Well, what do you expect?

Well folks, we did it.  X & I got hitched on Halloween in a wonderful ceremony officiated by three of our best friends. We were surrounded by people we love dressed in a multitude of Awesome costumes.  We had SO MUCH FUN! It was the perfect wedding IMHO.

Three days into our married Life together, the inevitable happened. I made a comment on Twitter about not feeling well and before I knew it we were balls deep in ribbing & teasing about being pregnant. On any normal day I could have taken that in stride, but that was not a normal day. At that point, I had been feeling queasy, head-achey, irritable, and emotionally raw for about a week. Hormonal, maybe. Emotional backlash from getting married a third time, potentially. Who knows for sure, but the ribbing continued and by 6:30 in the evening I’d had enough and had a bit of a breakdown. So I did what any unstable Woman would have done in my shoes, I went upstairs and took a shower.

While showering I pondered what it was about the playful teasing from the people closest to me that set me off.  I realized that for the better part of the last 9 years of my Life I have spent a lot of time and energy on wanting another baby. Sometimes very desperately, so that I became depressed over it off and on for years.  I know that my first husband would have given me another baby, had I stayed with him. I know that my second husband would have never agreed to it. He never wanted kids. In the beginning of my relationship with J & K, K promised me a baby. “You are going to have my son.” he said, and OH MY GODS my heart ached in my chest at the words. I clung to that promise like a life raft through the uncertainty, fear and heartache the three of us went through together trying to make that relationship work. But J wanted another baby. More desperately than I did it seemed some times… at least she was more vocal about it. Part of me has always believed she needed it to prove that she could. Part of me believes it was her way of establishing something with K that I would never have, whether it was a conscious effort or not will never be known.  Regardless of the motivation behind it, we supported her and worked towards making it happen, and it did. She had his son. She bore the baby that was supposed to have been mine. But I helped in the conception and gave him a name, I took care of him, fed him, bathed him, changed his diapers, played with him, LOVED HIM LIKE MY OWN… and now, I am not allowed to see him. I haven’t seen him, nor his sister, since February. And often my heart aches with missing them.

When I told K & J that I had fallen in Love with X and was leaving, K desperately and passionately tried to convince me to stay. It was so hard… it was heartbreaking on so many levels… much of our conversations happened in the middle of the night when he would wake me, unable to sleep in his distress, and try to nail down the issues, try to fix things, try to repair the irreparable… much of our conversations I have lost and cannot remember.  But I do remember a couple of things he said to me, probably because they made such a profound impact on me and my understanding of how it was definitely time for me to leave that relationship.

“We knew this was going to happen,” he said, “We’ve been expecting it.”  He explained that he and J had been wanting to Handfast to me but were “waiting for this to happen”. He thought of me as his Wife, he told me.  If I had only waited a little bit longer, he explained. If I had only waited?  What?! So, let me get this straight… you’ve been expecting me to cheat and fall for someone else for the LAST FIVE YEARS and it was only AFTER I passed that test that you were going to make that commitment to me?!  It was only AFTER I passed that test that you were going to tell me how you felt?! Only then would I be deserving of the title?!  How backwards is it that you are going to wait until something threatens the relationship to tell someone you want to be with them for the rest of your Life?!

At some point after that conversation, I was sitting alone of the front porch, smoking & thinking. He came out to join me and, as was his habit, tried to nail me down to talk about what was on my mind. So I told him. I had been sitting there thinking about how badly I wanted another baby and was struggling with coming to terms with the fact that I wasn’t going to have one.  He apparently didn’t believe me because all hell broke loose after that, none of which is pertinent to this particular story…

Expectation rules Perception.

They spent our entire relationship expecting me to stray. I went into that relationship expecting the home & family I’d always wanted.  At least one of us got what we expected…

X expects the best of me. He expects me to choose him, every day. I expect the same from him and we expect to spend the rest of our Lives together. I also came into this relationship expecting I would never have another baby.

X had a vasectomy shortly after B was born.  12 years ago.  When our friends were teasing us about being pregnant they educated us on a little thing called recanalization. Apparently, some men’s little swimmers have overcome the seemingly impossible and found a way back to the urethra, in spite of the vasectomy.

