Oh Jeez:

A rant on sexuality.

I’m thinking a lot about sexuality lately. What does it mean to be sexy right now? Is it about the way you present yourself, how you look, how you dress, how you act? All I know is its a lot of pressure. I’ve read some really insightful blog entries about sexuality, I’ve read some really frustrating articles, and I’ve seen advertisements that just make me want to barf and go cover up my boobs for the rest of my life.

Now, I know I’m not the “ideal” attractive woman (maybe if I lost 35 pounds, got tan and started wearing lots of bandeau bras and eye makeup. Also maybe if I looked like Penelope Cruz..oh Penelope). But I hope that the men I choose to surround myself with can see me as a strong, supportive, and okay I’ll say it, a sexy person. My current boyfriend has the sexiest eyebrows. He also has really attractive legs. And probably my favorite nose in the world (sometimes I just wanna bite it). I don’t know why I find these things sexy, but I do. He’s not just a culmination of those things, though. They don’t make or break why I’m dating him, why I find him attractive, what I like about him. He’s a really smart guy, he’s got these endearing silly moments and yes, sometimes he can turn into a frustrating bro-type. But, there are momentary lapses when I forget he’s just a person reacting to me as a person, and I feel like I need to look sexy, stay sexy, turn myself into an object that can be desired. I somehow feel like if I can just eclipse all his previous sexual encounters, maybe I’ll be worth keeping around. 

Excuse my language, but where the fuck did I come up with that idea? Where did I suddenly decide to throw my great personality, insightful emotions, and ridiculously smart brain out the window? I attended an alternative school, for fucks sake, and I most definitely went to a boarding high school. I was taught everyone is beautiful in their own right, and if someone doesn’t like you, or something about you, its usually their own fault and you should a) move on, or b) forget about it and be confident in yourself. 

So where is all of this crazy objectifying sexuality coming from? It doesn’t happen all the time. I am a wonderful woman, I am a great girlfriend, I have interests and I can talk to you about relevant intelligent things. I know how to spell and use proper grammar, I read all the time, and I know how to dress myself. Yet in the dark hours or brief seconds of doubt, objectification steps in. Facebook screams for us to put up the most attractive or trendy photo we can. My abs aren’t flat enough this season for a bikini, all the H&M models silently judge me in the dressing room. You know what? Who the hell cares? Who says I should constantly be tanned, toned and hairless all the fucking time? Deal with it. I get to, you should too. Boys are allowed to have a beer belly, weird playoff beards, what have you, and they still get laid all over the place. Where did this little insecure, neurotic consciousness come from? 

When my boyfriend tries to be fake-sexy (yes, guys do it too. I’ve heard “Yeah baby, you like that don’t you?” from one too many suitors), I think its too funny. Sometimes it ruins the moment. I like those passionate, playful moments that just naturally happen. So why do we tell ourselves we need to be everything for an audience? Stop with being so FAKE. Stop these implants, these labia surgeries, stop with this porn-centered worldview, stop with these “i’m not skinny enough” moments. If you look like a breakable doll, if you look like someone in a magazine, they are just going to want and expect next-month’s issue out of you. To me, thats too much work. Go for sensual. Go for sexual too! (I love sexuality) but please do it in your own way. I don’t mean to criticize if you are doing this for medical reasons. By all means, get a breast reduction to improve your health. Just…be okay with being you. People will love you just the way you are, and you shouldn’t have to conform to looking a certain way to do it. 

So here’s my reminder, my kick in the butt. I am funny, sweet, perky (yes, i’ll own that word), intelligent, caring and silly. Sometimes, usually when I don’t realize it, I’m being sexy. Guys like that. If they don’t, they’re not the right one. Lets hope the over-sexualization of our nation’s youngsters stops, or that more of them find the courage to stand up for their true personalities. For gods sake, if someone complains about your labia, they probably won’t make it happy anyway.  

With love,

Bear

Dear you (an open letter to the 2nd boy that broke my heart)

Dear you,

I can’t believe that after nearly a year of not speaking I still miss you. I think about you all the time, not in the romantic way that I once did (no more wistful afternoons spent looking into the bottom of coffee cups and whispering “what ifs”), but in the way that I did when we first met, as friends. I see things I want to show you constantly. I want to text you and say “did you see that hardcore song that an 8 year old made about her dog?” because I know you’d love it. I want to tell you the strange things people say to me at work. I want to know how all the weird things you love are doing, all your strange research: what’s the weather in New Mexico, what sort of dog breed is most hypo-allergenic?

A few weeks ago, I was standing on a corner in Chicago in a snow flurry. I was wrapped up head to toe against the cold but I was determined to get my one night of sight-seeing in. I looked up at the buildings around me, chanted the names of architects under my breath. Hands in pockets, I kept fingering at the edges of my phone, always one second away from whipping it out to send you a quick picture-text: “look, a Mies Van Der Rohe!”, “The waterworks, I am really here and I am seeing it!”. It was always your dream to go there. In some of our more optimistic moments together, we used to plan a trip where we would both go, and I would look at art and you would collect all the silly data you love from historical societies, and then we would eat all the deep-dish pizza we could. He stood next to me, smiling, happy to see me happy. He looked over at me and said, “You want to send him a picture, don’t you?”. He’s so understanding. He is everything you couldn’t be for me, and I think you know that.

