Air Conditioning and Woke-ness?

Last night it was so hot in my bedroom, because my window unit isn't keeping up in this heat, that I went out to the living room to sleep on the AC vent. No lie. I literally slept on the vent. I took my pillows, blanky (yes, I still have a blanky), the cat, and I curled up on that vent and fell asleep. I was out there until around 4:30, and then went back to bed to sleep for another hour and a half. My room had cooled down just enough. I hurt just a little bit today because, lemme tell you, sleeping on the floor, on a metal vent is not that comfortable! Thus, my life motto applies to this situation: "Well, I thought it was a good idea at the time!"

I had a Deandra moment to write about, but I forgot what it was.

So I'm talking to a dude right now, and he has actually surprised me. Like, I'm impressed, surprised, and he's making me think. Like, we are having an actual dialogue about thoughtful things. Like, actually getting to know each other. What has happened?! Does it take a lot to surprise me? Yes-ish. I'm not really surprised when I see the fucked up or bad in people, and I'm not surprised to see the good in people. But I'm surprised to see the woke in dudes in this area. Like real woke-ness, and being in tune with themselves. Like what? Huh. I like this.
I might like this, but it's also scaring the shit out of me. Why? Because this dude sounds very grounded and together. He knows what he wants. While this is what I want, this is the kind of thing that I'm afraid of. Because he's actually mindful and available. I'm attracted to the unavailable because that means that I don't actually have to engage in a real-ass, grounded relationship with them. I don't know how to do that being in a relationship with an available person thing.

Huh. Go figure.

Basic White Dudes

Short post today. I need a bit of a reprieve because life is just...gahtdamb weird right now.

One of my favorite Bumble interactions this week. Let's call this dude Mitch.

Mitch's bio: I'm 31. No kids. Have a car. I enjoy fishing, Zelda, Mario, cards, and up for a debate. I'm very vanilla until you get to know me. What is a logician?"

My message (because, reminder, women have to message first on Bumble): "Zelda, Mario, AND Cards?! That's like a trifecta of awesome, and we should definitely meet up."

Mitch: "Miss. I'm not looking for love. I'm looking for a one night stand. Sorry for wasting your time."

Me: "Who says I'm looking for love? My bio basically makes me seem like an asshole. I just want to use someone to play Rummy and Mario Kart."

My bio right now: "I've lost most of my faith in humanity. Humans are basically trash. Change my mind. Check out my ass (Because I have a selfie with my cousin's donkey...also a picture where I'm actually sticking my clothed ass out)."

First of all, no where in Mitch's bio did it say he was looking for a hookup. Like the information he has there? That's not the information needed for a hookup (I should know, a boy slept in my bed)**. Am I wrong? Heeelll no. Like just fucking put you are looking for a hookup.
Second, I hope I get a reply so I can mess with him a bit.

This week I also realized that there are definitely basic white dudes all over these dating apps. My friend Cass* added a couple of things to the basic white dude list, so she gets credit for those.

Me: "#BasicWhiteDudes: likes brunch, sarcasm, "good" beer (IPA, probably), the patio, dogs, tacos, throwing themselves down cold mountains for fun, and The Office. Also think they are Ron Swanson. Bless your basic hearts."
Cass*: "and the gym. also ron swanson is excellent but he is also HORRIBLE, POLITICALLY, SO."

We're not wrong. Come at us.

Also, is everybody a fucking pilot?! No offense, skunk boy, because you cool (and your mid-life crisis plane is really pretty), but I had NO idea there were so many out there.


Also, I wonder if any of these dudes have any idea that I'm actually documenting some of these interactions. It's a bit amusing. I figure eventually I might get caught or called out. Or I might let someone into my actual writing world (here's looking at you SB. That was NOT an easy decision, btw), and freak the fuck out a little bit because like this is my gahtdamb soul (this reminds of the Megan and Annie dialogue in Bridesmaids, where Megan talks about her cruise ship accident, and the dolphin who looked into Megan's soul; "my god-damn soul, Annie.")

Antyway. It's Thursday.

*Not using her real name unless I get permission.

**So this boy who slept in my bed thing is becoming my own personal inside joke. Like I can do things because of that. Like I'm superhuman, and a mother fucking dragon now. Like Maleficent, but a lot nicer and understood. Come at me. 

Happy Fucking Tuesday

After basically doing a DTR, because let's face it, y'all, that's what my post yesterday was. Basically. But this morning I realized, as I explained to the guy who slept in my bed, it was basically me saying goodbye to my expectations vs the reality of the friendship. So there's that.

Sleeping and time do wonders for clarity. I process things in a different way, and I write things on the fly and in the moment. That letter was probably the most raw and vulnerable thing I've ever written, where I actually invited the recipient, and the world, to read it. It is what is is, and I'm not sorry. It's out there, he's seen it, and I can't take it back. I don't want to either.
As my second life motto goes, "Well, I thought it was a good idea at the time!" *laughing*

This morning, after reading through some of my other posts, I realized I  was doing so well at the beginning of this month, and I'm in the middle of a spiral that makes me feel out of control and anxious AF--which doesn't help with the out of control feeling. There are lots of reasons: the shit happening in the US, the children, my mom and her job, living, and mental health issues, my mom's really good friend died by suicide this last week, ghosting, money, work, my eating habits, a shame spiral from feeling so out of control, probably swinging back and forth between being hypomania and a depressive episode (rapid cycling anybody? I've got that), trying to come to terms with all of this shit, and being triggered by some of my blog posts.
I'm still here though, and I'm still moving forward. It's hard AF, and I know I'm self-sabotaging somewhat.
My impulse this week? Taking off to Chicago this weekend. To go to the motherfucking aquarium. I need an escape...or so I think. I don't want to sit with this out of control feeling, and my anxiety. I feel like to soothe it I need to escape.
I did this last weekend. I went out to my cousin's ranch. It was like a fucking vacation, and I felt so at peace. Until Sunday when I knew I had to go back to reality, and my mom started getting into her own downward spiral. It happens every Sunday with her, and it messes with both me and my brother because we don't know what to do. She leans on me heavily when she's like that. I have no idea how to help her. I just don't, and it's frustrating and scary to see her life upended once again. Mental illness is a fucking bitch, yo.
So I've written about a lot of my traumas.
I've done a DTR.
Dude is a mother fucking trooper. Like how, skunk boy? How?
But tonight, on T-Mobile's dime, I am going to see Kesha and Macklemore in concert. I just want 3PM to get here so I can get the fuck out of Topeka, and feel the energy that is a crowd of people at a concert. It's fucking magical, and it's just what I need. Kesha's music has been like my life's soundtrack since last fall when I finally listened through the whole thing. Holy shit, y'all. I cannot recommend the Rainbow album enough. It's raw, vulnerable, inspirational, and just amazing.

Antway, I have to laugh because I've like thrown a lot of my traumas out there. Like, hey, see how wrecked I am? I'm not broken. Just wrecked. It's a trauma fest! I am feeling really raw and exposed right now.
I'm not running away to Chi-town this weekend though. That's pretty extreme. I'll settle for somewhere closer I guess. It IS time for my bi-weekly trek to TJ's. I don't need a whole lot, but enough to maybe justify a trip. Who knows? Maybe I'll take off to Tulsa to see my most beloved shark species, the bull shark. Also, I can touch sharks and rays there.
I will see. I should be saving this money for a car.
I hope my family doesn't read this blog very much. I don't know why I care because I'm letting friends and strangers read this.

Deandra moments of the week/weekend so far? Everything. Specifically, not picking up on an innuendo from one of the guys I started communicating with this weekend. #adventuresindating It was a duh moment. I laughed at myself because that's really all I can do.
Forgetting how to fully unlock one of the metro bikes on Saturday, and completely locking that stupid thing up, to the point that it stopped working. I had to call the metro bike manager to come take care of it. I forgot that the U-Bar went into a holder, and not the actual lock mechanism. 
Most peaceful moment of the week so far? Riding a bike to work this morning. It makes me feel a bit free, and a bit like a kid. It brings me joy.
Productive thing this week: cleaning out the my assholes' cages (the guinea pigs).
Looking forward to: The overwhelming positive, radiant, and amazing energy that is so unique to a concert like what Kesha and Macklemore are putting on. It has been FOREVER since I've been to a live music event.
Realization: I am a mother fucking writer. I have legitimate writer qualities. I always have, and I need to keep developing the skill and talent. Because I'm going to write a gahtdamb memoir someday. It will be in essay format. Thank you to the following authors: Samantha Irby, Jes Baker, Jenny Lawson, Chelsea Handler, W. Kamau Bell, Tiffany Haddish, Whitney Cummings, and Trevor Noah. It's not a complete list, but that's who I can think of at the moment. I'm kind of obsessed with Samantha Irby right now, and I've listened to both "Meaty" and "We Are Never Meeting in Real Life" twice now. "Bitches gotta eat" yo.
Working on: getting out of this fucking shame spiral, and coming down from nearly a level 10 on my anxiety scale.
Need to do: Stop being so insecure. I need to quit trying to sabotage relationships and my life by acting out of my insecurities. YOU ARE OKAY. Sort of. I think. Brain, I'mma need you to stop going to the worst case scenarios, and thinking that people don't love you and want you in their lives. Stop. There is some logic in there somewhere, and you need to gahtdamb use it because people have their own shit going on that has nothing to do with you. Love you, boo, but you have got to stop.

Happy Tuesday.
 

A Letter To A Skunk

A letter to the boy who was in my bed,

Hey there. How are you doing? I hope you are slaying those fursuits. Sew, sew, sew, and sew some more.
So. You hard-core friend-zoned me. Like not even like let’s be really good friends, but like acquaintance friends. I can’t do that. I’m sorry. No. I’m not sorry. I can’t be as close as I sort of was, and then hop back like that. We kind of crossed the line into FWBs territory. How do you go back from that?                                                                                  
                 
Look, I know you have a lot going on in your life. You have lived a shit ton of lifetimes in just 34 years. I love that about you, but it also makes me sad. You have like conquered the world as far as I’m concerned, and then you crashed and burned. You are so incredibly smart, talented, kind, generous, and funny. You are even good-looking (shocker!) You have been all over the place and done so many things, you have so many interests, so many different hobbies, you can do just about everything, and you work your ass off. It’s impressive, and I fell in love with that. I felt like you kind of have the world at your finger tips, and just by knowing you, so did I. It’s intoxicating. You are my favorite type of person.

