot be a fun claim to make.  I have spent so much energy warding it off because it feels humiliating to even consider it.  To stand up and say to the world: "I was too cowardly to fight. I let it happen. I was weak" is not something I, or anyone, clamors for.  If someone makes that claim, for goodness sake, believe that they have spent hours, days, months, or years carefully considering whether or not they can do so truthfully, and whether or not they can handle what happens when they do.)

I cannot, will not, and have no interest in claiming victimhood because when I get down to it, I feel that I am only a victim to my own humiliating mistakes.  After years of teaching my friends that they don't owe anyone anything, coaching them on how to say no, I found myself needing a refresher course.  I was suddenly "that girl" who stayed for too long, who said yes when she didn't really mean it, who others will say deserved it, who they'll say is just being dramatic because she regrets the decisions she made.

I guess it is all a little dramatic, to write out your feelings in a public blog post.  And yes, I regret the decisions I made in the deepest part of my heart.  I should have left.  I shouldn't have given in.  I was weak.

And these are the things I repeat to myself, that fuck me up and humiliate me: I should have left, I shouldn't have given in, I was weak.  I should have left, I shouldn't have given in, I was weak.  I should have left, I shouldn't have given in, I was weak.  I should have left...

And on and on it goes.  I have no one to blame but myself, I repeat.  I should have been stronger.  I should have been smarter.  I regret my decisions.

I can't stop feeling this way a lot of days.  Because it happened, and I feel guilty, and I feel like a fake. And I feel guilty for feeling like a fake.  And I feel like a fake for feeling guilty.  Ya feel?

But then, on my worst days, I think to myself: talk to yourself like you'd talk to a friend.  You wouldn't blame a friend for staying.  You'd recognize the intricacies.  You'd recognize that things were fucked up.  You felt stuck.  You didn't see a way out.  And even if you should have been smarter, you are not a bad person for staying.  You are not a fake for giving in.

But when I tell myself the story: "I felt bad. I was scared of dealing with the consequences of saying no. I could have left. I didn't." I just feel... fake? guilty? stupid? awful.

So it goes around in circles, or it has for the last... long time.  I blame myself, and I forgive myself, and I take back the forgiveness, and I tell myself to take responsibility for my actions, and I tell myself that I can do that without beating myself up for the rest of my life.  And I land, on the good days, in a place where I can be okay with what happened and trust myself not to do it again.

But the problem is that while I'm busy over here trying to decide whether or not to forgive myself, I know there are countless others who will never even reach that place of questioning.  There are those who will forever believe, as it is ingrained in them from every piece of pop media and peer encounter they consume, that it was their fault.  That they deserved it.  That they're being dramatic.

I feel like I can say to them what I can't say to myself:
It was not your fault.
You didn't deserve it.
You're not being dramatic.

Our culture is ripe with the examples we feed to people, but especially girls, that they are not in charge of their own bodies.  But then when they give up their bodily autonomy, we are so quick to turn around and blame them: didn't they know they could have said no??

So what am I trying to say here?  Who fucking knows.  This is not poetic or eloquent; there is no grand hopeful conclusion or call to action.  I think I'm just trying to make myself feel better.  By talking about it.  If I talk about it, maybe I won't feel so ashamed.

And I'm hoping that in putting this out there, where maybe in some distant alternate universe it will resonate with someone and make them feel a little less alone, I'll have done some good.  And I won't have to feel so fake.  And I won't have to feel so guilty.  And when I read about rape, I won't have to curl up and cry in my bed or leave the office for a walk.  The day won't be shot.  I'll be okay.

I'll be okay.

twenty three

22 was a big one,

though I guess I could say that every year.  They're all the same size, really,

aren't they.

But this one felt big.

A year of changes, of transitions.

I moved cities twice,

apartments four times;

I learned how to navigate craigslist apartment listings with some modicum of wisdom.

I graduated college,

found a job I loved

and then another job that suits me better,

a job that makes me excited to get out of bed every morning and put my feet on the ground.

I left a toxic relationship

and started a healthy one.

I tried to forget the worst parts of the former, to bury the person I thought they meant I'd become;

I learned that forgetting is impossible and healing is a big job;

I learned to talk about it little by little;

I remembered what it feels like to feel safe in someone's love.

I sat in a girl's bedroom and fell in love with her bookshelf,

and then a little later with her.

And in the interim, I took myself on a lot of great dates.

I lost my grandfather,

and in returning east for a funeral realized how badly I wanted to return for good.