In some ways, I wish I had never kissed you. I wish I had just let myself believe you when you said we could never be together. But I’m stubborn, you know that. I thought I could convince you. Two years after that kiss, I am over you, and I can say that with absolution- I really am. I am in love, completely, and I honestly think this is the man I’ll end up marrying. In fact, I never even miss that kiss, I never relive it, I don’t dwell on it. What I miss is you. What I miss is our roundabout conversations, our secret language, our quiet understanding. How we could go for months without talking and then one night we’d find each other over the soft glow of computer screens and it would be like time had never passed from the last day we spoke. Jokes and memories and self-deprecative humor passed back and forth with ease. 

I think sometimes that the reason you can’t talk to me now is because you know you can’t ever fall in love. I think that you considered me so similar to you that I couldn’t be in love either. That I was stunted in the same way you are. That what we had was the closest thing either of us would ever have to love. But that’s where you’re wrong- I can love. And I do love. And I loved you. 

I hope someday we can talk again, when you are ready to forgive me for not being the person you thought I was; and when I can forgive you for attempting to stop me from trying to be. 

With love,

Bee.

Grass is Green, Breakups Greener

The transitory period after a breakup is always odd. Do you think about him too much? Not enough? (Even after his favorite movie plays on TV)? Can you call just to say “hey” and check in, or do you not bother? When do formalities (“happy birthday anyway, did you enjoy the headphones I sent you a week before you broke up with me?”) become just formal, and unemotional? 

The Spaniard and I are on weird terms. My request for SPACE was met with “I miss you” texts, “I still love you” warbles on my voicemail, and “when can I see you” captions on photos attached to late-night e-mails. “I made a mistake” was the first and oft repeated words out of his mouth. Promised grades, new jobs, therapy appointments, they all have seemed like (all too quick) steps in the right direction, but they HAPPENED, and damn does the boy move fast. Yet this closet romantic coupled with a “men can change for the right girl” adages have led me right back into a time warp. Helloooo last fall. Hello….mistakes?

The Spaniard showed up with all the right moves last weekend, after he pleaded for a chance to make it up to me. Two dozen (well, 25 to be precise) lavender roses showed up on my doorstep before work, and a weary and very nervous Spaniard greeted me with tears in his eyes when I picked him up from the Metro. A kiss on the forehead, a warm hand on the small of my back, and I remembered just why I loved him. He was comfort. He was flawed, but  most importantly, he was honest about it. Words tumbled from his lips, and I ended up kissing them. A night spent together instead of in the spirit of a one-night stand, felt like a thousand years back to the right place when we woke up holding hands. His laziness erased for a day, a fresh start, was coupled with a love note on my pillow, wine in his hand, and a plaid-themed picnic. He chose the spot, and we breathed in each others company. Tired from the emotional turmoil, naps preceded an expensive (and delicious) french dinner. The one, perfect day. 

He left the next morning, and his grumbles and grumps started up again. I got busy (and stressed) with my new job and early start time, but I miss the comfort. I miss just knowing he’s going to be on the other side of the phone if I need him. His love note re-read, his voicemails re-heard, my heart is extending tiny tendrils in his direction.

Then, therapy happened. I’m sure its smart, he’s not exactly dumb, just inconvenient. Friday I got the call, after a hermit-like few days. “I just don’t have the money, or the time, to give you what you deserve. I’m sorry we spent the most wonderful few days together, but its just not going to work”.

…ouch. When does a breakup hurt twice? When you give them another chance.
My heart feels numb, and my inner mantra “fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me” is sweeping my stable footing awry. 

We’ll see if timing is ever good to us, but for now, lets let life unfold.

Happy halloween, love, you little trickster.

Bear

I want a man, who

I want to find a man, who, if Ryan Gosling magically showed up and asked me to marry him, would make me think twice about it, and decline.

C’mon true love,

Bear

Obligatory Breakup Post (on Sad, or Maybe Not)

I wish I could be that romantic, wistful girl who is mysterious and beautiful in a heartbreaking story of love. The one who, when left, waifs around the fresh food section of an open air market, crying because the smell of fresh pecans or the sight of perfectly rounded grapes reminds her of feeding her loved one in bed while he twirled her hair through his strong fingers.

I wish I could be so deliriously heartbroken that I can’t eat, throwing my hands up in despair as my friends and family flock around me and coo and cluck and hug, and let me rest. 