Which is probably why I’ve held on longer than I should have. That, and you were kind of like a challenge for me
Because
I have never met someone who didn’t let me in. I develop emotional connections with people really easily, but you shut me the fuck out. Over and over and over again. No matter how much I tried. I also felt like by doing that you weren’t really that interested in my life. Because when you shut me out, you really didn’t get to see the real me. You got to see some parts of me, but you didn’t know my story. There’s so much more to me than what you saw, and I’m sorry that you didn’t get to know me fully. I’m so worth knowing, skunk boy. I’m really sorry that I didn’t get to know you more than what you let me see because, for all the reasons above and I’m sure so much more, you are an awesome person. So worth knowing. No matter how fucked up you think you are.
Also, stop shaming yourself. For real, yo.

The way I did feel that you let me in? That thing that you’re into. That was so attractive because that’s trust, vulnerability, closeness, and really getting to know some of the most intimate parts of a person. Like I haven’t been able to understand why you let me in that way because, to me, that’s insanely close. That closeness scared the shit out of me because there wasn’t a guarantee that outside of that it would be the same. I don’t compartmentalize well.
This also required touch.
Here’s something: I’ve been terrified of touching you. I haven’t really been able to give myself permission to do that even though you did. Touch scares me because I’m so responsive to it, and I’ve internalized the message that it’s so wrong to be that responsive to it.
Two words: purity culture. I’ve talked about it in another post, where you were also featured, btw. It kind of explains what has been going on. You have no idea how much I wanted to hold you, snuggle, cuddle like we talked about. How maternal I can be if I could have just gotten over that fucking purity culture mindset. Since I can remember (I’m 30 years old so at least 25 years), touching someone like that has been off limits. I come from the Christian side-hug, no hand holding, no kissing, and certainly no snuggling because that led to things that would eventually lead to sex culture (cult being the key word there). Which was bad unless you were married. It has been so, so, so hard to get over that, and I really thought I was. I could sure talk like I was beyond that, but when it came to execution? I know you felt how guarded I was in person vs what I would say over text.
I didn’t know how to handle you. I didn’t know how to handle myself around you: with that permission to touch you. I didn’t know how to do anything. Until you stayed over. When you took my hand that night? Holy shit. You like unleashed a dragon.
That was the first time I had let someone sleep with me. In the literal sense. That was also the first time that I had gotten...close to someone else.
My coworkers laugh at me because I have made all of these declarations of what I will and will not do. I was extremely surprised to find out that I LOVED sleeping next to someone like that. It was incredible, and so simple. But also unbelievably meaningful to me.
You also empowered me, and I was hoping you would get to experience it (side note: because of you sleeping over, and that dragon being unleashed? I had sex with someone for the first time a couple of weeks later).

But then all hell broke loose for you:

Oh my fucking god. What in the actual fuck?! I have never felt like the Universe was like so against someone. I was, and still am, heartbroken for you, and can’t comprehend how you are feeling. I was reaching out because I do know loss though. Not to overwhelm or smother you. I think you kind of have an avoidant thing going on. But through that it seems like you have learned that you need to take care of yourself and deal with shit you’ve been avoiding. That you need to cherish people because they aren’t here for very long, and can go in a moment. That’s fucking scary, skunk boy. So scary. So I understand that aspect of it. I really do.
I’m so sorry for all of that, and I really wish I could be there for you.

I’m not sure how you’ll take this or what’s going to happen. All I know is that I will never forget you, and will be forever grateful for what you did (Mother. Fucking. Dragon. You have no idea what you helped let loose. I’m so serious). I really, really, really wish that you would have been one of the people to experience that. Because let me tell you, it’s awesome. All of the things we talked about? I would have finally been able to do that! And that makes me so fucking like sad and heartbroken. I’m hurting. I really am, and I thought I should be honest about that and how I felt and how I can’t just go to super casual friends. Because this isn’t going to fit in a text, and you needed to know. I felt like I at least owed it to myself to write this. Like it’s my closure.


So. Skunk Boy.

Go figure your shit out. Fly. Slay the world with everything that you do. You have so much to offer, and so much to live for.

I’m going to slay the world with one blog post, one song, one laugh, one meal, one silly Deandra moment, one snuggle or cuddle, one impulsive trip, one makeout session, and one orgasm (multiple, actually) at a time.

Thank you,

Deandra

P.S. I still have that gahtdamb disgusting diet Red Bull in my fridge.

On Hard Things

So here's the deal.

As in-tune as I think I might be with my emotions and body, I am still super avoidant, and I have done some hard work on myself to identify what I am feeling. I've kind of lapsed on that check in, and channeling the feelings in a healthy-ish way.
Lately, I've started to have emotions that are more raw and, as I see them, darker: anger, sadness, disappointment. I want to get away from these emotions. They make me anxious, restless, and impulsive. I'm on the impulsive side anyway, but it's heightened when I get to feeling this way.
I don't want to sit with these emotions, and I don't want to feel them. At all. Which just makes things worse, I know.
My anxiety makes me needy.  I don't want to be needy because I believe the lies that being needy is bad and a burden on people; I don't need to burden people with my struggles. So I isolate. Or I get super restless. The restlessness leads to the impulsiveness. Which makes me feel out of control. I don't want to, as I see it, waste my energy on reigning that back in. I'm also stubborn as fuck, so if I went to someone to help me out, which I wouldn't because I don't want to burden them, I would probably get defiant and do what I was going to do anyway. I feel like I become really irrational when I'm restless and impulsive.
When I'm impulsive that leads to either two things: spending money or eating. Eating has always been a comfort for me. Especially when I'm restless. I get cravings, and I give into them because I don't want to deal with my emotions and feelings even though I know I should. Even though I know that's what I need to do, and would be best. Sometimes I can catch myself. Other times I'm just like, fuck it, I've already done this or this, might as well do this too!
Spending money is also soothing in the moment. I don't necessarily spend it on random stuff though. I spend on things that make me feel happy, thrilled, peaceful, and somewhat hopeful. Like I have actually met a need so it's hard not to justify it in some way because it did actually help. Sometimes. Not all of my spending sprees are actually positive. I summed up my life like this: "Well, I thought I needed it at the time!"
Okay here's an example of a positive spending thing: A couple of weekends ago, I rented a car because I had just sold mine, and since it was a zippy, super economical car, I knew that I could drive up to Omaha and back on one tank of gas. Because she was small and super economical, I knew that her gas tank wasn't very big, and I would spend less than $30 filling her back up before I took her back to Avis. I also have an annual pass to the SeaLife Aquarium in KC which participates in the reciprocity program. You know what that means? I get half off the admission price at the Henry-Doorly Zoo in Omaha. I left my house a little before 7am, and drove the nearly 3 hours up to Omaha. I had a plan: Go to the zoo, feel the good feels and thoughtfulness that the animals give me, leave the zoo, hit up a Thai restaurant, and then drive back home.
I underestimated how much money I was actually going to spend at the zoo though. I got some magnets from the gift shop, I watched an IMAX movie, I bought a bottle of water, and I got two round-trip tram tickets. I didn't have lunch though! Oh, and I also bought a ticket for the touch the stingrays exhibit--however, THIS one was WORTH IT!!! I didn't need to go see the movie, I didn't need the magnets, I didn't need two round trips on the tram. I had budgeted for just one tram ride, the stingray beach, and the water. However, I had a wonderful time. The stingray beach made me feel the most joyous I had felt in a long time. I mean I was like in paradise, and I was a total child. The bonnethead shark exhibit made me feel the same way. Watching the sharks swim literally 3 or 4 inches from my face? I can't even describe how happy that made me feel. I was happy, and though impulsive AS FUCK, I think I needed that trip in some way. I channeled my restless energy.
My other spending sprees? Here's a perfect example: I just recently purchased two exercise balls from Amazon. I thought I was going to use them WAY more than I actually do. I was going to sit on the exercise ball at work all the time, and roll around on the other one at home like my brother did when he was a kid (it's quite fun actually). It was an impulse buy, and I haven't used them enough to justify the nearly $40 that I spent on them.
Another example: Plants. I buy plants, mostly in the fall and winter. I need some green life around me, and think that I need to take care of a thing even though I already have a cat and two guinea pigs that do take up a lot of my time. I'm sitting at work right now looking at the one plant that is definitely dead, and the other two that are on their way out. Tillandsias have been my weakness. Y'all, I have spent an absurd amount of money in the last 3 years on Tillandsias (air plants). When I think about it, I'm actually really, really embarrassed because I have nothing to show for it at all. Nothing. I have killed most of my investments, and I have decorative pieces just sitting in boxes because I was going to decorate my whole house with them. It never happened. Tillandsias are an instant gratification thing. I'm so happy when I press that order button, I love unboxing them when they arrive, and I LOVE to set up the displays to show them off. But once I'm done? I am angry with myself for spending that money for...plants that I will eventually kill.

I feel shame right now. I don't know how to take the shame away. I feel like a loser. I know I'm sabotaging myself, but why? Why would I do this to myself? Because looking inward at those feelings is going to hurt. A lot. I don't want to hurt anymore than I already am. I just don't want to deal with them right now. Here I thought I was finally getting somewhere, and I'm crashing again. But to get through this, I have to sit with my feelings, and process. Which scares the shit out of me. Is this a constant life process? Checking in with yourself? I think it is. I don't want to spend my life avoiding this process though because it makes things much, much worse.

Help. I need things to counter the shame. 

My Favorite Things To Cook RN

I figure after triggering both my C-PTSD (finally admitting I probably have it) or RTS (religious trauma syndrome) and a Bipolar II swing from hypomania back down to a depressive episode, that I needed to post some things that I love.


I cook. I'm going to stop being modest about some of my skills and talents, and own them. I am a gahtdamb good cook, and I season my shit well (here's looking at you white folks). I have never come across a recipe that I don't tweak in some way. I guess I consider myself an intuitive cook, maybe? See if I am making something for the first time, I will go ahead and follow the recipe. I taste and savor the final results to see what I need to do differently the next time. There are some recipes I now know by heart because I make them so much--I'm the type of person who makes shit over and over again.

Let's clarify, I am a cook, but I am not necessarily a baker. Unless we are talking about brownies and chocolate lava cakes. I make some bomb-ass brownies and lava cakes with a ganache ball in the middle. Mmmmm...so melty and delicious.

