Break-ups and Best Sellers

When one girl exits, another one walks in.  I figure if it is true for doors, it has got to work with women.

A few weeks ago (before the weird conversation) i had the revelation that Dylan wasn't IT.  I realized i was (now - am) getting bored.  Aside from being gay and having divorced parents....there is not a lot of common ground.  Our conversations are pretty much substance-less.  We have very different ideas of relaxation and fun.  I have tried to explain in many different ways what my job is and she just doesn't get it.

Here's how I know she's not IT:  She isn't an adventurous eater.  She doesn't like old movies.  She thinks FaceBook is worthless.  She doesn't listen to music when she drives (or ever, really).  She doesn't understand why activism is so important.  She chose Leno over Letterman.  She would rather have dogs than kids.  (This list could be longer...but I think y'all get my point.)

She was comforting when I was freaking out about Tyra.  She made me laugh....when we were tipsy.  She has tattoos and a motorcycle.  I like her dogs.  Sleeping with her was fun.  (I wish I could say that this list could be longer....but it really can't.)

So.......peace out Dylan.  It was great to get back in the game with you, but looking back - I know we were using each other for the same purpose.  We needed to gain some confidence after "being off the market" for so long.  I hope that I gave you some because I did get some of my mine back.  Good luck!

All hope is not lost....Enter, Maggie.  Maggie and I have some mutual friends and spent time together sporadically with said friends.  We exchanged phone numbers, friended each other on FaceBook, and eventually became friends without the need of the intermediary.  And then, without warning, she made my insides smile.  Maggie walked into my life without an agenda and the connection that I am feeling has developed organically.  I'm not totally sure where our story will go or how it will end, but I am hoping it'll be a best-seller.

It's the Final Countdown!

I will be at the hospital in less than 12 hours....oy!  I got a lot done today: packing, cleaning, prepping my staff, and running errands all over town.  In all the hustle and bustle, I totally spaced school.  Crap in a bucket!  I wanted/needed to get a lot more done this weekend to get ahead, but that did not happen...at all.  Hopefully my teachers will be flexible...ugh.

In between packing and prepping, I spent some time with Dylan this weekend and it was WEIRD.  She was distant and all together uninterested.  Normally we can't keep our hands off of each other....she barely held my hand this weekend.  Our conversations were very surface level...until I had a mini meltdown.  Her mother invited herself along on nearly EVERYTHING we did.  I thought I was going to scream.  Finally, I had enough when, after we got back to her place from a Target run, after we decided we were going to take a nap, her mother got all excited about something and totally took Dylan's attention.  First off, her mother is really annoying and totally oblivious to what is going on around her.  Second, she drives me crazy.  Third, I needed some time with Dylan to talk about the weekend's weirdness.  I was entirely overwhelmed and at my breaking point.  Dylan was puttering with whatever her mother was trying to figure out and I leaned over and told her I was going to head out.  This caught her attention and after an initial calm-me-down moment we went to the other room, crawled in her bed, and stared at each other...it was obvious there was something going on for the both of us....something more than my surgery and her house. 

I don't remember who broke the tension or how the conversation started but we ended up talking about what we are doing and the direction we are headed.  I wish I remembered, in detail, more about the conversation...but what i can recount is that there was a lot of contradiction between word and action, a lot of standing up for myself, and at the end, a lot of unknown.  For a moment i thought that we were ending our....whatever we are doing....but then she leaned over to kiss me and said that I make her feel comfortable and totally free to be who she is.  In one breath she said that she spends too much time with me when she wanted to be dating and getting back in the "game."  In the next breath she asked when she could come to my mom's house to keep me company and take care of me. 

At the end of it all, I walked out of her house feeling confident that I stood up for myself yet totally confused.  I didn't have the energy, however, to try and figure it out.  Luckily, Katherine picked up her phone and she let me process. Thank God for lesbian besties.

The crappy part about it all (aside from having no idea where we stand)....we had this weird talk two days before major surgery with a recovery period that will render me incapable of doing much more than thinking about what i should have said and what she might be thinking. blech.

I'm not totally sure if I will have time to post before surgery tomorrow so if I don't here are some details...I am due at the hospital right before noon.  the actual surgery is scheduled for 2:20 PM and should take about 2 hours.  I will happily accept any positivity and good vibes you have to spare and are willing to send my way! 


Shalom!!!

The Plan: In Action

Yesterday I had my pre-op appointment with Bad Ass Barbie.  We chatted about potential damage to other organs (ovaries and bladder mainly), the potential of losing my uterus (thankfully very slim), and all of the other health concerns and stuff to take into consideration: medication modifications to level out my blood work, how my heart will/could react, what tests i need to take and labs i need to do.   I am scheduled to do blood work and labs on Monday and then need to be at the hospital by noon on Tuesday.  