I felt the pull of familial love;

I missed my grandfather and cried a lot;

I decided I didn't want to miss people while they are still around.

I learned to talk on the phone,

and I learned how much I love talking on the phone.

I learned to listen to myself when I miss people and wonder what they're up to;

I learned to ask how people are doing.

In turn, I had a lot of important phone conversations, about everything and nothing, on the way home from the grocery store or on a lap around the park.

I grew, a lot,

not physically.

I learned about what I like and what I hold as valuable and what my priorities are in work and relationships and interior decoration.  I learned about the relationship between quality and price and allowed myself to spend money on real winter clothes and nice-smelling candles.

I became impossibly more confident in my body;

I decided I am cute.

I cut off most of my hair.

I started and stopped running a thousand times. I started paying attention to my injuries.  I discovered the beauty of deck-of-cards workouts.

I fell back in love with the world.

I experienced pain and loss and suffering and watched those I love do the same.

I woke up one morning and thought the world was a beautiful place anyway,

which I hadn't thought in a while,

not really,

not like I used to.

Inevitably, I made a lot of mistakes;

I forgave myself;

I wondered if I should.

I promised to be better.

I broke that promise.

I tried again.

I thought about what "better" means.

A while ago I sat in the living room with my roommate and she reflected that she is probably the happiest right now that she has ever been.

I wondered if that was true for me.

I determined it may well be.

I've been through times in the past where I felt so happy it was physically painful, like I might explode, like I couldn't explain it to anyone without crying, and even then,

I couldn't explain it to anyone.

I don't cry like that now

but

I found a city and an apartment and a roommate and a job and a team and a girl and a cat and a family and a life that I love.

I walk home over the bridge some days with my heart so full, but not so heavy,

looking at the lights across the river,

the skyline that made me forgive four o'clock sunsets.

I am still trying to be better;

I always will be.

But damn, 22. You saw the worst and the best of me. In that order.

You forced me to check the person I am and think critically about the person I want to be.

And here's the part that's uncomfortably sappy, even for me, so leave now if you please:
For a long time I've said that when I grow up, what I most want to be is happy.

I think the marker of growing up is a lot fuzzier than I once imagined it to be,

but I'm somewhere on my way,

and right here, at the end of my year of transitions,

I am so happy to be happy.

Where did all the posts go

If you've been here before
and now you're back
and you're wondering where all the posts have gone:

I wanted a new blog but all the good and easy and free platforms already have the handle I want registered by someone else
so
here we are again

in a new (untrue)
(relatively unimproved)
(but slightly different)
blog.

I've deleted most of my old posts, and kept some for posterity.  Not the good ones, per se, but the ones I couldn't bear to delete because I remembered so so strongly what I felt in that moment,
the ones that brought me back,
that I am maybe embarrassed by but don't want myself to forget.
The nostalgic ones.

All but one from before college are gone.
Freshman year posts win in numbers.
and 2012 got entirely shafted.

But welcome back, anyway.  And if you're new, just... welcome.  Occasionally I write things.

Dirt

A few days ago, I found myself shoveling dirt into my grandfather's grave.
So
that was something.

I made it through the entire funeral service without shedding a tear.  The words that people spoke about him, they were so beautiful and so true and they made me believe in the most wonderful things he always taught us.  He always taught everyone.
I sat with my cousins and I watched the back of my mother's head, my grandmother's profile,
I thought about what it meant for them
to lose a father or a husband, it is not the same.

But we all felt it at the gravesite
the first grains of earth falling back into their place
finding their way home
this time with him.

Watching my mother then, with the first shovel full of dirt, tears were no longer an issue;
they just were.
Everywhere.
Unavoidable, unstoppable,
I don't even know if they meant anything, just that I couldn't control this fountain that had suddenly sprung from within me, not from my eyes or even heart but from the very core of my being, the core which told me that I needed to get used to the past tense, that this was a forever thing, that yes he had died but now he is dead, and that it a forever kind of fact.

Finally taking the shovel felt right, and the more I scooped and dropped into the grave the more it felt that way, like a task we were bound to,
burying our own dead,
repaying him for everything he had given us and given the world
It was the least we could do, to put him to rest like that, even though I know he wasn't really in there.

The more I shoveled the more it felt like a task to which I had pledged, and I didn't want to stop except for the throngs of people who were waiting for the shovel, and I had to give them a turn, and so I stabbed the tapered edge into the half-way frozen dirt and left the handle for someone else to take over.