So here are my favorite things right now. They happen to be super easy, and I definitely jazz them up with the seasonings and shit.

First:

Knock Off Tacos Al Pastor

1 lb of ground pork
Seasoning salt (I use a blend from my local spice store)
Taco Seasoning (I use a half pack of Trader Joe's taco seasoning...spicy)
1 small can of crushed pineapple
Brown or Palm sugar (to taste)

Saute the shit out of that pork with the seasonings. When it's almost fully cooked throw in the pineapple and brown sugar. Let simmer until it looks like it's done. Taste that shit along the way after adding the pineapple and sugar to see if you need more salt, taco seasoning, or brown sugar.

Mix up some chipotles in adobo sauce with some mayo and seasoning salt. Voila! Chipotle aioli.

Serve in some warmed up tortillas. I always use flour tortillas, but you do you boo.

For sides I use Trader Joe's deconstructed Mexican Street Corn and seasoned black beans OR their Cuban style black beans (season that shit though). All of that comes from TJ's because I'm obsessed with TJ's. I should probably check out my local Aldi since they are owned by the same parent co. But TJ's just has so many unique things. So I'll keep taking my ass to that bougie-ass market in Kansas City.

Sometimes I will actually get a pork roast, season that shit up, cook her low n slow, and then make some tacos al pastor with that. But it takes longer, and I ain't always got the time for that.

Next in my recipe line up?
One of the easiest things in the world, but surprisingly SUPER tasty, savory, and comforting.

Caesar Chicken Over Spaghetti Squash

This was originally a crockpot recipe, however, me being me, I kind of hate using my crockpot (clean up is a bitch). So I researched different methods of cooking chicken without cooking it to death, or slicing it up. Because as much as I love chicken when it's finally cooked, I HATE slicing it up. So to avoid that nastiness, and the obsessive hand-washing that would accompany the chicken slicing, I used the poaching method. Here's a link to the poaching method: https://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-poach-chicken-breasts-cooking-lessons-from-the-kitchn-28367
Apparently, it doesn't ruin the chicken like boiling would.
So you have some tender-ass chicken.

You need like 3 good sized breastses to do this.
Poach those suckers
Let them rest
Slice up or shred. I kind of do both
Throw in a skillet with a bottle of Ken's Steakhouse Caesar Dressing
(Y'all it HAS to be Ken's. It is the very best. Also none of that low-fat bullshit. Intuitive and mindful eating says the best diet is NO diet. We don't diet on this here blog, or advocate for dieting. Use that regular stuff. Don't be afraid)
Oh, I should also mention that I use Cajun seasoning to season this shit up. Seasoning is the key to good food. Also not overcooking.

Meanwhile, roast your spaghetti squash:
I usually just cut that sucker in half, remove the icky seeds and stuff, season it with cajun seasoning and seasoning salt (both from my local spice store), maybe some olive oil or butter, and then roast it until it looks done. Don't at me about this. I'm an intuitive cook so I will not give specific times. I just KNOW when it's done like Mandy Moore in "Because I Said So" knows when her chocolate souffles are done.
Once the spaghetti squash has cooled do that shredding thing that you do with the squash. Throw it in the pan with the chicken Caesar mix, grate some hard Italian cheese over it, and then serve.
For a hard Italian cheese, I seriously recommend Grana Padano. Holy hell that is such a good cheese. You know when Remy in "Ratatouille" talks about a cheese being nutty and fruity? Grana Padano. Mmmm mmm mm. For serious, use this cheese.

This has been a lighthearted cooking moment from Deandra.

Enjoy boos! Let me know if you cook these recipes, and how much you liked them! 
 

That One Time My Pastor Tried to Set Me Up

I kind of need a funny story, but I don’t really have one at the moment. Religious trauma and spiritual abuse are real, yo. Sometimes re-telling some of the stories associated with that traumatic time triggers me. I’m going to get through it, but I have another story to tell from that hell-hole church that I talked about in my previous church. This one is pretty gahtdamb fucked up, honestly.

One morning a few years ago, I walked into the church building on a Sunday morning only to come face to face with someone I never thought I’d see again. My former best friend’s ex, and father of her daughter. I did a like quadruple take because what in the fuck was, let’s call him Cecil, doing here? Like was I dreaming? How was this possible?
Here’s how: a friend of mine was in rehab, and started inviting other members of the rehab programs to our church. Cecil was one of those people. I was one of two black people in that church up until that point. Cecil happened to be black as well.
So Cecil was there to get his life right with God, find godly support during recovery, and be mentored by our pastor and the other men. Apparently, part of finding godly support was to find a good godly woman to help get him through his recovery.
Like I noted in my previous post, our pastor referred to himself as the “doctor of love” (he had his doctorate in biblical counseling), and he was trying to set Cecil up with me.
Lemme tell y’all about good ol Cecil here. Back when I was fresh out of high school my friend, let’s call her Amanda, was talking to this dude who was in jail. I’m not even sure how she met him, but she was trying to decide whether to date him or this other dude. Apparently, she picked Cecil. Amanda had made it to the final semester of her high school career, Cecil was out of jail, and they had met up at some point. I remember eating lunch with her one day, and talking about how her emotions and hormones seemed a little out of whack. I asked if she thought she was pregnant. God, she hoped not. We went on a walk a few weeks later, and I knew then just because of her behavior and reactions that she was probably pregnant. We had a girls night the next week, bought her a pregnancy test, and went to the Barnes and Noble to conduct this pregnancy test. I think it came out inconclusive, but we knew. She was pregnant. With Cecil’s baby.
Cecil was selling drugs, in a gang, and probably an alcoholic. He was only 18, and Amanda was 17 at this point. He had been in some pretty serious altercations, and involved in at least one shooting that I had known of. He talked about actually killing someone, but I never did find out if that was true. Antyway, he was hardcore, and this little white suburbanite Christian girl, Amanda, had fallen for him. Their relationship was rocky as fuck. He cheated on her when she was pregnant (I was around for some of those dramatic meet ups to confront him about his cheating). They broke up several times, but he always came back to apologize. He said he’d do better every single time. Baby was born, and they were still off and on. (I should also mention that her parents didn’t really approve not because he was into all of this fucked up shit, but because he was black). For the next, god, maybe few years they were together off and on still. He would get back together with Amanda, come back to Jesus, try to get out of hustling, and then he’d get back into it all over again. This happened quite a bit. He also put his hands on her. He was physically abusive, and I know at one point Amanda was actually afraid that he was going to kill her.
So this is the brick wall of a dude that I ran into on that Sunday morning a few years ago. Since then he had his parental rights stripped away from him and Amanda’s daughter, Amanda had gotten married, and her husband had officially adopted Amanda and Cecil’s daughter. Amanda and her new husband were so perfect for each other, happy, and building their life together.
Not two weeks into his attendance to our church the campaign to set Cecil and I up began. Almost everyone was on board for this because OH MY GOD how cute would our black babies look?! We were perfect for each other largely because we were black. Cecil was just starting out as a Christian. He was what we used to call a baby Christian. I was not. I was in ministry, knew my shit about the Bible, was actively living out my life as a mature Christian. Our pastor encouraged Cecil to start wooing me, and to start courting me. They tried to convince me to let this all happen. Just let it happen! He needs a good woman to keep him from stumbling again. I needed a good godly man to lead me spiritually, have babies with, and live my life with.
The thing was, I knew all of this shit about Cecil. He was my friend’s ex! Apparently he didn’t tell the pastor the whole truth about his past. Or it didn’t matter because he had actually gotten saved this time. He was redeemed now. Or whatever.
I kept saying no to this. I told my pastor and my friends who were supportive of this potential relationship, “Hell no!” I kept saying they didn’t know him like I did. He had done this all before: have a come to Jesus life thing happen, and then he’d revert back to abuse and hustling. Also, he was, at that point my former, best friend’s ex! Like how was that okay?! I tried and tried and tried to tell the pastor and them to leave drop this because this wasn’t going to happen. They didn’t listen, and they kept trying to push us together.
I don’t know why I didn’t leave the church then. I probably should have, but I was also pissed because that was my church, and he had just started going there. Also, I was so involved in ministries. However, because of the fucking patriarchal system in place he was way more valuable as a man, even though he had just become a Christian, than I was. He had more value, authority, and potential.
I didn’t out him for his past abuses and activity to the pastor and the others. I probably should have because I know that Cecil didn’t tell them everything. Or he did, and it really just didn’t matter. I just wanted and needed them to stop, and listen to me when I said, “No. Absolutely not.” I felt powerless and silenced.  I needed my pastor to trust me when I said, “No.” I needed him to trust that I knew what was best for me. Cecil wasn’t it, and I would have ended up being cheated on and abused. But the pastor just kept at it because I was under his authority, and he knew what was best for me. I was like his “third daughter” until I rebelled later. Then I was just a problematic rebellious woman.
I’m not sure how long this went on. Maybe a couple of months? Cecil moved on, the pastor and them stopped trying to push me into that relationship, and I was angry and relieved. Eventually, Cecil stopped coming to church altogether, and the last I had heard he had shot someone point blank on the side walk of his and his girlfriend’s house. The shot guy died. What’s kind of crazy is that Cecil’s girlfriend then? I went to elementary school with her. This town is so fucked up sometimes.

Antyway, so this is a totally true story.

The worst part about it, besides the racism and patriarchy, is that my pastor knew I wanted to be in a relationship. Not only was I supposed to be his “third daughter,” but he was also my counselor. Except he basically preyed on his knowledge and my desire to be in a relationship to try to make this one with Cecil work out. He thought that since I trusted him, and was his “third daughter” that if he endorsed this Cecil, gave his blessing for us to have this romantic relationship, and pushed me enough that I, his “third daughter,” would cave. He knew best because not only was he my spiritual leader, but he was also acting as my father at that point and time, and he used and abused that.

Writing all of this kind of makes me realize just how fucked up everything about that last church was. I keep telling myself it wasn’t that bad, and I have blocked out a lot of stuff as a bit of a trauma response to convince myself it wasn’t that bad. However, this was not normal. The culture and people of that church were not normal. None of this was normal and healthy!! It WAS bad, and it WAS toxic. Somehow, I made it out though. Somehow, I have not managed to end my own life despite the dark and twisty feelings, emotions, and thoughts this all brings up. I’m just sitting here with a shocked expression on my face right now.

