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It's Friday. How can any one ever be depressed on a Friday?
Ok... so Friday isn't Saturday, but for an office drone like me, Friday means I've gotten through the week, and that's about as much as I can ask for.
And it's been an emotional week, right?
I proposed on Sunday. And I wouldn't have asked if I hadn't know the answer for pretty sure. I'm not the kind of person who can take that kind of rejection very well... and I think waiting 13 years to even consider that step proves that I'm perhaps a little nervous. But, things have changed so much in the past few years, I didn't even think this would ever be an option for me.
I remember talking to my mom about engagement a few months ago, and my mom has a weird quirk about marriage. She's been married to her first husband for over 30 years, and has no problem with homosexuality, heterosexuality, bisexuality ect, but she also thinks that marriage is a waste of time. Long before I ever had a girlfriend, long before my sisters started dating, too, she was sort of inoculating us in the idea that a commitment made to another person does not need the approval of a church, the government, or even our parents. It's something private and sometimes it lasts a lifetime and some times it doesn't, and even if you NEVER date some one (I think for a long time she was hoping I would just be a single spinster) there is no right or wrong to your relationship status.
And in some ways, I agree with her. That in theory, there is nothing wrong with being single, married, dating or (and this is one we don't agree on, but I like) being polyamouros. (Sp? sorry!) But as some one who's been with the same person for most of her teen years, and all of her adult life, I also know that it's a lot easier to preach that you should spend time on your own, or you should "love yourself before loving some one else" if you've got a nice solid relationship as your foundation. Theory is always so different than practice. Theories sound so great, and then you get out in the real world, and you feel lonely, or you feel horny, or you just feel confused and need some one to talk to, and all of a sudden, you're not loving yourself first, you're looking for some one else to tell you you're worth loving. And you know what? I don't love myself at all. I fucking hate me. But I hate me a lot less after years of Crystal telling me I was wrong.
And if I'd just been like "I have to work on me first" I dunno, life might have been better, or it might just not be at all. We all need people, whether you're dating or befriending or just fucking stuck together... and I don't think that dating or being married is any worse than being single. I think there should be no charged energies on either state of being.
But that was a funny little tangent, is it not?
Anyways, I was talking to my mom about wanting to be allowed to get married- I was actually complaining because we'd just heard that yes Finally the supreme court was gonna hear the prop 8 case, and in my eyes, the state of California owes me a marriage a while ago, because when the 9th Circuit Court of appeals said that prop 8 was unconstitutional, they should have opened up marriages again while the fucking bigots worked on getting their fucking appeal in the first place- but anyways, I was complaining about how I don't think it's fair that a bunch of straight judges get to decide on the validity of my relationship, since I didn't get to sit there and tell them that their wives and husbands were ok with me, and she asked me "Jas, you never seemed to care about this before, what changed?"
And the first thing I said was "I came out of the closet, Mom." And it's true. A big huge weight was lifted off our relationship when, 10 years in to said relationship, I was asked to talk about my family life as an introduction to a writing class, and I said "Can I talk about my girlfriend?" What the whole coming out process did for me, and it was a long process, because I had spent so many years telling myself that I didn't have to come out since I was bi, I didn't have to come out because Crystal didn't care, I didn't have to come out, because it's no one's fucking business who I'm fucking- but what it did for me was make me let go of so much guilt.
My relationship didn't start in any normal way, and it'll never be exactly normal, because, well, guess what? there's no fucking such thing as "normal" ok? It took me so long to really internalize that, and a lot of my issues come from beating myself up over not being normal. Normal meant dating boys and being skinny and wearing make up and not making inappropriate sexual jokes with your friends... And some how, moving away from the conservative cesspool that was my little corner of the inland empire, made me feel comfortable enough to some times be ok with all those things I always thought I was doing wrong.
And once I realized how much that the things I'd been hiding weren't actually bad things, it made me think about why I'd felt the need to hide them in the first place. And the fact of the matter was, society wants us to feel like freaks, because it's easier than accepting that the real freaks are the ones who want to limit the rights of people just for being different from them.
And I don't want any one else going through what I went through. I think it's a lot more OK to be a bisexual teenager now than it was 15 years ago when I was 12, but there are definitely a lot of places where that's not true. I think allowing gay marriage is a tiny step in the right direction towards getting the real freaks, the majority, to begrudgingly accept that being a bigot to homosexuals is fucked up.