Here's the part that kills me......I have to take a pregnancy test.....even though I am gay and there is no possible way for me to be accidentally pregnant.  This is a "problem" reserved for straight couples.  I wish, more than anything, that biology was on my side and my partner and I could (one day) conceive children without looking to contraptions, sperm donors, and fertility treatments.  I feel like it's almost a slap in the face to make me pee in a cup.....rub it in my face....hmm.

I will not be allowed to have surgery without the test and it's not hard to do....it's just borderline discriminatory.  It would be one thing if i said that my partner had a vasectomy or that I was on the pill and we used condoms.....all of those options fail from time to time.  lesbian sex will never make a baby.

I understand that sometimes people lie about being sexual active or contraceptives fail or people don't use it....but WHY WOULD I LIE ABOUT SLEEPING WITH WOMEN?!  I understand that surgery to the uterus would not be good for a fetus....but there isn't one.

If I am pregnant we need to call the pope cause we have another immaculate conception on our hands.

UPDATE:  Officially NOT pregnant.....Shocker.

Interesting Twist

I got an en email this week that the website i used to meet Dylan was having a "Free Communication Weekend."  Things are going well with Dylan but we are still open to meeting and seeing other people.  So, after giving it some thought i decided to check back and see who i might get introduced to. 

Annie came onto my screen and after looking at her profile, exchanging what is important to us in relationships, and asking and answering each other some short answer questions we exchanged emails and i have started to get some butterflies.  I am interested to see what happens....hopefully we will continue the conversation. 

I was always more of a Joey fan...How about you?

Tonight over a fabulous dinner of sushi and gelato (two things that truly go together, am I right?!) with some of the only people I can truly label as friends from my graduate school experience I started sorting out stuff with Dylan.  It was over spicy tuna rolls, edamame, and coconut gelato that i realized that I am falling for Dylan....if I haven't already.  I have been thinking about bringing the "what are we" conversation back up, but i have changed my mind after comments about how great she feels in this space in her life where she can do whatever she wants and she feels totally free.  Since I am trying this whole "don't over-analyze" thing I have been taking her statements at face value and not reading more into it.

Do I want her to ask me to be her girlfriend?  Yup.  Do I want to have the conversation about where this is going?  I sure do.  Do I want to bring her and us onto my train of thought about next year?  I wouldn't mind it.  Even though I want all of these things I also really want her to be with me, in a committed fashion, because she is ready and because she wants to be.  I am not looking for a key to her house, my name on the mortgage, or a ring on my finger.  I am just ready for a little more stability and structure in our....whatever we are.  It is getting to the point where it is hard to be nebulous. It is so much easier to say "my girlfriend, Dylan," but it's not the truth. 

In the immortal words of NKOTB...I need to take this Step by Step....whatever those are.

Seriously though.....who did you like?  Joey, Jordan, Jonathan, Donny, or Danny?

ps....i can not call myself a true, die-hard fan.  I had to go to their Wikipedia page to remember all of their names.  I do, however, STILL have the Step by Step album and I am not afraid to admit that I put it on my iPod.

Grandma's Table

Side Note:

Please feel free to leave comments!!  It makes happy to know that people are reading and i really would like feedback!

The Entry:
I am getting braver with this whole blogging thing.  I have begun to "advertise" the blog to friends,  class mates, and family and have, therefore, invited them into my life in a way that I have never done.  I have been, throughout my life, very guarded and private; letting only close friends know intimate details and stories.  This blog has opened a door; i have a new desire to open my life to friends and family in a new, much less guarded, authentic, and raw way.  This blog has left me exposed in a manner that i have not been brave enough to be.  I am most concerned about the reactions from my family.  I feel like I have been one version of me in front of them and a very different one the rest of the time.  While i know that my family is (for the most part) supportive and encouraging, there is still the fear in the back of my mind that learning about my life on such a level that i bring to the blog may cause some of my family to turn their backs.  Losing my spot at my grandmother's dinner table would be one the biggest pains of my life, no matter how intensely i have defended my independence or drifted from their reach.

I think many, if not all, members of the LGBTQ community have faced this fear at some point in their lives.  It causes me great pain that i have not been able to say that i am totally out, although i have been out in my social, work, and home life for many years.  There are still pockets of my family that i have not explicitly told.  I have dropped hints like crazy to my uncles...but i haven't said the words "yup, i'm gay" to all of them.