I need...I don’t know. Something happy, and probably not to be alone for the next few hours.
Which is why I’m at work, trying to function. I kind of just need a hug and to get out of my house tonight.

 

Unavailable Man Addict Part 3

My times in the church as an adult seemed to revolve around youth ministry, and falling in love with fellow youth warriors. The next guy was a fellow youth leader as well. We will call him Andy (short for Andrew. His mom HATED when we didn’t use his given name. Though this isn’t his real name, I did have to come up with one that I could shorten into a common nickname for people named Andrew).

The church that I left my childhood church for was part of the SBC denomination. I wasn’t originally going to actually go to this church because I was burned out, and just wanted to enjoy being in my early 20s with my friends, doing life together, and finding God together. My best friends and I had started going to the young adults group that the pastor was holding. It wasn’t actually part of the church, but we used one of the basement rooms for our group. I’m not going to go into details about my time in that hell hole of a place after I became a member, and was fully involved. What is relevant? Eventually, I jumped back into the youth ministry a year, give or take a few months, after I started actually going to that church.

I got on board in a November.

Fast forward a couple of months, and our youth group was going through “Crazy Love” by Francis Chan. We were meeting in the upstairs apartment above the church. I walked in for our study that night, and there was this super cute new guy. He was immediately on my radar. He was from the IFB church across the street, and was checking out the youth group to potentially become a new leader. He was like one of my ideal types: blonde hair, gorgeous blue eyes, kind of stocky and thick in the right places, was super nice, funny, and had this charm about him. Within the next month he joined the youth leader ranks.
The point people for our youth ministry was a couple who had just gotten married, were allowed to live in the apartment above the church in exchange for their leadership of the youth ministry. It became too much, and reasonably so, y’all. They were the first casualties in this crazy-ass ministry and church. The things expected of them were ridiculous. So they moved on, and the pastor had agreed to let Andy take over as the main youth leader. Me and my friend were the leaders who had been around the kids the longest though.
God, it’s hard to leave the church happenings out of this because they are all so intertwined with this fucked up thing that I had with Andy.
Antyway, during these couple-few months, Andy and I were becoming fast friends. I thought this was going to definitely turn into a relationship because we had the same life plans: youth ministry, and starting a therapeutic horse riding program. Y’all. Seriously that had been my dream since I was 13 years old, and to find someone else with the exact same life dream?! Um, hello! Meant. To. Be. Like he said this was his dream, the therapeutic riding thing, one night, and I went home to write it down in my journal and pray over it. I couldn’t believe this shit. He showed me the attention that I craved, and I ate it up. He was younger than me by like 4 years, but I’m not afraid of no age gap...obviously; the guy before Andy was fucking 17 years older than me.
I remember deferring to his authority in the first few months of this “relationship” because I knew that if we were to be together this was something I would be required to do. Might as well start then! It completely pissed my friends off because they saw right through this dude, and knew that he was completely leading me on. Because, see, he knew that I liked him a lot, and LOVED that he knew he had me, but wouldn’t have an actual defined relationship that would lead to marriage with me.
The church installed him as the youth pastor. My fellow youth leader, and best friend, stepped down from the ministry because she recognized him for the toxic person he was, and his toxic beliefs about damn near everything related to Christianity and ministry. My other friend confronted him about his fucked up relationship with me, and him leading me on. I told her to back off because this was going to happen (she was dead on btw). The friend who was in youth ministry with us, and left, accused me of only being in the ministry because of him.
I had isolated myself from my friends (who were also my roommates) because of some house drama, and I just felt like they were leaving me out of so much stuff. I was also avoiding them though. I started spending all of my time with Andy, a few of our students, and a couple of our 20-something friends. I was using them to avoid my actual best friends. My grandma was sick and died that summer. Andy was there all the gahtdamb time through her stay in the hospital before the surgery, and then when she passed. I leaned on him, and didn’t really let my other friends in.
When the other youth leader/best friend stepped down, it was just Andy and I. We were, “separate but equal” leaders according to the pastor. Andy had the title and the money, and I didn’t because I was a woman (Y’all. I know). The pastor spun this in such a way that he assured me that this was only to give incentive to having a leader stay committed to the ministry for more than a few months. I believed him, and plugged away at my responsibility as the second in command of the YG. Because we were the only two though, Andy and I were together constantly. So my feelings only grew. He showed me special attention not only because I was the other youth leader, but also because he loved the non-relationship relationship that we had. I did too. It was my ideal thing, but he just would not actually commit to me, and move us forward.

As things were getting more and more strained with my best friends/roommates it just drove me to spend more time at the church building. I was there almost every day for either a youth thing, to just hang out with Andy and a couple of my other friends, worship practice, our young adults group that managed to not die off (even though it should have...), to study, and to just escape the reality of my other relationships. They were really suffering because of other drama, and all of this shit. I was extremely avoidant, and Andy offered me the escape that I thought that I needed.
In the meantime, I was a bomb-ass youth leader. I LOVED my kids. Loved them to pieces. To clarify, I was actually not in youth ministry for Andy. I was in it for my kids. However, I took advantage of the time and relationship we had as leaders. Again, I thought it was this dream of what I wanted my life to look like being fulfilled. God was finally blessing me with the future husband I had been begging for since I was little.
But it wasn’t.
During all of this time, I was asking the pastor who labeled himself as the “doctor of love” and also happened to be my counselor so he heard EVERYTHING about this fucked up relationship I had with Andy, to please convince Andy to make a move. The pastor had influence, but he refused to use it here. Side note: he did try to use it with another relationship he wanted me to get into, and I will write about that soon. Because that is also SUPER fucked up.

This is bringing up so many feelings, and I know I’m going to have some emotional whiplash for the next few days because this was a really, really ugly time in my life. This church, the lead pastor, and Andy were the spiritual abuse perpetrators. Again, it’s so hard to separate out the tale of this unavailable dude relationship because all of this is just so intertwined.

Antyway, the longer I was there, the more frustrated and hurt I was getting because I really thought I could see how perfect we were for each other. Why did he not see this? Why was he still showing me all of this attention? Why did we have the benefits of the emotional relationship, and the space in each other’s lives, but not the actual relationship? I just couldn’t understand. I had changed myself so much. I had replaced my friends and family with him and this church. What was wrong with me? I wasn’t changing enough. So I tried to change more to become the woman I thought he would want me to be.
Until one day I ran smack into the wall of his misogyny. Short story: Andy asked his grandpa to lead our youth group during the week he was taking a short class at a Bible college. It was a disaster. At this point I had been in the kids’ lives for about two years. I knew them, I knew my Bible shit, I knew how to lead the shit of that group, I knew they loved learning by discussion (which I was best at), and I knew the things going on in their lives. However, he didn’t let me do my job. (BTW, y’all, all of this was volunteer work for me). Because I was a woman. This was the beginning of the end. I was devastated, and so, so incredibly angry. It was a slap in the face: “Well because you’re a woman. In the Bible, boys were considered men at age 12.” I couldn’t have ANY authority over the boys in our group. Because woman.
This was the beginning of the end, both with my relationship with him, and my time at that godforsaken church.
I started studying everything I could about women in ministry, drew on what I knew from my previous denomination (AG. Women could be pastors), and started reading Rachel Held Evans and Nadia Bolz-Weber. They were my lifelines at that point in time. Following them led me to the Progressive side of Christianity. I started getting more and more rebellious as I was pulling away from Andy, and trying to navigate what was going on with the youth group. Remember how I was supposed to be a “separate but equal” leader? Well, because I was getting more and more “rebellious,” they brought in another youth leader, who was extremely problematic, without even telling me. She was taking my place in the ministry, but the kids and their parents HATED her. She was also taking my space in Andy’s life. He started showing her the attention he had previously showed me. It was like a double slap in the face.
One day, not so long after all of this went down, he and I had a meeting. Since I had started to rebel, act out, and stopped submitting to his authority he thought he needed to have a talk with me to reign me back in. At one point he asked me, “Do you even want to get married?” I was pissed, indignant, and incredulous. Uh, yeah, at one point I wanted to marry his ass. I said, “Um, of course.” He quoted Ephesians, wives submit to your husbands. I brought up the second part of that, husbands love your wives as Christ loves the church. As someone who hated taking things out of context, Andy sure didn’t like it when I brought up the whole gahtdamb passage. Essentially pushing back against him, and showing him I wasn’t going to put up with that shit anymore.
That was one of the last straws. I stayed at that church way longer than I should have, and still held onto the hope that somehow Andy would change his mind. We continued to gradually grow apart. The damage was done, and I was waking up to just how fucking toxic that “relationship” was. How toxic the church was. How fucking toxic the pastor was, and his unwavering support for Andy.
I was getting more and more progressive, and wanted less and less to do with his dictatorship that was the youth ministry. The kids had stopped coming because he was fucking them up, and spiritually abusing them. He was spiritually and emotionally abusing/manipulating me, and I was being physically threatened/abused by my brother at home after I had to move back in with him and my mom. I didn’t want to expose the kids to my new Progressive, subversive beliefs. They needed to figure out their relationship with God themselves, and I just didn’t need the push-back I would have gotten, the ousting I would have gotten, if I started teaching them what I was learning about a new way of believing in God. It was a super rough time, and I was losing the support and closeness Andy had offered me for the last two years.
The final straw? Telling Andy and the pastor about my brother’s abuse. The pastor basically said I was SOL, and to move even though I didn’t have the money to do so. The apartment above the church was empty, but they wouldn’t let me stay there. Andy told me to serve my brother more, and submit more. In that, he would see Christ, and probably stop abusing me.
I was a fucked up mess. I left the church in February of 2014, and severed ties with Andy not long after that.
Andy decided to go to school down in the Christian capital of the US, where a lot of denoms have their world headquarters, and their main colleges (you know the city I’m talking about. It’s in the state just to the east of mine). His major? Nouthetic counseling. He was off to fuck up more people.
He stopped talking to just about damn near everyone back here in KS.
Until a year and a half ago when I saw his parents at Walmart one Sunday afternoon. I KNEW his asshole mom was going to mention that she ran into me. Sho nuff. A couple of weeks later, he messaged me on Facebook. He was trying to just waltz back into my life like nothing had happened, and we hadn’t talked in a couple of years. After a terse reply to his, “Hey how are you?” He asked, “Are you mad at me?”