The sharp heels of my shoes dug into the freezing snow on the ground and I thought it was convenient that the snow didn't ruin the trailing hem of my skirt as much as the bare ground would have.  The hem that just barely kissed the ground when I was careful, that got caught underneath my toes when I wasn't,
and I wondered how I could think of my skirt at all at a time like this,
a time when snow was swirling around us
when our hands were freezing
when he must be freezing
(even though I know he wasn't really in there)
when the earth was finally finding its way home.

I am bad at death, I am bad at knowing what to do
except hold my mother's hand and squeeze her when they first bring the casket out of the car,
watching my father and brother and uncles and cousins carry him, I do not know how they can be so close to him and not trip down the stairs,
and so I keep my hand on my mother's back and wonder
if she is doing this more for me or for her.

But here is what I know:
He taught me more than he could ever realize, because like they said,
he gave more than he ever remembered.
He changed the world for good
in both senses of the phrase
and he changed everyone he met in the same two senses.
He wasn't in there.
Whatever felt so right about shoveling the dirt was, for once, not metaphorically resonant, but simply exactly what it was; the meeting of two creations of God; dust to dust and ashes to ashes; the final act of all of us who had not appreciated him in every moment that we could, who didn't get to say our goodbye, who thought he would have one more day; the least, and the last, we could do.

I should have just gone to bed.

It's been a while
since I've written,
but also since other things,
so who knows.

It's too late to be up and it would be lying to say I couldn't sleep, so I won't.  I can always sleep.  My body has that skill.  But my mind, tonight, it doesn't want to go there.  I'm scared of what will happen when I close my eyes.

So I'm stuck.  I can't be productive, exactly, because I'm thinking too much and feeling too much and frankly, crying too much to get much of anything done.

My roommate found me crying as I transferred chocolate chip cookies from the baking sheet to the plate.  Admittedly not my shining moment.

It's just one of those nights, or maybe it's been one of those weekends, when I can't deal with anything because it's all too big for me.  The whole past week, I suppose, has been a little much.  Not all bad.  Just all... much.

I've been having such extreme floods of memories of the past four years, seeing people I haven't seen, remembering emotions I thought died with the mono my freshman year.
But, of course, the mono is back.  It's just that this time it's not me, and this time it's got some ugly friends.
And it's hard to tell what your tears are for when there's two cases of mono and one case of cancer and 90,000 cases of excitement about beating Stanford and one torn up, twisted, knotted stomach inside you competing for your attention.  It's like butterflies in there, but dermestids instead.

I'm falling into a place I don't want to be.  I don't want to be here I don't want to be here I don't want to be here I'll repeat it over and over until my lungs give out.
The truth is, though, that I want to be here so badly.  I just want here to look differently.
It is impossible to deny how well this semester is going.  All you have to do is discount my ever-growing list of failures, the brief fight and break-up, and the cancer.  Because then you're left with the mind-blowingly supportive people that have crawled out of the woodwork and convened on my metaphorical doorstep to bring me some of the best times of my life.  What you're left with when you ignore the fact that he's leaving LA tomorrow, maybe for good, is four classes that speak directly to my heart, a band season that just won't fucking quit, the best co-section leader I could have asked for, and a lunch with Bobby Kennedy, Jr.

But I can't ignore those damn pesky facts.  Can't get it out of my mind that he might never come back.  Can't help looking up flights to Minnesota just in case.
Can't stop realizing over and over again that this stupid fucking band program has meant so fucking much to me and I'm just going to miss it in the stupidest way possible because it brought me to the best people at the most important times.

It's after 2 AM.  I've officially ruined the rest of my Monday.
I'm an idiot.  And I'm so lucky.  And I'm so sorry.  And I'm so scared.

What a way to come back to this.  Maybe I'll write something worthwhile another day, but this one was just for me.

Habits of time

That was 8 years ago,
it occurs to me too late.
It doesn't feel like 8 years at all.  I could say it felt like yesterday, but I'd be lying.
It either feels like last year or another life; it's hard to tell, really.

It's happening more and more recently, as it is bound to do.  People popping up on my Facebook news feed for the first time in ages because they are engaged.
And then, today, married.
I saw it coming, obviously, because... you know, engagement and stuff.  And it wasn't weird, it was just... a strange reminder of what happens.

My immediate reaction was to lean over and grab the picture that's been leaning on my nightstand for, well, 8 years now, I guess.  Bunk G7, 2005.  My last bunk.  We were a good bunk.  Now we're getting married, it would seem.