Thanks to the divorce, my uncles became the "positive male role models" in my life and i looked to them often as the good guys in the world.  I always looked forward to dinners at grandma's house because i got to spend time with them; I loved hearing them laugh, tell stories about their childhood with my mom, and watching movies or games with them.  I got an email tonight from the middle uncle, Dave, with a link to his bowling team's fan page...it's a riot.  He bowls at the same alley as Dylan (different night and very different league).  I wrote back and casually mentioned that I am, indeed, a lesbian:  "The woman I am dating bowls in a league there on Fridays!  I love that place!"  (I am pretty sure that Dave knows, but it just feels good that i am FINALLY...officially...out to two of the three uncles.)

Uncle Jimmy, the youngest, has been a great source of strength, perspective, and insight to the family.  He was the first one of the three i told.  He is sure that my grandparents, his parents, will be supportive, loving, and there.  He told me stories of times in his life, as well and instances in my mother's, that he feared losing the support, trust, love and confidence of his parents.  He was relieved and surprised that as much as he "messed up" they were still standing tall by his side.   I am afraid, however, that they will cling to their Catholic heritage and use their faith as a reason to abandon and shun me.  Being gay in the Catholic church isn't a source of pride.  Many of my gay friends who are still with the church speak about instances of hate and prejudice although they are, in many respects, better Catholics than their straight counterparts.  I am worried my grandparents will not be willing to recognize my future partner and children as members of their family.  I am worried that my children will grow up without great-grandparents.  I cherish the memories that i have with my Granny and it hurts my soul to think that my children would miss out on making their own memories with great-grandparents because of ignorance and hate.  My grandparents and I have not always seen eye to eye - correction - we have never seen eye to eye.  They often infuriate me, but i am terrified of losing them.

The eldest Uncle, Steve, has always been the funny one.  I sit next to him at my grandparent's dinner table and we make jokes to each other under our breath.  I have loved growing up and getting to be an adult next to him.  He was one of the first people in my life to make me feel valid as a "grown up."  I'm not even sure what exactly happened, but i remember being looked to as an equal with valid insight in the adult conversations that we have over coffee and pie after the dinner table is cleared and as our meal digests.

There is a predictability about dinners and grandma's.  To my child-self, this predictability was a welcome change to the scurry i remember feeling about being at home.  As a child i remember often feeling out of control and chaotic.  Dinners at grandma's were always the same: neat, organized, and comforting.  The food was delicious and soul satisfying; I left with a full belly and an easy-going spirit.  I guess even my adult-self often feels panicked and out-of-control and as if i am standing in the middle of a storm so I have put off coming all the way out because i have feared losing my place at the table.

Glitches....or not

This past weekend Dylan and I got to spend some quality time reconnecting, remembering each other, and having an all together good time.  I was sad to be missing a house-warming party for some friends in Missoula (love you, Grubers!!)...pending hospital bills are putting a stop on the majority of spending right now...oy.  I was also sad that putting a halt on that trip meant that I didn't get to introduce Dylan to the Framily. 

I wish that i could say that this weekend was full of fire works and bells and whistles...but it wasn't.  Drama and show is not really how either Dylan or I roll.  Rather, this weekend was full of ordinary things and finding chances to flirt and talk and laugh throughout.  Friday night we went to dinner and her bowling league.  I brought my computer with me for the weekend because i A) didn't know what my plans were beyond Friday night (I was hoping they included seeing Dylan more, but we had never talked about plans beyond Friday night and Saturday morning); and B) had a crap-ton of homework.  While she and her team bowled, i sat above the lanes and focused on my writing.  I made sure to watch her every time she was up but was mostly focused on getting a chunk of work done so that i would be free for whatever happened for the rest of the weekend.  I could see the guys she bowls with giving her a hard time about bringing a girl bowling and i loved watching her blush.  In between each frame we would flirt, make eyes at each other, and snuggle a little in public...it was refreshing to know that it was hard for her to keep her hands off of me and it was reassuring to know that the glitches i was feeling were only there because of the time we had been apart.

The rest of the weekend was AWESOME!!  We did things for her new house, i got some more homework done, we had good conversation, spent time catching up and laughed a lot.  It was nice to hug her and snuggle and feel her hands on the small of my back.  It felt so good to have her hands back in mine, to look into her beautiful brown eyes, and to get kisses on my neck.  It was comforting to hear her tell me that she thinks i'm sexy, to have her ask me when she gets to see me next, to hate to watch me walk away.