I get where my mom is coming from with the whole "Why do you care about getting married?" thing. But at the same time, I AM married. I don't care if I've never had a ceremony, or a piece of paper or a fucking priest tell me its ok. I've been with the same woman for 13 years- that's almost half my life- and we're in love, and marriage is about committing to the person you love, (Whatever that looks like is different for everyone) it's about stating that you want to be together forever- it's not about being together for ever, it's about the hope that you can be together forever- and if any one else gets a piece of paper for that because their junk "matches up" (And can we be real here? Because when it comes to sexual pleasure, every single person is different, and I'm not saying anything against penises, but having one does not automatically make you god's gift to fucking) why the hell shouldn't I get one too?
I tried to explain that to her by saying "I Just never thought it was gonna be an option. The way I saw it, I was doomed. I didn't know you could live your life out until I did it. But now that I know... and so much of the rest of the world knows too, why shouldn't I be afforded the same rights as everyone else gets? It's not like I'm asking for more... Just the same."
And it's true, I didn't think I had a choice. I thought second class citizenship was all I would get if I continued seeing Crystal. I tried, actually, a couple of times, to stop seeing Crystal, and date boys.
And it's not that I have anything against boys, honestly. I really like having sex with them. But it really stops there for me. I can have sex with anything. That sounds terrible, and I don't mean it as a derogatory thing, I just know myself, and for some reason, when I have sex, I just go to a different place inside my head, where no one can get to me. To me, sex is just another thing to do with your mouth and your hands and your genitals. With Crystal, I have that emotional connection, but it took us YEARS to get me there- and that's not an orgasm reference (I don't do that) but there's just this disconnect between the idea that sex is supposed to be as emotionally stimulating as it is physically. This is part of the reason that I know I'm a freak. Because I'm supposed to be saying how sex is this great thing that brings you and your loved one to a deeper understanding of each other, how the physical connection is something special that you should share with special people, but my body and mind just aren't connected that way.
Don't get me wrong, I'm still obsessed with sex. I like to do it a lot. But I approach it the same way some people approach video games or sports- It's all about the challenge. I like to see what new and creative things I can do. I like to see how fast I can get some one off. I like my boundaries to be pushed, because I'm always sure that the big O is right past that line in the sand. I think I must have fucked myself up when I was really little, because I've been like this since I can remember. Oh well though. I suppose it really doesn't matter. Crystal knows about it, she deals with it, and dare I say, likes it most of the time- and knows how to tell me when she doesn't- so it all works out. It definitely just goes to show it doesn't matter how weird you feel, there's some one out there for you if you want there to be.
More 30 Day Challenge Stuff.
Day 04- A habit that you wish you didn’t have
Other than being extremely verbose in my live journal? (Seriously, no one actually sat there and read that wall of text, did they?)
I have a bad habit of not wanting to hurt other people's feelings. I don't mean a natural inclination to not being a jerk- I'm a total jerk. But what usually happens is, I don't deal with conflict correctly all the time. If something bothers me, I let it fester, I keep on adding up these little issues, until they become too much to handle, and then i fly off the handle over the last little thing, and look like a big huge jack ass. My reactions always seem like over reactions, I'm not consistent enough, because I'm never reacting to one thing, I'm reacting to 25 things that you haven't wanted to address over the past 3 months.
But I am making an effort to stop this. And I do think I've been better and better at it every year. Being direct and blunt (not harsh though) is a tough thing to cultivate for me. I've always felt like my feelings didn't matter, and so I'd keep them bottled up until they burst, and that makes me seem unpredictable. It doesn't help that I'm BiPolar, so it just makes me seem more stereotypical. But I suppose I could be dealing with a lot of other bad habits instead, so, I guess, count my blessings, right?
Day 05- A picture of somewhere you’ve been to
Day 06- Favorite super hero and why
Day 07- A picture of someone/something that has the biggest impact on you
Day 08- Short term goals for this month and why
Day 09- Something you’re proud of in the past few days
Day 10- Songs you listen to when you are Happy, Sad, Bored, Hyped, Mad
Day 11- Another picture of you and your friends
Day 12- How you found out about Tumblr and why you made one
Day 13- A letter to someone who has hurt you recently
Day 14- A picture of you and your family
Day 15- Put your iPod on shuffle: First 10 songs that play
Day 16- Another picture of yourself
Day 17- Someone you would want to switch lives with for one day and why
Day 18- Plans/dreams/goals you have
Day 19- Nicknames you have; why do you have them
Day 20- Someone you see yourself marrying/being with in the future
Day 21- A picture of something that makes you happy
Day 22- What makes you different from everyone else
Day 23- Something you crave for a lot
Day 24- A letter to your parents
Day 25- What I would find in your bag
Day 26- What you think about your friends
Day 27- Why are you doing this 30 day challenge
Day 28- A picture of you last year and now, how have you changed since then?
Day 29- In this past month, what have you learned
Day 30- Who are you
Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.