So, suddenly I was smacked in the face with a real, however remote, chance that I could, in fact, be pregnant. Given the fact that X & I are intimate when ever and where ever possible AND given the fact that our sex has been a large part of our Spiritual & magickal workings for the last 9 months, it wouldn’t surprise me one damn bit if it happened to him.

Well, fuck-a-doodle-doo, hail Eris.

The emotional whip-lash of that realization is what caused my anger at our friends. As misdirected as it was.  We Cancers, sometimes it takes a while for things to filter down and come to full understanding.

So, X & I talked about it. I really don’t want to actively pursue getting pregnant. That’s a whole mess of Crazy that I just don’t want to delve into. He could have a surgery to try to reverse the vasectomy, but there’s no guarantee that it will work. I don’t want to be artificially inseminated with someone else’s sperm. And neither of us are really keen on the idea of inviting one of our male friends to do the deed. So, we are left with the remote possibility that somehow one of his little guys makes it through and manages to find one of my little gals and by a near miraculous act 9 months later little Ripley is born.

After three long term relationships, years of on-again off-again bc, and many nights of using the thrills and spills method producing nothing, I’m ok with letting the Fates decide this one.

 

So, speaking of Love…

…I’m getting married, in precisely… 1 day, 22 hours, and 54 minutes… so sayeth the Countdown Clock on my cell phone.

To say “I’m excited!” would be a severe understatement.

To say “I am excited-scared-happy-outofmymind-giddy-nervous-ecstatic-andbeyondunderstandablespeech” would be a bit closer.

Have I told you, dear readers, about my X?  I know that the last year or so of my blog Life has been sporadic and full of half-entries spewing whatever happened to bubble to the surface at the moment that I was feeling the need to blog. But have I really told you about my X?

…and immediately I struggle with words…damn the shortcomings of language!  Give it a name, right?  I will try…I will fail… but I will try.  He is smart, funny, sarcastic, handsome, thoughtful, romantic, considerate, respectful, genuine, caring, sexy… he inspires me, he makes me think, he encourages me… he Loves me, adores me, worships me, cherishes me… he cooks me dinner, he makes me drinks, he does laundry & washes dishes, he loves my family (!),  he decorates with me, he sings with me, he cries with me, he laughs with me, he will listen to me without talking, he will hold me without asking what’s wrong, he will drive when I need him too and let me drive when I want to, he is my High Priest, he is the Love of my Life, he is my Partner, he knows when to rub my back or when to rub my feet, he listens to my dreams and supports them, he expects the best of me, he takes pictures of me and brags about me, he LOVES MY KID and she loves him, he vacuums, he brings me sangria and chocolate, he will make Love to me and he will fuck me AND ALL OF THESE THINGS ARE SEPARATE AND CONNECTED AND IMPORTANT BEYOND WORDS.

In short, X has made me a believer.

Before his Love:

I felt the idea of “soul mates” was fairy tale-ish and immature. I thought the concept of “true love” was a simplistic and unrealistic idea. I thought happiness was what you made of it. I thought love stories were bull shit and I loudly heckled television shows & movies that portrayed romatic relationships. I struggled with the concept of romance and ridiculed myself for wanting it. I talked myself into a desperate place where I tried to balance deep thinking with shallow feeling.  I tried to drown believing with thinking.  I tried to hide myself from myself.

Now:

Well… if you’ve read my recent blog posts you know, I’m a believer.

And in less than 2 days, I will be Mrs. X.  Hail Eris.

 

I am a night owl.

And I work a day job.

Suck.

I hate getting up before 10 am. I don’t really get geared up and going until right around 4 pm. Then I’m jazzed until around 1 am.  It’s a grueling schedule when I have to get up at 6:45 am to get myself, my X, and my Darkling going for work/school.

So, case in point, at the moment I am emailing zip files to B. He got an iPod shuffle for his birthday and he needs MP3s.

What the Darklings need Cootie & X provide.

Thankfully, X is a night owl too. Of course, that just means working a day job is just as hard on him as it is on me.  Poor bastard.

This time next week, X & I will be in Wilmington, NC. At a resort hotel. With a private balcony overlooking the ocean. Does it get any better than that?  I think not, my friends. I think not.

In two weeks we are getting married.

Yeah. Married. The big “M”.

And I’m so excited and so happy and so In Love it’s nauseating I know.