This is what I told him:
“No, I really can't say that I am mad at you. At one point, I was, and I'm not really willing to go into details about that, but I've moved on. Two years is a long time, and in those two years I have completely had to deconstruct everything about myself, and build myself back up. I have worked SO hard, in the last two years, to become the Deandra I am right now. I love who I am now, and I will fight for who I am now.

Which means: You are not welcome in my life. Andy, you were a very unhealthy part of my past, and not really welcome in my present or future.”

I haven’t heard from him since. I hope I never do. This “relationship” fucked me up good, and it has taken me a few years to heal.

But. I am healing. I also recognize that I am drawn to people like this Andy and Scot. I am addicted to relationships like this.

I have one more story in this series. This one about my most recent attempt—the actual “relationship” that brought all of this unhealthy unavailable men series to life. Because I finally recognized this pattern, and need to do something about it.

Also, I did end up telling more about my time at that church than originally planned. But oh well. It’s just all so entwined anyway.

Unavailable Man Addict Part 2

To continue from yesterday’s post. My skill for falling for unavailable men. Like, I said the next 2 are especially hard, and the third is a, “Deandra, you should have known!” one. Thankfully, this last one hasn’t included as much emotions, time, or heartache. Not this one though. It messed me up pretty good.

Okay, so the next guy we will call Scot. Scot was/is 17 years older than me. His family started going to our church when I was maybe 4 or 5. I had had a crush on him since then. We didn’t see him very often after he left town because he had come out to his family as gay, and had faced some rejection from others because of it. He would come back and visit every once in a while though, and that crush was stiiiiiillllll there. Always. I thought he was the love of my life, and I just knew that God could reform him, and then we would get married.
First of all, I know. I know. I know. I KNOW. Trust me. I know. Just bear with me here, okay?
When I was 19 or 20, I decided to go back to my childhood church. I started taking my brother to VBX (vacation bible eXperience). Or maybe the summer reading program collaboration between the local library that my best friend’s mom ran, and the church I grew up in. It actually might have been the latter now that I’m remembering.
Anywho, I remember so vividly my surprise that Scot was back in town, and actively attending our church again. What had God done? What had happened that he was not only attending, but also involved in some ministries.
I told my mom, and we might have all had dinner with each other to hear his story.
It all came down to this: God called him home, had made him whole again (not gay), and now he was actively living out a hetero/Christian lifestyle. Like this was the best news ever to my then 19 year old evangelical self. I really believed that God could change the hearts of lgbtq persons because it was a choice. (Y’all trust me, I know).
This one is both a story of me coming back to the church, and falling in love with this dude, Scot. Now that I’m writing this, I’m actually probably going to have to do this thing in more than just a two-part series. Because there is nearly 3 years worth of stuff with this particular relationship.
Antyway, I started going back to that church again. First I was just attending, enjoying making friends with the adults that basically raised me, and the people I grew up with. I wasn’t in any ministries for a while, but I also was feeling a little left out of the cool crowd there because I wasn’t a part of that. I really didn’t know how to get in. I was kind of the legacy kid though. See my mom had been the worship leader at this particular church for 10 years...until they found out that she was pregnant with my brother, and wasn’t married to the man who had gotten her pregnant. During that time we had also just lost my grandpa to cancer. All of this happened in the same year. Her forced resignation as the worship leader, any and all other involvement in ministry, and losing her support system in the church because of what she had done (Y’all, again, I KNOW). To get back to the point, being a legacy kid, and the daughter of a bomb-ass worship leader, meant that my initiation into the crowd was inevitable. I had been attending one of the adult small groups on Wednesdays. I was the youngest participant with everyone else being the same age as my parents and grandparents. One Wednesday, our church partnered with this community health org to do a field day type of thing before church that afternoon. Scot, me, and my mom were all hanging out and doing activities together. Scot asked what I did on Wednesday nights, and then invited me to check out the youth group to see if I wanted to become a youth sponsor. I was STOKED!! Of course I did! Not only because he was there, but I never really experienced youth group as a teen because after my mom’s ousting we didn’t go to church much. We never stayed anywhere long enough to really get involved. I also had really bad social anxiety, and was terrified of my peers. I was the kind of kid/teen/young adult who loved hanging out with the actual adults. Always.
That was my entrance into this whole unrequited love story.
Scot and I began to do EVERYTHING together. We were pretty inseparable, and almost always a package deal if one of us was invited somewhere by the other people in church. He came over to our family holiday stuff. We hung out with the teens, watched movies or TV shows while talking on the phone (we really got into the Real Housewives of New Jersey), he introduced me to SO much music (some of which is till my favorite to this day: Marc Broussard and Adele. BTW, because of him, I knew about Adele before she became REALLY popular. So there’s that), went over to his house constantly, went out to dinner all the time, went for coffee, and went to lunch after church. We sat together in church all the time (yes, with all the other youths and leaders, but we almost always sat by each other). I ate all of this up, just waiting for him to take us into official relationship status. Everything was there, and I thought we were awesome together. He paid for my shit all of the time too. We talked constantly when we weren’t together. Trust me, he initiated a lot of this too. “Hey you wanna go get coffee?” “Let’s go out to eat.” “You want to meet me back at my place and watch (enter show)?”
He was also really good friends with my mom. She knew about my love for him during this whole thing. She did try to talk to me about Scot and I’s relationship, and how he just wasn’t ready for an actual dating thing.
Also I will mention that purity culture was a part of some of this shit. I followed his leadership, was waiting on him to make the decision to move us into romantic relationship territory, and that relationship would be very intentional. That is, the intention of seeing if this would lead to marriage.
(I was also on the worship team thanks to that legacy thing I mentioned above, btw. He was also on the worship team).
Scot was so gahtdamb creative--he did so much: interior design, graphic design, photography, he built fucking houses, he cooked like a pro. He was so creative, so dynamic, funny as fuck (he had that British humor), was cool AF, and was just an all around wonderful person. He still is.
He was everything I really had ever wanted in a person. But he was 17 years older than me, and he thought he was a truly “reformed” gay person. (Again, I KNOW, y’all. This was our Evangelical way of thinking).
This went on for a couple of years.
I remember this one time that he was starting to long distance date the daughter of a couple who happened to be church board members. She showed up at church one weekend, and he walked towards me with this funny look on his face, cocked his head, gave me a weird smile, and said, “Sherry (not her real name, btw) wants to meet you!” He looked like he knew I wasn’t going to like this at all. She was around his age, tall, had red hair, drawn on eyebrows, was curvy in the “right” ways, was as creative as he was, was confident, and coming my way. It was the most fucking awkward thing in the whole wide world. It was like she was sizing up the competition...which she was, really. Apparently, he had told her a lot about me because she said something along the lines of finally getting to meet me, and that Scot talked about me a lot. I remember I had asked him to save me a seat because I was going to do something, but she took my spot. He did nothing to stop it. I was so upset. I remember sitting with one of the older ladies, completely separated from him and the rest of my people (youths and youth leaders). I was trying not to fall apart during the whole service. Especially when Sherry got up to do a special music thing. As soon as the service ended, I left as fast as possible, sobbing the whole gahtdamb way home. Sobbing. I was crushed. Fortunately for me the relationship with Sherry didn’t last. I have to say I wasn’t sad. She adopted a daughter from Ethiopia, met someone else, and got married shortly after. I was relieved.
The beginning of the end was one Valentine’s Day when I posted on Facebook about unrequited love. He saw it, asked my mom what I was talking about, and a couple of days later texted me this long ass message about how he never gave me the idea that we were something more than friends. It was bullshit. All absolute bullshit. Things were pretty awkward after that, and our relationship was strained for a while. We stopped doing stuff all of the time, and he tried to do more group activities if we did. I was devastated, and I just couldn’t understand why this was happening. It was so obvious that we were kind of in this emotional and time spending relationship.
Within the year things just never returned to the way they were before, and it was hell. I started to take an interest in one of the other youth leaders who was my age, and someone I had gone to school with. I started branching out on my own out of necessity. This other guy was, again, enjoying the time and attention without actually committing to a relationship with me. That was pretty short lived, and he was conceited as FUUUUUUUCK. The whole time I was still pining away for Scot. I begged and pleaded with God to repair things.
Within that year I left that church. My best friend came back to live in Kansas, I had started attending a young adults group at another church, and started openly having a drink here and there. I was 22, and I wanted to live my mother fucking life without worrying about being condemned for my one drink at a bar. I needed the time with my peers, and it was just what I needed to move on after this fiasco with Scot. I decided to step down from the youth group and worship team to be a 22 year old, finding God with my other 20-something year old people. Doing life together with them.
Scot was still around, he was the manager at the condo place where my mom lived, came over to her house quite a bit, and lived in the apartment above the clubhouse which is where the pool happened to be too. He would come hang out when I would do late night swims, or come hang out with my brother and I when he was home during the day sometimes. Our relationship never was the same though. We even got into a couple of nasty conflicts because he was angry that I left our church. I had to do what I had to do. Our relationship was super unhealthy, I was heartbroken, and that was the only way I knew to move on. By leaving all of that behind (for the most part. I still went back to visit every so often. It was, after all, my home church. Those people were my family. We did everything together for 3 or so years. They welcomed me back “home” after being away from the church for a few years, I felt loved, I belonged, and they helped me flourish in that church while I was there).
Scot loved all of the benefits of having me around. He basically used me as the training wheels to his new life of dating relationships with women. I was more than ready, thought he was the man God had given me to marry, and was just waiting on him to move us forward. He just never would. I took up a necessary space in his life, and he took up space in mine. It took me a few years to get past this fucked up relationship. But I replaced it with another one that was probably more fucked up.

That will be part 3.

P.S. I’m probably really rambly. But I am just telling a story that I think I need to tell.

P.P.S. It’s super hard to not add too many details in this story. I’m trying to hit just the relevant to my series parts, but this brings up soooo many memories of my three years there. Sometimes I think I want to go back, but then I know I couldn’t handle most people's extremely conservative political and spiritual beliefs in that church.

P.P.P.S. Some part of me will always love Scot. He was the first person I really had a “relationship” with. Also, to clarify, he ended up dating a couple of women after this fucked up thing. Like to the point where he almost married one lady a couple of years ago. I’m not sure what happened or why it ended, but it did. I’m not sure what is going on with his lgbtq status, but he is still in our old church, and I know their stance on being lgbtq hasn’t changed. They are not affirming, and still recognize it as a sin.

