Lesbian Dating: Rebound

Once a very long time ago, I broke up with a woman. It’s hard to tell (even in retrospect) what was worse, the 8 month relationship in which we merged way too fast and crashed and burned shortly after or the hideousness of the breakup. I discovered my dark side that time. Desperate for fun I went out and found some. Of course, I failed to see the signs and allowed what really, really should have been just a rebound, become a dating thing… Which lasted… 10 months?! And then crashed and burned hideously.

Sadly, that is not the only time in my history I wasn’t paying attention and I tried to make a rebound into something more. I assume my reasons for that are loneliness and guilt over the thought of using someone as I get better. Earlier I was rereading older posts and I came across Like Voldemort and to me that guilt is more than just of using someone, but of also about losing a piece of myself before I’m even more healed from my last heartbreak. I want the be ready and open for when the real thing comes along.

Because it’s that real thing that I actually want, what I can’t stop thinking about.

But I am completely aware that I am damaged goods. Even now as I get hit on and try not to think about my crush, the idea of a relationship again, of trusting someone again, of being vulnerable with someone after that was a mocked thing before. It’s terrifying. I know I’m not ready, but I want to be.

And here I am again, faced with the debate of to rebound or not to rebound so I can heal properly. Am I risking fucking up true love because I didn’t clear my head and go crazy for a while? All of my friends seem to think so.

So my question is, is the whole concept of a rebound absolute bullshit used to justify being crazy after a breakup, or is it a real thing? Do we need simple attention to clear our heads and the marks the previous person left upon us? Should we just grow up and take time to focus on ourselves? Maybe taking our time would eliminate the need for a rebound? Or maybe we just deserve to feel good for a little while as a celebration of the next step of life.

Lesbian Dating: My First Crush

Having been single a few months now I realized I am experiencing something I haven’t felt in a VERY long time: my first crush. 

After being so very unhappy lately this is kind of amazing! I feel like I’m high, all the time! 

Ok I am also completely realistic, it’s not going to happen in real life, she doesn’t think of me like that, I have no expectations that something will come out it. That said…. damn!

I can’t think of anything else. How the hell did I ever get anything done in middle school?! I hear from her and it makes my whole week. My buddies make fun of me for the stupid smile on my face when I talk to her and can tell when I’m agonizing over the right reply. 

When I don’t talk to her I worry incessantly that I’ve said something too flirty and she’ll stop talking to me. I feel like such a raving idiot. The dreams, (though no more than pg-13 rated) are pretty nice too, a welcome break from the usual nightmares.

It’s an amazing bittersweet feeling. I can’t remember the last time I had just a regular, uncomplicated, crush on a beautiful woman and could sit and smile knowing my battered heart is at least in a safe place as it heals. 

My friends all encourage me to ask her out but that sends me into a panic, I have been so many years away from dating, I wouldn’t know what to say or do so that tells me I have a long way to go before I’m ready to even think seriously about it, but it’s nice of them to think I even have a shot. Besides, she deserves way better than this appealing mess that makes up me!

One of Those Days

You know it’s going to be one of those days when you click on a movie file a buddy gives you (under the folder Pitch Perfect 2) only to discover…. And now I’m watching porn!

Things I can’t unsee!

Surviving the Day

It still aches. There are bags under my eyes where there weren’t before. Sleep is still elusive. I still want to cry when I think about it.

We as a country lost.

Most of the way through my day I decided to go on a run. It was too much time alone and I ended up crying into my run. Thankfully there was no one to see me. (I also cut a minute off my time so that’s a military silver lining, running angry)

The only person on post to understand how I felt was the hickest hick, a republican buddy I made who I’ve had to keep from fighting with this whole times. His side won but he still came to talk about it. Still does actually. No one else here seemed to understand.

Even if I can hope for the best, his election has somehow given universal permission for the monsters to come out. Daily I read about people threatening to grab women, racism being shrieked on busses, LGBT people being threatened.

Somehow in the midst of my devastation, words came to me:

It’s up to the individual now. That person in the checkout line who is randomly kind. The children to stop their parents racist comments. The best friend to not remain silent at the homophobic jokes. It’s up to us to not give up. To tell our outraged children that they can do better, that they can fix this, that they will.

Thankfully the people of the world have taken this one step further with the Safety Pin Solidarity movement.

http://www.vox.com/presidential-election/2016/11/10/13586322/trump-brexit-safety-pin

I need to go looking through my army issue sewing kit.

This will be time for heroes to rise up, better than tights and capes and physical strength, the time for people who will stand. I stand with you America, will you stand with me?

Overheard

“Damn I’ve gotta stop that.” Marine officer said to another. “I promised my daughters I would work on it.”

