This post is sort of random and inspired by my X-Files watching, Bloody Mary, Chocolate/Chiles, coma I have induced myself into. Mainly I am writing this because, for some reason, I can't seem to write anything else, and I feel that maybe if I get this out I will be able to write something more "academic" again?
Yesterday, I was chatting with my ever-elusive best friend. For purposes of the blog I will call him Danimal Strassmonster. I was chatting with the Danimal because I had a horrendous teaching experience on Thursday. My mind was already sort of elsewhere, teaching 2-4 on Thursday which means the last day of the regular week in DU Land, and my lady was leaving for Portland, and I was trying to decide if First Friday at Tracks was going to be worth the potential repeat of last time or not? In the end, I decided no amount of emotional trauma was worth that, especially, not having my lady with me (although, admittedly I would have had the MOST AMAZING buffer of queers EVER) I went to a more queer party, Damn Gurl, put on for anyone who identifies as queer, like the Danimal, who is a straight man who identifies as queer. Anyway, I was hoping it would be more welcoming to him because the last time we went to First Friday he was practically told to leave because of his heterosexuality. While I am all for lesbian and female-only spaces, First Friday acts like it is open to anyone including allies, yet, was not at all welcoming to him. If it is an exclusive space, maybe that should be made more clear, or in fact maybe it should be made more QUEER! We are going to write some sort academic paper on this indiscretion.
Anywho, I am glad I did not go because my teaching experience has fed into my sort of heady, mindset a lot the past couple of days and I didn't need that when the "ex" and "bad friend from EP" were First Friday-ing it up. Turns out that indeed, the queer party was much more accepting of all of us, two queerly identified females, a couple of gay men, and two straight dudes. And according to Danimal it was the craziest place he has ever been. It reminded me of Drag Ball at Luther College quite honestly, an open place for the queers to gather. And it supports Prax(us), a non-profit, dedicated to ending human trafficking. Again reminiscent of the good ol' college days.
Anyway, when Danimal and I were talking about my teaching experience he made the amazing comment, that physiologically, the body is constantly shifting and so we are never the same person from one moment to the other. So this isn't a gigantic newsflash for anyone studying affect theory or the body in relation to identity, but it has made me rethink myself and my identities and my life and how I shift from moment to moment. One minute seemingly an angry queer, the next a an academic, the next a dog lover. I am all of these things simultaneously, but they also shift me constantly.
First of all there seems to be some sort of fear of making me angry circulating through the air. I am not an angry person, I am not mean. I am just not good at playing into white female civility and I refuse to try to do that to appease others, mainly other white females. That was the purpose of setting up the "You Don't Know How to Act" blog post and I refuse to play nice simply to brush over the fact that my feelings, my emotions have been deeply hurt and scarred by people, friends, a partner, even my sister who I thought loved me. I wrote that Blog to be funny with a tongue-in-cheek tone probably to cover up my feelings of being so hurt. I still have love for them, in a I love all humans, Kumbaya sort of way, but to reiterate, my feelings are still very bruised, the wounds still festering under the skin.
To anyone who thought I should have known that the ex was going to break up with me, I ask you to think about that from the perspective of someone trying to hold onto a relationship that had been falling apart for a long time. Holding on, determined to make something work. Although, this may have been naive, when I say 100% commitment, I mean it. Whether I should have seen it coming doesn't matter, because I DID NOT SEE IT COMING! "Should have" doesn't really figure in to this equation any more. To anyone who thinks I should be over it already should maybe consider the aforementioned fact. Remember that I was not the one emotionally cheating and finding an intense connection with someone other than my partner. Also, figure into the fact that as a 27-year-old intelligent woman (who many consider the upper-echelon of hottness ;-)) that being left for a 22-year-old is sort of a smash to the ol' ego. So imagine a partnership of three years dissolving, and then the girl it dissolved for suddenly turning up at all of your new social locations. While I should maybe be over it, over her, I am not. So every time she enters a room it makes me want to leave it. Every time I see my ex with her or without her, I become physiologically ill, because I am still so hurt that someone would do that to me. Then to have it thrown in my face. Now imagine that girl, that 22-year-old, trying to be friends in various ways with my best friends in Denver? Maybe other people, who do not experience things on such a visceral level, wouldn't care, they could just keep dancing, but I cannot. Maybe I will someday, but, to be honest, as much as I want to be over it, my life the past three years means too much for me to just let it go and pretend that it isn't a painful thing to have lost or one of the most painful ways to lose it.
Now that I am talking a bit more to my first female ex, I can't imagine how in the world she could talk to me after I did something similar to her. All I can think is, that maybe after three years, (The amount of time that we didn't talk and we dated other people, and her now being engaged to another wonderful woman) maybe after three years, I will be able to not feel so hurt and angry, for not only being left by my ex, but for being abandoned by several people who I thought were near and dear to my heart. I don't know what is going on in my former life, all I know is that I have not heard from anyone who was a part of it for a long time. And if nothing else, a little support or even an apology could potentially mean a lot.
To clarify though, and I am writing this because I don't want it to seem like the hurting is really where my heart is. Because it isn't. My heart is actually in this really beautiful place because I am pretty sure I have met and been dating the most amazing lady...quite possibly The One. I know...how cliche. But I am so in love with the new lady that I cannot say her name without smiling and being filled with joy. And there are lots of reasons to love her, but mainly, and I admit this to the world, she calls me on my shit, like no one else I have ever been in a relationship with. But mostly, she is just great. And I just love her. Because I am a person who generally chooses to love.
Danimal keeps telling me that because I am so happy, I should be happy for the other people in my former life for being happy. I am working on that, but for now, I just want to focus on my happiness and if and when those people who used to care about me want back into my life, you know how to contact me.
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