I’m rambling now, so I’ll let you go before I lose you and me and everyone else in the ride. But let me say this, watch for the Future, Friend. It’ll be here sooner than you think.

 

A (sort of) recant.

I just realized my rant yesterday sounded like I was pissed at my co-worker. I’m not. He’s actually a cool guy. Strange in that I-wanna-know-this-guy way. He cracks me up. The rant was not directed at him, or the question really, it just got me thinking and I went with it. You know how that goes. *shrug*

 

Thoughts on sex with girls.

How’s that for a title? The thought process started for me on Friday. One of my co-workers called me over to his desk, because, he said, I was the best qualified to answer his question. Knowing this person as I do, I rolled my eyes and walked over prepared for the worst. “So, you saw Ghost, right?” I snickered, unable to help myself. “Yes” I answered. “Ok,” he continued, “so you know that scene at the end where Whoopi let Patrick Swayze use her body so that he could have one last kiss with Demi Moore, right?” Again I answered, “Yes”. “Ok,” he continues “does that make Whoopi & Demi lesbians?” My answer was “No”. He wanted to know why not? I said “Because fucking a girl, much less kissing one, does not make you a lesbian.” He found that hilarious and, once the laughter subsided, he asked “Isn’t that kind of the entire point of being a lesbian?”. What? Really?! Is fucking a girl the entire point of being a heterosexual man? I guess maybe it is for some. But I have been intimate with a few women, not a lot, but a few, and I am definitely not a lesbian.
This just brings me back to a discussion I had in my Psych class a couple of years ago. To some people, sexual orientation is very black and white. You’re either straight or you’re gay. Those kinds of people don’t believe anyone who says they are bi-sexual. They call us delusional, liars; they say we are “experimenting”, or outright faking.

So, I have to wonder, in the minds of these kind of people… is the concept of sex with someone you care about so far removed from their idea of homosexuality? I know that sex does not equal Love by any stretch of the imagination. Sometimes you just need to get off. But sometimes, just sometimes, it’s more than sex. Sometimes it’s an expression of Love, mutual adoration, respect, and affection. Sometimes it’s magical.
At 32 years old I can safely say I am no longer experimenting with my sexual orientation. I am bi-sexual and I am in Love with a Man. He is the Love of my Life and, I am convinced, my Spiritual twin/Soul mate/what-the-fuck-ever.  Give it a name, right? But I have loved Women. I have given them all that I could in hopes of finding that connection, that level of intimacy and Love that I so longed for… and they have loved me, they best that they could.

Love is Love. So, fuck you.  Keep your labels to yourself.

 

The tick-tock of the clock is painful…

10 points – Name the song and the band. : )

Missed me?

I’ve been busy. Fucking hell.  Where to start?  Probably where I left off.  Or somewhere in between.

School just started back up again!   This semester I am enrolled in German I, Business Communication & Report Writing, and the same Math class that I took last Fall because I failed it. Blah. I’m thrilled about the German class. I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time. The Math class… well, you can imagine how excited I am to be re-taking that.  The Business class is a crock, but necessary for my goals. I changed my major! The dissolution of the Collective left me floundering a bit and questioning my goals & my direction for the future. The parting was such that it was made clear to me that I am to have nothing further to do with the Memoreum project, so I was left with the question: Do I still want to be a Funeral Director? The answer came as a resounding “No”.  That, of course, led to another question: So what the hell do I want to do then? After a lot of debate & soul searching I decided on pursuing just a general associates degree with a certification in small business management.

Why small business management? Because X & I are finally going to make our dreams come to fruition and open a store together!

Cool huh?  We’re going to start on-line, the Ebay store should be up and running soon. Our goal is to open it on Dia de los Muertos. We also want to set up our own website in conjunction with the Ebay store (Fire, are you interested?  Shoot me an email or give me a call when you get some free time. We’ll need a quote.) We’re calling it Cootie & X’s Full Circle, specializing in eclectic clothing and arcane books of the second hand variety. Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?  We’ve got our profile and Me page up. Check it out: http://members.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewUserPage&userid=cootiexsfullcircle . It makes me giggle every time I look at it. I’m so excited I’m practically beside myself over it.