 P.P.P.P.S Scot also happened to be the person bought me my first drink when I turned 21. My mom, Scot, and I went out to the pub. He bought me a cosmo martini, and a chocolate cake shot. I no longer drink Cosmos, but it was my go-to for a while.
Also, that night? Is how I got my blog name: Saltwater Ponds. I’ll tell that story too. It was funny.

Unavailable Man Addicct Part 1

This one is going to be hard for me. I won’t necessarily have answers, but I’m just documenting this realization.

So. I have this knack for liking/loving unavailable men. It’s been happening since I can remember. From one of the men I met on Bumble here in the last several months, to someone I went to school with. It’s been going on for a long time.

The first guy that I remember was, let’s call him Abram. He was sooo good-looking, was one of our star basketball players, a farm boy, and just all around what I thought I wanted. My crush on him began in 6th grade, and lasted until he moved to a rural school after our 8th grade year. He really liked the other girl in our class, they dated for a while, and then broke up. He was available our 8th grade year, and I thought I had a chance with him. He sat next to me in one of our classes that year. I was ecstatic because for the first time I felt like he actually acknowledged that I was one of his peers; a person. I just fell in love. He found out, wrote me a note that we would never be more than friends, and then told me that there was someone else in our class that liked me (there wasn’t). However, he still showed me some of the attention that I craved, and I interpreted that as interest in being more than just friends.
The second guy was another person I went to school with. Let’s call him Allen. I started crushing on him somewhere in our 9th grade year. I had been going to school with him since we were in the 6th grade. He was kind of a loner, into sports, played the sax in our school band, and read a lot. He really liked history. Around our 9th grade year, our class became really close (there were only like 8 of us). He, my other friend, and myself all began to hang out quite a bit. It was thrilling, and I grew to like him so much. Any interest he showed I interpreted as romantic interest. I thought that we were meant to be, and I prayed and prayed and prayed to God (seriously) that he was the one for me. I begged God; cried over it even. The Christmas break after we graduated (Well, I got my GED), he was home from basic training. I asked my friend to tell Allen that I liked him, and if he could see us having a future. The answer? No, we were just friends. Allen and I didn’t really talk after that. We all met up one more time a couple of years later, and that was the last time I heard from him.
The third guy, let’s call him Cole. He ran an ice cream shop. Y’all this one is really ridiculous and funny because I’m lactose intolerant AS FUUUUUUUUCK. I was 19-20 when this happened, and I was losing a shit ton of weight. Cole’s ice cream shop happened to make sugar-free fat free frozen yogurt. I was on a super restrictive diet, and would often run by the ice cream shop to hang out and eat lunch. The sugar free, fat free ice cream was only about 100 calories...that was lunch sometimes. Again, he showed me some of the attention I craved, and I interpreted it as romantic interest. This went on for a few months until I mustered up the courage to make a move, and ask him out. He rejected me, and I fell apart. I had started using him as my motivation to get “healthy” (eating 1200 calories a day, and walking obsessively each night). I’m almost certain he knew that I liked him, btw. Like how could he not. I went to see him almost every day to get my Cole/ice cream fix. When he turned me down he had said that he was taking someone else on a date...they are married and have 2 kids now.

As I get older this kind of gets worse. These three guys were unavailable, yes. But they would throw me some of the crumbs of attention I craved, but weren’t actually interested in me beyond that. For some reason that I’m going to talk to my therapist about, I have a really, really hard time just being friends with guys. I think some of it has to do with believing that you can’t just be friends with guys. It’s always supposed to lead to heartache--someone getting hurt. Some of this is indeed purity culture. The other part? I don’t know. It’s some sort of fucked up thing. Anybody have some insight?
I am actually going to do this one in four parts because the next three are really difficult for me to get into. There’s still some pain associated with those former relationships that I will write about, and it’s really, really evident that I was the friend with emotional and presence benefits. Completely. Not physically though.

So part 1. Eh.

The Story of my First Date

I don’t have much dating experience, and what I do have has been, well, interesting. I didn’t go on my first date until I was 20. Originally, I wasn’t allowed to date until I was 16 or 17, but were there any suitors lining up to take me out? No. Not at all. My mom made up these rules based on the purity culture bullshit we had been exposed to. She was also trying to shield me, and protect me, from the things she went through. She used to say because of her history, and my dad’s history, she wanted to make sure that I wasn’t going to repeat that because it would be my tendency. Generational type of curse/Satan trying to lead me down that same path/learned behavior stuff. I was a-okay with all of that. Also, she had to meet, and approve, the guys that I would be going on dates with first. Like they couldn’t take me out on the actual date until she met them, and approved. (I said it twice so let that sink in). Again, purity culture.

Remember the days of the “Hot or Not” dating type apps on Facebook and MySpace? The original click "yes or no" before Tinder and all of them’s swiping right or left? Yeah. Ah, a moment of Nostalgia. *Le sigh* Antyway, so I matched with this dude, let’s call him Brad. He was a ginger, had long hair (like a rocker), was tall-ish, built like a non-quarterback football player, was older than me (maybe 26 at the time?), and was interested. I was like, “Hell yeah, man!” We talked for a few weeks, and then finally set up a date. He lived about an hour north, and was actually going to come down to Topeka, pick me up, and take me on my first date ever! I was so fucking excited!
I didn’t tell my mom that I was doing this thing because I knew there was a good chance that she would say no, and make me end things with him. One of the other stipulations when dating me was that the dude HAD to be a Christian. There was no getting around that, and he loosely defined himself as one at the time. Not actively going to church though. Which I knew would be a problem. He had told me he had been ordained online so he could officiate a wedding for his friends. That was enough for me, but I KNEW it wouldn’t be enough for my mom. She would see it as being unequally yoked. Again, not letting this relationship happen.
However, I knew that I needed to tell her eventually. So. Let me tell you this: I didn’t tell her until the day of, an hour before he was supposed to show up. She freaked the fuck out. She did not give me permission to do this, and she made me call him and tell him not to come. He was already on the way, but thankfully hadn’t gotten too far down the highway. I was so embarrassed, and pretty devastated. I was sure Brad was never going to speak to me again because my mom was way too overprotective. I was 20!
I asked my mom if I could please go on a date with him, she agreed (she still had to meet him and all), and he agreed to the terms. I was shocked, honestly. He agreed to that?! I thought he must be something else. I was enamored. Like surely, if he was willing to jump through these hoops, he MUST be the one right?! We set the date up for the following weekend.
The day came. I was so nervous and excited! My first date, yo! It was a milestone that would finally be reached. I was joining the ranks of my peers. Or something. Like I might have finally met my first boyfriend. At 20. He drove his Mitsubishi Eclipse down at my request because of the Fast and the Furious franchise, I thought he had a bomb-ass car, and I wanted to ride in that bomb-ass light blue Eclipse. We would look fly as fuck. (Oh, 20 year old Deandra)
He finally arrived, came up knocked on the door, and was met by my brother and his plastic rifle like gun. Yes. You read that right. My brother was sizing him up, and asking him all kinds of questions. My brother was 9. I got Brad in the door to so he could meet my mom. My mom was not really that impressed. She asked his intentions, and told him she was going with us to dinner. Y’all. Y’all. Is this not over the top?! I was 20. 20 years old!
She did let me ride with him to the pizza place. Bless her. So generous. We got there, got seated, and ordered drinks and appetizers. She and my brother grilled this poor dude, but Brad was quite the trooper though. I distinctly remember her asking him about his being a “pastor.” He told her about the online ordination. Y’all my mom was picking this poor dude apart! She challenged him on it, and then let the subject drop after getting the information that she needed. I could tell that she didn’t really approve. I was afraid she wasn’t going to let me go on the second part of the date with him. However, to my surprise, she decided to let us go get ice cream and see a movie by ourselves. Without her and my brother. How generous, eh? I still can’t believe he didn’t make an exit earlier. We finished the dinner, got the check, and my mom swiped it up. See, Brad was going to pay for me. But my mom insisted on picking up the tab for everyone. He was embarrassed.
Brad and I got out of there as quickly as possible, and went on to cruise around and get ice cream at the now closed Maggie Moos (I loved their peanut butter ice cream). We had some good conversation, and the appropriate amount of flirting happened. I think Brad and I were there for nearly an hour just getting to know each other. He may have mentioned something about my mom, and I may have apologized. I can’t really remember now.
Side note: I’m totally lactose intolerant. I had pizza AND ice cream that night. I’m not sure how I made it through that date without problems.
OH! I totally forgot to mention that I had a curfew. I think it might have been maybe 1 am?

The movie was alright. Get Smart. It wasn’t really my thing, but I was on my date with Brad so I pretended to like it more than I did.
We left the movie, cruised around for a bit, and talked some more (I still thought his car was pretty cool, btw. I wanted him to go fast!). It was getting closer and closer to my curfew so we started to head back. On the way back, and I distinctly remember this, he played “The Humpty Dance” by Digital Underground. I was like, um, obviously my mom had made it clear that nothing beyond hugging was supposed to happen. I was too afraid to do anything anyway so this made me a bit uncomfortable because there was no way to sneak a boy in my home. None. The only other option would be to park somewhere. I was not okay with that either.
Brad pulled into the driveway, walked me up to the door, and gave me a hug goodbye.
I walked in the door fully expecting my mom to still be up and waiting (again, y’all, I was a fucking adult). She wasn’t. She was sound asleep. My grandma was still awake, asked me how everything was, and I sat down to talk to her about it for a while.

I am incredibly surprised Brad didn’t just hightail it back up north when he met my mom, and heard all of her terms and rules. Like how?

However, that was the first and last time I saw him. See, he had apparently been talking to a woman from Canada, closer in age, and without an overprotective, purity culture mom. The lady came down from Canada to live with him after only talking for MAYBE a month or so. They got pregnant, and just before she had the baby, she moved back up to Canada. To this day I don’t know if Brad has really ever spent time with his son. I know the relationship didn’t end well for them which is why she left in the first place.

A few years later, while sitting at my mom’s dining room table doing homework, Brad messaged me. It was completely out of the blue. I had since moved on, and was totally in luuuuuuurve with someone else. We exchanged “how you doin’s” and some small talk. Then came the thing I will never ever forget: Brad said something like, "At least he still would have been able to see the baby if he and I would’ve had one." That was the end. I told him that would have never happened in the first place. Unfriended him. Moved on.