Tonight, I asked Dylan to go to a show with me this weekend...I wanted to take her out on a date.  She's not much of a show person but, in her words, "for you, i would go."  I took the opportunity to ask her to go to Ani on October 23 with me instead of the show this weekend.  She obliged..."i would love to go with you."  Along with seeing Ani, she is going to be meeting some of the Framily!  yaaay!!  I am super excited for the show and for Kristen and Aliesje to meet her.  I am excited to take her on a date, to spoil her a little, and to have a great weekend before Tyra Banks comes out (37 days and counting!).

Glitches

It has been a long time since Dylan and I have had a real(-ish) conversation.  There have been short conversations over text or chat throughout training, but it wasn't until this most recent Monday that we have actually spoken on the phone and sustained any sort of conversation. 

It was great to hear her voice but awkward at the same time.  It was like we were starting all over and re-learning each other's conversation style, intonation, and humor.  There is one art of me that is trying to decide if this is a hiccup or a road block.  But there is another part of me telling me shut up and let it be.  I think i am going to go with the latter.  I am hoping that not seeing each other in about three weeks has caused a software glitch and we can get back to normal this weekend. 

Complementary Colors

It has been (roughly) a month since Dylan and I went on our first date.  Things have been going well....really well.  I know that her last relationship didn't end well and she is wary about losing herself in a new relationship.  I get that.  A while back she asked what I was looking for....ultimately.  I said something jumbled and awkward in an attempt to sound cool and collected and sure.

What i was able to put together AFTER that conversation is that I want my partner and I to complement each other like colors.  I want to stand shoulder to shoulder with the person that will help me find center, be the calm to balance my chaos; be the blue to my orange.  I want us to be awesome in ourselves and extra awesome together.  I want to bask in my warm tones, celebrate her cool hues, and have more colors to paint with when we are working together.  Basically...I want us to have our independent lives that are more fun and more full because we get to share them with each other.  I don't need to share every hobby.  Have nights with your friends....I'll have time with mine...but lets plan dinner with everyone too.

One of the songs on heavy rotation on my iPod lately, Not the Doctor by Alanis Morrisette, makes me think about that conversation......"I believe that 1 + 1 = 2."  No matter what happens, i refuse to leave Sarah behind.  The last time i was in a committed relationship, i forgot who i was; i compromised my vision. 

I am walking into Fall Training and opening....ie: the busiest time of year at work.  Looking at my September the reality is that seeing Dylan is going to be fairly tricky.  I am more than willing to put in the effort...but i wonder if she is.  This weekend i think we are going to be re-visiting the "what are we" conversation.  I am willing to be patient...but i refuse to be strung a long.  I hope that there is momentum behind our nightly conversations, weekends together, and comfortable silence.

Wish me luck!

The good

Although i have been writing about the hard things in life for the past month, there has been a lot of good.  One of the highlights is the new person i am dating.  For know, we will call her Dylan.

Living in Mo-town has made "getting out there" next to impossible.  I am horrible in a bar setting and suck at feeling confident enough to flirt when I feel like I am in a meat market.  I had quite a few friends meet great people through on-line dating sites (see this blog) and decided to give it a try.  After a few months of going through profiles and "meeting" women that never emailed back, Dylan came across my homepage and i was taken by her smile.  We emailed for a few weeks when i gave her my phone number and we started talking throughout the day.  Then we decided to put faces to names and we went for a late dinner in Portland in late July.  I was BEYOND nervous......my stomach was in knots, i couldn't concentrate, i was positive i was going to make an ass of myself.  She was charming, funny, uncensored, and easy to talk to.  When the check came i asked how we wanted to cover the tab.  She looked at me and said "How about i get this and you do next time."  She walked me to my car, gave me a hug goodbye, and we made plans to talk later in the week.

About a month later I am glad to report that things are still going well with Dylan.  I have met her dogs, friends, and mom.  We have spent weekends together.  She drives me crazy (in a fantastic way).  Both of us are quite wary about jumping in and doing the typical "lesbian thing"....no U-Hauling for these kids.  We are taking things slow....making sure that there is a foundation of friendship and respect before we get committed.  Last weekend I filled her in with all of the ball-of-fun stuff, had a mini-meltdown, and felt safe enough to let her witness the tears and worries come out.  Even though i was horribly embarrassed about crying in front of her, i was so glad that it didn't freak her out.  We have talked about hard things from our pasts, the baggage we bring, and what we want in our lives.  we've talked about gender, education, politics, family, society, entertainment, food.....it feels like everything.  she makes me laugh so hard that i have to pee, likes when i sing, lets me vent and process, and has very sincere eyes.

It is my hope that we will continue seeing each other that will keep our momentum as we move forward.  cross your fingers for positive updates!