8 years ago.  I'm looking at the picture, I keep comparing your face in the photo to your face on my screen, it's so strange that I'm able to hold both simultaneously.  It's strange what's happened.  It's strange to write this now, after so long.  I don't know you anymore, but, I mean, you're in my hands and all.

Just a few weeks ago was another reminder of G7.  Real life, New York City, in the very middle of a sentence exclaiming how I hadn't seen any of those people in so long and how -- and there you were.  When I first saw you -- I'll never forget this -- I thought I could never be friends with you because you looked like a Barbie doll and I didn't even know how to approach knowing someone so beautiful.
You made it easy.

8 years ago we were kicked of the porch of G7 in the middle of the night by the OD counselor.  We were just talking.  Listening to the soundtrack of the South Park movie, too, which in hindsight was outstandingly inappropriate.
Who knew that "Uncle Fucka" would have such a lasting presence in my life.
If that last line didn't make immediate sense to you, please don't read into it.
We fell asleep last every night, sneaking into each others' beds to talk until someone inevitably told us to shut up.  We always thought we were being pretty quiet.

But that was
8 years ago
and I can't figure out if that seems like a long time or not.
Because it was only one year before high school, which does seem like yesterday sometimes, and at least a decade at other times.
And sometimes yesterday seems like longer than 8 years ago, and certainly last year is a time I can barely remember, and it feels like everything that happens just drifts so far so quickly, and I just
miss it

sometimes.

It's hard to tell the difference between missing and regretting.  Looking back I think I could have done most of these things better.  The opportunities drifted away before I was ready to really deal with them.  I let too much pass me by without giving it what it deserved.  But I've been trying to let go of that feeling.  It gets me into trouble.  And it doesn't make me happy, just stressed and disappointed and generally bummed out about myself.

The funny thing about missing it is, I wasn't nearly as happy.  I have no reason to miss it.  This year was its own shit adventure, sure, but overall, the last 4 years, I mean they've been pretty great.  They've been really fucking difficult, and filled with terrible moments I never imagined, but that's its own kind of greatness too.  And the happiness it's all brought me has been great.  Greater than 8 years ago,
I think.
It's hard to remember now.

But I still remember thinking you looked like a Barbie doll the first time I saw you.
And I still remember the first time I went to a wedding where I, as a young person, could still tell that the couple was young too.
I remember dancing my face off at that wedding.
And I still remember when I freaked out and my mom told me, calm down, you have plenty of time,
and I didn't believe her.
And I still don't.
But I'm happy for you, and your wedding pictures are beautiful, and maybe 8 years is longer than I'm making it out to be.

Water, I guess

I didn't leave my bed yesterday except to sit on the steps outside my apartment and cry, a friend's arm over my shoulder a welcome warmth from the strange dry wind that doesn't belong in LA in May.

I didn't send any emails or make any calls.  I answered a couple texts.  It was the most I could do.

I slept a lot, mostly because when I was awake I felt like my heart might just give up.
I thought a lot, which sucked, so I slept again.
I ate a little.  A bowl of chick peas.  Then I regretted it.
I thought about calling my parents and telling them I couldn't get out of bed.  I thought they might have some useful advice.  I decided against it because what can they do from the other side of the country except worry.

I can't breath and my back hurts and my mind is unkind and my heart, my heart feels like a stone in my chest.

"Are you sick?" people ask.
Yes, I suppose so.

I said I am trying.  Most days I am.  But yesterday was an exception, because yesterday hurt more than most days and I didn't have the energy to try.

We all have these days, right?

Maybe.  I don't know.  Maybe I am just sick.

This is too big for me.

I'm coming back to good, soon, I promise, headed back to happy and things I love.  The rain helps, I think.  Whatever halfhearted version of rain we can get here, anyway.

I love when cars go by my window in the rain, the sound they make driving across the wet pavement makes it sound like it's raining harder than it actually is, like it's raining at all.  It's a soothing sound, as close as I am going to get to ocean waves from my apartment.
I love west coast beaches, I love their outrageous waves.  I love fighting back and losing to them, desperately holding on to my suit.  I love being thrown around in their fury and still getting up afterwards, miraculously alive, and I don't know what's tears or snot or salt water and my back is all scratched up from being pounded into the sand and I am laughing, looking crazy because now I'm cackling alone and red and sand all in my hair and still pulling my suit back up and I am just alive.
I love the idea that I might be able to just drift out to sea, and what would they do then.  They would just have to let me go.