I guess what I’m trying to get at here is this: this is where I’m coming from as I am stepping out into the dating world. Purity culture is a bitch. My mom was too overprotective. We believed all of this bullshit, and it has really done some damage (not irreparable. Counseling is helping) to the way I approach romantic relationships. I’m outchea navigating this romantic relationship world like a fucking teenager. But with a fully developed brain. I mean if you think about it, this is what leaving evangelical Christianity does: you are thrown into a whole new world that you’ve only heard bad, evil things about. Being an exvie means discovering things for the first time. Really living for the first time. Seeing the world for the first time. Experiencing things your peers experienced a long time ago. Though I also think this gives us some sort of appreciation for new experiences that others might take for granted.

So, yeah, this really happened.


Mom, I love you. This is more about how purity culture influenced your thinking and mine. How toxic it was to both of us, really. I mean this was over the top though.

On Ghosting

One of the hardest things about throwing yourself out into the dating world is knowing you will be ghosted on. It’s not a matter of if, but when. It hurts like hell, yo.
The definition of ghosting: “the practice of ending a personal relationship with someone by suddenly, and without explanation, withdrawing from all communication.”
I have been ghosted on several times. These were conversations with people that I had connected with, been messaging for a little bit, and had, most of the time, moved from the dating app to texting. I had invested some emotions and time into the beginning of what I thought was a potential relationship. I was genuinely interested in their lives, them, and getting to know them.
The first one, we’ll call him Carl (because I can’t actually remember his name, y’all). After matching, and rereading his bio, I decided to go ahead and start communicating with him. I thought we had a lot in common, and this could potentially be a decent relationship. I was more than willing to explore that. After all, that is the whole point of this dating adventure. So we messaged, things were going great, and then moved over to texting. He was an avid reader, was engaged in some politics, and seemed like an all around nice guy. We talked about meeting up. We talked about the results of the Alabama election. One night, after discussing some books, he asked if I had anymore pictures. I was a bit wary then because this almost always meant that things were going to start to get sexual. I didn’t want to go there yet, and I thought it was too soon to start steering the conversation in that direction. I wanted to connect more intellectually and emotionally first. I wrote back, basically asking him what he was looking for because his request almost always meant that this was going to get sexual, and that I was not looking to go there yet. I never got a response, and never heard from him again. Since we were still matched on the app, I saw that he had updated his profile a few times after he ended communication. I unmatched us and moved on.
That left me questioning what I had done wrong. The answer though? Nothing. I did nothing wrong. It was fair of me to ask him what he was looking for in a relationship so that we knew whether or not we were on the same page, and were going to move forward. Thankfully, I hadn’t invested too much time and emotion into this one. The next one, however, is another story.
A couple-few months later I matched with this other dude; we’ll call him Jameson. We really, really hit it off. We were messaging back and forth quite a bit. I was really into him, and it seemed like he was really into me. He seemed sweet, was thoughtful, and caring. We talked about anything and everything. He was looking for an actual relationship. I thought we were on the same page. We talked for a couple of weeks, I think anyway. It was a little while. Long enough that I asked if he minded that I was fat and black. I just wanted to be honest with him about who I was, and him to know what he was getting into. No surprises. (Also, he had mentioned that his family were rednecks. I’ve had enough experience to know that not all the families like his are okay with “mixing”. Like trust me on this. I know. I’ve had friends tell me that their parents would kill them if they were ever to be in a relationship with a black person. They would prefer same race, but being “yoked” with a black person was the worst sin. Something that would get you cut off from the family...trust me. I know.)
Antyway, he asked me if I cared if he was in a wheelchair. I did a schpiel that amounted to no, I didn’t care. We moved forward, and eventually started getting closer and closer to sexting. I was a little resistant because I just haven’t wanted to get to that place that quickly, but, again, I felt like we had a really great connection (p.s. if you don’t think you can connect with someone on the net or over texting, I will fight you. Come at me). I had been teasing him a little bit though because, guess what, Deandra M. Carter is a fucking tease and a flirt. She’s fun and  mischievous to the core. Unexpectedly so sometimes. So I was thinking I had punished this dude enough, and I genuinely wanted to sext with him. We did, it was great, and we said goodnight. The next day? Nothing. Then next couple of days? Nothing. I tried to just say, “Hey, Jameson, how’s it going?” I waited a week, sent another how you doing message, and still didn’t get a response. I waited a little longer, and finally said, “Jameson, I don’t know what’s going on. Have you ghosted on me? Really?” Did I get a gahtdamb response then? Nope! So that happened.
There have been a few more conversations with guys that have moved over to texting, and then they just dropped off. I’ve tried to make plans with a couple more guys, but they just haven’t been too keen on doing the things I’ve suggested. Nor have they countered with a different activity. I wasn’t as invested in those.
Although, there is this guy that I keep matching with. To the point where I’m like, “Heeeeey, (enter name). It’s about time we just met up dontcha think?” He agrees, and then never makes plans. It’s kind of comical. It's annoying AF too. Like, make up your gahtdamb mind. He is now what would be called an “orbiter” on my Facebook. I have another orbiter over on the Gram.
The most recent one? Liiiiiiitle more painful. So I’ve written previously about having sex with a guy this last weekend right? Well, I thought we hit it off (I mean I did have sex with him). I was genuinely interested in him, and I thought this might seem like a promising relationship. He told me to text him when I got home to let him know I made it. I did just that, and said, “I hope you don’t think less of me because I went back on my no sex on the first meetup rule. I knew it was over when you started touching my leg.” I didn’t get a response. I think I shot him a message yesterday? Nothing. Then today I finally said that ghosting pisses me off to no end, and to have the decency and respect to tell me this isn’t going to work out. I can handle that! But I do not handle ghosting well. So far? NADA.
Do I regret getting it on with him? Not at all. I can’t. It was a great experience, and I’m glad I had that experience and momentary connection. Finally. However, I am pissed that he chose to do this ghosting bullshit. It’s unfortunate. But I know that it’s not on me. This is on him. He chose to do that, and for his own reasons. I refuse to pick it up, and wonder if I did something wrong. I refuse to go back, and pick apart every single thing I said or move I made (or didn’t make). I refuse to question my self-worth over this, and I’m moving on.

Now it’s time for my ghosting story. See, I ghosted on someone. I realized that it wasn’t going to go anywhere; he was allergic to cats, and a couple of other things let me know we just weren’t going to be compatible. I realized this, and instead of being honest, I chose to ghost. However, not long after that, Jameson ghosted on me. I realized just how shitty it is to do that to someone, and I went back and apologized to this dude. No excuses. I did it, and I was sorry. He didn’t deserve that at all.
None of us do. It’s just disrespectful and rude. It’s selfish. Sure, it’s easy on the person doing the ghosting, but not the person being ghosted on. It kind of messes us up a bit, and if the relationship is serious enough, it is traumatizing. For me it makes me incredibly anxious to know that this is a possibility. It does make me feel a bit insecure, which triggers my insecure attachment style. I feel like I need reassurance that this is not going to happen (which I actually don’t think is a bad thing as Jes Baker says in her book “Landwhale” about partner validation, “I used to feel guilty about needing partner validation, until I realized that I’ve always allowed my friends and family to assist in countering my bullshit beliefs...” this made sense to me). I realize that this can go too far, and get into unhealthy territory. But I also think a check-in here and there to see how everything is going, and what the partner is thinking and feeling is a really, really good idea.
I came across a tweet earlier that sums this ghosting thing up pretty well, @ryrapp22 said, “When did ghosting someone become normal and acceptable? Cause it’s pretty messed up leaving someone who cares about you out to dry, without explanation.”
Thank you, Ryan. This is so true.



P.S. A little humor here: I am a notorious Irish Goodbye-er. I will clarify that this is not ghosting. I just don’t always say goodbye to people when I leave events. Usually family events. I’m going to see them again, and I’m probably going to interact with a lot of them on facebook. I have a big-ass family, and they know I love them and they love me. I saw them, and now I’m leaving. They are my family or friends. Again, this is not the ghosting I am talking about. I don’t even think it fits the definition, really. I will not stop doing Irish Goodbyes.



But.
I will never ghost another person again.
I will also call that bullshit out from now on.

The Time I Tried to Work at an Adult Boutique

Now that I’ve told the story of the boy in my bed, it’s time for the story about the time I tried to get a job at an adult “boutique”. Boutique makes it seem so like upscale and bougie. It was not. But I’ll get to that in a moment.
After the boy stayed over, later that week I was browsing for a part-time job. I was feeling totally badass. I came across a listing for an adult store here in town looking for a part-time worker. Let me take a moment to say that I am restless, really impulsive, and bored AF right now. Messing with catfishers was just not doing it for me anymore. I have a tendency to get a little reckless, and make bad decisions when I am like this. But I digress. I thought since I had a boy stay over I could do just about damn-near everything. Hell, I could handle working at a mother fucking adult store, yo! No big deal. I’m all about sex-positivity, ending the shame, and education. I thought this was like my calling! It was meant to be, especially that week.
I told my coworkers, asked my friends if I could use them as a reference, and got down to applying. I was so tickled! The application was really easy, and the final step was to go visit the store. After I got off work, I zipped down the Boulevard to see the shop. It’s on the very southern edge of town, and kind of isolated (red flag 1?). I pulled up, took in my surroundings as I got out of my car, and confidently waltzed into the store. I walked up to the counter, told the guy I was there to apply for the job, and was met with some confusion. Though the ad was on the internet, he didn’t think they were hiring, but had me fill out an application anyway. I asked what it was like working at the store; a typical day. He laughed that laugh when you find something funny, but in a dark way. I would say it’s like a sardonic laugh? Is that the right word for it? Antyway, it was one of those “I have zero faith in humanity, and I’ve seen it all” laughs. He said you basically had to think humans were trash to work there (not exact words, but how I interpreted it). Also that I would see it all because people are weird and have all kinds of different weird kinks. I put on my hell yeah, let’s do this, I can handle this attitude. Because, y’all, I had a boy sleep in my bed! I have superpowers now!
The dude working there mentioned an “arcade” in the back where people can go watch movies. I dismissed it at the time, enamored with the whimsical idea of being a beacon of sex positivity and education. While also conducting my own little case study to better understand humans in that kind of setting. I thought it was going to be really interesting.
I was called a couple of days later, and told that I got the job! I drove back down the Boulevard, all excited and shit (I should also briefly mention, and I’ll write about this sometime in the near future, but I was coming from church. Like I went straight to the adult store from an evangelical church service. I thought it was a bit ironic). There were a few cars in the parking lot, but when I went inside there wasn’t a soul in the front of the store. I smelled weed too. The manager came out, and I introduced myself. I filled out my paperwork, and started talking to him about the job. It all came down to this: I needed to understand that they had people come in, go to private rooms, and watch movies. I was going to get propositioned simply because I worked there. I was to politely turn them down. I was going to get sexually harassed. I asked about their policy, and was told the most I could do was tell them that they couldn’t be back in the store that day. There really wasn’t a Zero Tolerance policy. Because who would expect that at an adult store right? He told me I’d see all kinds of people looking for all kinds of things for their particular kinks and weirdness. Which whatever. I thought I could handle the kink part. Like I wouldn’t necessarily be shocked. I was told I needed to have tough skin, because of the guaranteed harassment. Other people had quit because they couldn’t handle it...as if that was a bad thing. He then told me that I was most likely going to work the graveyard shift (until 1), and most nights I would be there by myself. I was hesitant about that part, but was still thinking I could do this. After all, I am a bad ass. A boy slept in my bed, and I could do anything. We agreed on a time for me to start training.