My ears perked up as the only non-smoker enjoying the sunlight in the smoke pit.

“45…46 years, my whole life of gay bashing and I’m working on it.”
My heart aches for all the people has bashed.

His daughters are today’s hero.

I Can’t Even Cry

I feel betrayed by my parents generation, by my sex, my heritage, my community, my generation, and my country.

But I can’t cry

I’m a deployed soldier sitting in the dfac watching my worst nightmare happen and I can’t cry.

They’re celebrating all around me, talking about family memebers they swayed to their side.

One even said he couldn’t believe “a gun loving state like Pa could be so liberal” 

As if that was all that mattered.

I can’t get drunk and embrace my loved ones.

I can’t get angry and throw things or correct all the wrong stupid things being said around me. I can’t start a fight. I can’t leave. I can’t take a sick day and stay in bed. 

I’m a soldier.

And I can’t cry.

I can’t let them see what this means to me, how as a Hispanic, lesbian, female I am terrified for what bigotry will be directed at my minorities, what will be allowed to happen if the kkk’s candidate wins. If Russia’s candidate wins. If Pence wins.

I can’t breath

What have we done?

This is Us

A Good Day

In an attempt to have civil family time (and to get the TV off for a few minutes) I announced that we could all play the card game 31 after breakfast. As expected it was chaos and shouting, wonderful for my early morning headache, but at least the kids were attempting to hold their attitudes in. About halfway through the 4th hand, my eldest became obsessed with her phone, exclaiming that the President Tweeted something that was lighting up the internet. Realizing that the Supreme Court decision about marriage equality was today, my girlfriend and I let onto our phones to figure out what had happened.

Marriage Equality, I knew it was happening, I just didn’t realize it would happen today!

We read the articles out loud to the kids. Our eldest began waving her rainbow colored pencils in the air and our youngest (in very unsubtle terms) hinted we should/could get married.

The battle for equality has a few more hurtles ahead of it, big hairy ones, but at least in this house, we’ve done something right and we are celebrating today!

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/26/supreme-court-gay-marriage_n_7470036.html

Photo By Evelina West

Gay in 2015

It was the last day of elementary for my younger two kids, graduating 3rd and 5th grade respectively. Thanks to my military commitments, I had missed every last day of school ever since me and their mother had started dating. It was the perfect day, not too hot, not too cold, no rain yet. We were so excited we even left the house early to meet other parents and grandparents in a coffee shop so we could all walk over together. We even went inside the coffee house knowing her ex was in there, a traditionally awkward meeting. 

But none of that mattered and we walked over with all the other parents just in time. As 5th grade is the last year of elementary here, they have a special tradition of the entire school clapping the graduates out to their waiting parents. 

Caught up in the mood of the assembled I grabbed my girlfriends hand, knowing that her middle baby’s last day of elementary was going to be a bit emotional and walked with her toward the door the kids would be exiting out of. 

That’s when it happened, another mother saw us hand in hand and the smile I had been admiring on her face second before, popped, to be replaced by a hideous scowl. Used to this from 10years ago, I smiled brighter and kinder at her and walked past. I could feel her eyes following us as we walked away.

It is 2015, we are not the only gay parents in the area but just the sight of us holding hands destroyed someone else’s joy. I can’t comprehend that! We weren’t being lewd  or even flirty, just a sad flavored happy as we took our parental position, cameras at the ready.

Sigh… I hope with all that I am, that this next generation can get this loving equally thing right!

Maybe I should have said “Grownup”

Admit it, when you read Adult you were hoping for something sexy. Maybe I will post a sexy thought here and there but “Adult Flavored” is meant more to describe my bewilderment with all the roles and hats I have to wear as a grown up, while still feeling like a 32year old kid faking every second of my day. I am a girlfriend to a beautiful, passionate woman. A stepparent to her 3 brilliant children. A soldier in the Army National Guard. A full time student recently enrolled in a real college, the thought of which makes me lose my mind when compared to the ghetto-fabulous education I have receive up till now. An introvert who has spent a lifetime dealing with depression and anxiety. A homosexual who has had a fun bit of discrimination. A writer who can’t seem to find the right artist to help me make my stories come to life.

And if all that isn’t enough, I recently found out I need surgery. Not the easy, better in a week kind either. More: the drugs we give you before that have side effects to rival what it causes to happen chemically to your body and all that comes before the 3 months minimum needed of recovery time. Do I seem like the kind of person who likes to keep still?!

This blog is my safe place, my brain dump, the place I can tell you the insane thing my kids did, where I can share food things I invented, in the absence of friends (who has time) and in the abundance of words to share, to chronicle my phobia of doctors and surgery, and just to be me as I shift under the weight of playing adult.

Enjoy the ride!