Instead this seems almost worse. I am a crazed young adult, not quite a young professional (just need the job), who doesn’t know whether I’m sad, or fine. I’ve gone two days with happy thoughts in my head, a series of “good luck but good riddance” adages on my tongue as I think of all of our differences. But one sight of a luscious beard in a crowd sends me spiraling into a pit of doom, where I cry my eyes out. Only to emerge, instead of a teary wisp of a girl who everyone can nod at and say “oh, she was in LOVE, what a tragedy”, no, instead I rather resemble a rotten tomato. Squishy red face, with some odd hard places, and that feeling you get saying “oh, if I had only gotten to her yesterday she would have been great.”

No, I had to walk boldly into a love I was not confident of. I picked the opposite personality of what made sense, a complaining, selfish, loud, small-town guy who shook me up and let me spend all the money I could on the relationship out of love. He tested my patience, sapped my emotions, and now I am almost too sick of taking care of him, to take care of myself in the time I most need it.

What happens when the wrong guy still has your heart? I don’t see prince charming vaulting over pews up the wedding isle to grab my hand and take me away. Instead, I see the wrong guy knowing that maybe later we would have worked, but for now its too hard. I see him leaving my sorry ass crying in bed as he tells me, its just not working for him either.

But my heart, that vicious, fickle asshole, decides it has already run away to try and live with him, dreaming about him every day so every day I have to go and get it back. I think my ass-heart already convinced my lips all they need is to kiss his, and everything will be fixed, because they refuse to bad-mouth him or the situation.

So what happens when half your body believes its still living a fairytale, and your brain pipes up and tells you to quit it?

Maybe its like an addiction. If I go cold turkey, I’ll be okay. But looking at his pictures on my phone, listening to the saved voicemails…I slip into a zombie-like state of neurotic crying and shaking, then lethargic lounging while every movie I try to watch I turn off before it ends. Who cares? I don’t. Ends are for losers. That means either he loves you, or he doesn’t. and I can’t deal with that right now.

WIth grumpy crying and the inability to lose weight even when depressed,

Bear

Young love, what the hell is it good for

Why do we romanticize young love? Young love is the fucking worst. My entry today shall be a brief retelling of my first love, the first time around- the later part of our relationship, when it turned more “Adult”, that comes later.

This story starts when I am 15. So young! I was a baby. Due to an extremely early puberty, coupled with a nasty divorce on my parent’s part, I got thrown into mini-adulthood somewhat early. I had my first boyfriend at 13- he was 17 when we started dating- and I liked him a lot, but the relationship was extremely flawed, as any relationship between a 13 year old and a 17 year old will be. He wanted sex, I wasn’t ready; that’s the short version. 

Introduced into my life at 14 was a very nerdy individual who will later be called “the big one”, but for now can be “buddy”. We were just that- buddies. We bonded instantly and soon he was coming over all the time, as well as hanging out with my and my older boyfriend. We played D&D (shut up, I’m still cool) and talked about comics and had sleepovers- it was all platonic. OR WAS IT?

No, it was not. Because in that 14 year old way, we were totally nuts for each other and I didn’t want to admit to it because I had a coooooool older boyfriend who my whole family liked, and this Buddy of mine was slightly chunky with braces and talked too much about horror movies and video games. But I was struck. There was a connection.

So what happened was that after many tense situations, I eventually I split from Older Boyfriend and immediately pursued a weird relationship with my Buddy. I remember our first kiss- we were walking in the woods behind the school and he grabbed my face really roughly and the metal from his braces tasted funny and hurt a bit. My friends did not approve- Buddy was kind of a weirdo. Other than his geeky ways, he also came from a pretty broken home and had some emotional hiccups to work out. My family did not approve- my mama insisting that I was too young to be jumping from relationship to relationship like that (god, was she ever right). So after a few tangled unhappy weeks, we broke up. 

And the next day, he made out with one of my best friends.

Oh, that’s a crushing blow for anyone, but to an emotionally tender 15 year old, it’s a killer. I was VERY upset. I ran back to Older Boyfriend, who was kind of an asshole.

But that is not the end of the story by any stretch. In the span of 5 years, Buddy (who is now transitioning into his position in my life as “the Big One”), and I got together and broke up 5 separate times. The shortest stretch was two weeks, the longest was 3 years. 

This back and forth ended up becoming the most powerful memories from my high school experience. For a year, we wanted each other- teenage sexual tension so thick between us that it almost hurt. By the time we were seniors, it was so horrific that I actually had a complete meltdown on a train and my poor mother thought I was losing my mind. I was depressed to the point of self-inflicted physical harm- OVER A BOY. Over a boy who would later go on to break my heart into a million pieces, spit on them, then put them back together just to light them on fire (yes…slightly bitter). 

To this day, this Buddy-Big-One has succeeded in essentially breaking me for all other men I’ve dated. We have not been able to really talk since the last time we broke up - for good, i decided- and even thinking about him sometimes causes me to break down in tears. 

I know we all need to hurt sometimes to grow, but I think I’d be okay if young love was just deleted from the roster entirely. 

How about you, 8 followers? How old were you the first time you fell? And how much did it suck?

love love love,

Bee.