My mom called just as I was pulling out of the parking lot. I excitedly, and defiantly, told her what I had just done. That, uh, did not go over well. She freaked out, and I made her cry. She told me I didn’t have to do something this extreme to prove whatever I was trying to prove. Then told me that this was going against everything I believed in. I was trying to stand my ground, and had told already told other people that I had gotten the job. I didn’t want to go back on my word here. My friends were pretty supportive of it. I understood why my mom wouldn’t be, but that was my mom. She and I don’t agree on everything, and she was triggered. I went home to think about what she had said, still planning on at least showing up the next day to try the job out.
I called and texted a few other people, talked it through with a friend, and decided not to take the job after all. My mom and friends gave me some perspective: it was not going to be safe. Especially working there alone until 1 am. I was going to place myself in an unsafe situation where I had zero protection or recourse when someone went too far with their words or actions.
I really didn’t need to do that, or expose myself to that just to prove a point that I could now handle anything. Because the truth is, I can’t. I can’t handle constant sexual harassment. I have spent so much time and energy getting well, and that would kind of defeat the purpose.
I really had to step back, and evaluate what I was doing and why I was doing it. Here’s what I have come up with, and I don’t like admitting it at all. Feelings, fear of the feelings, and fear of rejection.
I’m also trying to redirect all of this anxious energy I have. I’m sexually frustrated, and frustrated that life has been really shitty as to deny me the pleasure of getting it on with the person I really want to get it on with. I mean life has been REALLY shitty to him lately. When I cannot have what I want, I do everything else that I think will make it better. But it doesn’t. It makes it worse. It’s really self-destructive. I have got to figure out a way to channel this energy and frustration. To ground myself again.
That’s what I’m going to work on this week. Slowing my ass down, and grounding. Which is funny because I drew the Four of Swords last night in the future position. Wow. This all just came full circle, yo. Gahtdamb Universe.

There Was A Boy In My Bed

I said I was going to write more often, no matter how I felt about it. So here I am again. I’m writing.
Is it appropriate to talk about sex in blogging? Not necessarily explicit details, but just the experience itself? Because I think I’m going to.

Um, a few weeks ago the one guy I’ve befriended from Bumble FINALLY came over to my house! I was ecstatic, and so nervous at the same time. I really kind of like this guy. Like he’s a really super cool person, and someone I want to know for a long time.

Some friends are closer than others, he says.

Texts had been getting a bit more suggestive and risqué. I knew that something was going to happen, and soon.

The whole time as I’ve been getting to know this particular guy, I have been battling the purity culture ingrained in me. I am inexperienced. I can connect emotionally in a heartbeat. I am really good at developing and maintaining the emotional side of a relationship with someone. The physical side? Mmmmmmm...not so much. I have no idea what I’m doing (until now, but we’ll get to that in a bit). I have been constantly overthinking every single movement beyond a hug. I have been incredibly guarded because I had convinced myself that I didn’t know how to cuddle, or give bottom pats, or anything else.
I have also been deathly afraid of touching someone, and being rejected. I have spent a fair amount of time over the last few years of my life avoiding rejection. Because that shit hurts, yo. A whole fucking lot
So I’ve been really hesitant to touch this guy because I don’t want to be rejected by him. At all. Quite the opposite. Even though I have wanted to touch him soooo many gahtdamb times. I also didn’t know what his boundaries were (I think I know now). Oh, sure, there are times I KNEW he wanted to snuggle/cuddle. Bottom pats. But I was too afraid to do anything because of that gahtdamb rejection fear. Also, purity culture.
Purity culture told me it was not really okay to touch. Touch leads to intimacy, arousal, making out, and eventually sex. Touch was really something you saved until you were married. For. Serious. This was my plan, up until around 4 or 5 years ago. But before several months ago, there hadn’t really been anyone on my radar. Then enters dude.
Antyway, to get back to the night that he came over. As we have gotten to know each other more, I have been taking toddler steps to push past my touch issues. It has been like my own form of exposure therapy. (I sometimes wonder if he can see how hard I am thinking about things sometimes before I say something or do something. I know he notices the hesitancy. But he hasn’t been pushy, and I really appreciate that. I should probably talk about this with him at some point, right?) We vegged out on the floor, watching movies, dude fell asleep, and I kept drinking my White Russians while leaning against him while he slept. I kind of knew he was going to stay the night. We didn’t explicitly talk about it, but it was kind of an understanding. He moved from the floor to the couch. We talked for a bit. I did a few test touches like leaning my head back on his leg, touching him here and there while we talked. Then as he was getting sleepy I asked if he was going to sleep on the couch (loveseat, really). Him: I dunno. Me: Ugh! That’s dumb. I have a bed. Him: I’ve slept on a love seat before (enter the amount of time because I forgot). Me: Go get in my bed. Him: (Goes in and flops down on the bed). My bed with pink sheets!
I did my nightly shutting down of the house, and then crawled into bed beside him. I was the big spoon off and on all night! It was nice. Um, a thing did happen, but not an all the way thing. Just a thing, and I’ll leave it at that. Again, it was nice.
I completely pushed past most of the barriers that were set up by purity culture and fear. Most. Not all (yet. We’re getting to that). I. Fucking. Loved. Sleeping. Next. To. Someone. Never in a millions YEARS did I think I would enjoy that so much. But I did.
What also surprised me was that I was really okay. I didn’t feel very self-conscious like society told me I (a fat person) should feel about my body. I was in a tank top and nearly sheer shorts! I have flabby arms. I just did not care. I was so comfortable with myself, and with the dude. It shocked the hell out of me. Like shouldn’t I have felt guilty and ashamed? Because I was with someone I’m not married to. Because I liked it. Because I’m fat. Because of a whole host of other things? No. I shouldn’t be.
That dude staying the night was like the wrecking ball busting down nearly the rest of purity culture’s walls. I didn’t think it would be all of them...but little did I know that it probably was all of them. Ever since that night I have been one THIRSTY bitch. Like THIRSTY. It was like one dude being in my bed unleashed a dragon. Or what’s a better analogy for that. I like the dragon image though. So whatever.
Fast forward to this week/weekend. I’ve been on cloud nine all week. On a whim, I decided to rent me a car, and take my ass, solo, up to Omaha. It was awesome. That was Saturday. On Sunday I started talking to this other guy. It got hot pretty quickly, and I decided to keep my rental for one more day so I could possibly go on a date with him because I just really wanted to meet him. I didn’t hear back until I had already been to the aquarium, and then Trader Joe’s. I always have to stop at TJ’s. So as I’m getting into my bomb-ass little Ford Fiesta hatchback rental, I see that I missed a call from this person. I called him back, and agreed to go over to his house. Something I never do. But I was like fuck it. I’m living life, man.
So I go over, probably against my better judgement, but boy got me feeling some sort of way earlier in the day. I did try to honor my rule, but it was all over as soon as he pulled my legs into his lap, and rubbed my leg from my knee to my foot. (Woo!). I knew it too. He thought I was sexy. I was into the making out and cuddling. (Y’all, I mother fucking kissed for the first time, and I cuddled). Yes, that was my first makeout session. It wasn’t bad at all. I was a little awkward, but I was just going with it. We made it to his bed. We weren’t originally going to go all the way, but I couldn’t wait. We had sex. It was like an out of body experience, but I was also fully fucking present. I was soooooo okay with what was going on, and I enjoyed the fuck out of it. Immensely. So much so, I went stupid for like half an hour afterwards, and was basically high on what just happened. WOW, y’all. Writing this down...I still can’t believe it. I’m so proud of myself.

See, but it all started with the boy in my bed a few weeks ago. I knew that this barrier had broken down, and I couldn’t wait to try going all the way. It was successful, and I am so happy. As I was doing the thing with the boy on Sunday, I was saying goodbye to the last tendrils of purity culture and shame that were still attached to me. No. More. It’s not welcome any longer.
In fact, while browsing through Twitter earlier, I saw a purity culture analogy post talking about people (most likely women) being like an orange with all the juice squeezed out. It’s like useless afterwards. Basically garbage. I went off. I told that person Fuck that bullshit, and the shame.
I feel no shame, and I feel no guilt. Why do I keep talking about that? Because that’s what this was supposed to feel like according to everything I was taught. It’s just not there.
I now know what I want, how to ask for it, how to make a move, how to give affection, and receive affection. I’m okay with it. Like I needed this. Even if I don’t see Sunday’s guy again, it was a great experience, and one I won’t forget.

I’m okay, y’all. I did IT!

Oh yeah, this was kind of my first time having sex...I guess that would have been worth mentioning. But not in the hymen-intact technical sense. Hell, I’ve been masturbating for years. I have a few buzzy things. So there’s that.

Antyway, so this has been another adventure in dating post purity culture, post shame, post guilt, and fully embracing myself. I’m not as afraid of rejection either. I am figuring out that not even trying to touch someone, or get intimate with them, is not good for me anymore. It means I’m basically rejecting myself out of my fear of rejection from someone else. But I’m doing the damage.

That’s the thing though. Sometimes we just need to get out of our own gahtdamb way, and live our fucking lives. Be who we want to be, and are supposed to be. Embrace ourselves. This is what I’m trying to do.
Thank you, boy who was in my bed. You don’t necessarily know what you have done, but that’s okay. You might get to experience the result though. Hopefully.