Besides that X & I have a lot going on right now and are facing some big decisions that will bring major changes to our little family over the course of the next year.  But that’s ok, we’re ready for it.

We are getting ready to finish up Fire in our Element Walk and roll right into Water. It is fascinating to see how the Walk evolves and changes in each Element. Fire has been quite different from Air and I imagine Water will follow suit.

Hands down, this has been the best Summer of my Life. We spent a lot of time by the pool, boat drinks in hand, soaking up the Sun. I’m tan. Amazing. I haven’t been tan since I was 14 years old. We’ve played many a game of Scrabble and a few hands of cards. We’ve had amazing fun with Friends.  My relationship with my Family has grown stronger and healed so much.  I have re-discovered so many things that I love and had forgotten.  Oh!  And we expanded on our Bill & Ted’s philosophy to create the X & Cootie Credo!

1. Be excellent to each other.
2. Do what is necessary and be as polite as possible.
3. Find the positive. If you can’t find the positive, find the funny.
4. Whatever works.
5. Pics or it didn’t happen.
6. Be nice to old Gypsy Women. They can fuck your shit up!
7. When someone asks if you are a god, say “Yes!”.

We are forming some sort of Pagan/Discordian/Geek hybrid tradition here, and I love it.

I am very much looking forward to the Fall. It is, after all, our favorite time of the Year.

Hail Eris!

 

Hmmm…

Haven’t been on here in a while. Who’s still with me? Speak up now, don’t be afraid!

 

So… just what is Love, exactly?

I love my Daughter.

I love chocolate.

I love my boot collection.

I love hot tubing.

I love October.

I love Scota.

I love purple.

I love dark beer.

I love horror movies.

I love my friends.

I love X.

 

I think this is where our language fails us.  How is it that we can use one word to encompass so much? How can we apply one word to boots and our offspring and our Partner and the Divine?  They are not equal. Not by a long stretch my friend.

All of my Life I have been unable to make a distinction between the love that I had for my friends and the love that I had for whomever I was in a relationship with at the time.  6 months ago, I had myself convinced that I was poly and that as such; I was hardwired toward a Life of multiple partners and could not be satisfied with monogamy.  Now, my logical mind says that monogamy is a choice, much like my sexuality I can be attracted to Women and Men and choose to be in a relationship with one or the other and be satisfied as such or visa versa. 6 months ago, I was in a polyfidelitous triad and resigned to live as such… unfulfilled maybe, but happiness came and went in degrees. Peaks and valleys, right?  Such is Life. So, logic aside, I lived in doubt more often than not.

Yesterday I realized, for the first time ever, that I feel a distinct difference in the Love I have for X and the love I have for my friends. Even for my Lady Ice who is closest to me than any other next to X. There is a difference. I remember, 5 years ago when the Collective was very new and J said to me “There is a difference.” In her love for me and her Love for K.  I didn’t understand then.  I said I did, but I didn’t, not really.

Now I understand.

What she meant was that she is “in Love” with K but not me. She loved me; no doubt. I know she loved me… maybe still does. But she was…is… in Love with K.  I understand now.  I understand because I am in Love with X.  For the first time in my Life, I am in Love.  And that is a strange and weird realization to come to at 32 years old with 3 failed long term relationships under your belt. Two of which were marriages.

So now I know what it means: to be in Love.

Now I know. And it is wonderful.

I’d like to be apologetic. To J and W, Thing One & Two, to K and J… I loved them the best I could… I just wasn’t in Love with them. Weird that I thought I was. It just goes to further the understanding of how Perspective changes everything. I’d like to be apologetic… but, I think it would smack insincere. I loved them.  I did the best I could. It just never was enough.

 

Growing pains.

Is it possible for your heart to hurt from an abundance of Love & Joy?  Like growing pains maybe?  Or maybe this evening the lump in my throat and the rock in my chest are there because my baby turns 13 tomorrow… tonight, as I was tucking her in bed, she said to me “After tonight I won’t be your little girl anymore. I’ll be a teenager!”

It took everything I had in me to keep from crying in that moment.

My Punky is growing up. There’s nothing I can do to stop it. There’s nothing I can do to avoid it.

I think it best to weather this as I have all scary things in Life: grab a beer, buckle up, and enjoy the ride.

I am enjoying Life. X & I have decided to get married, did you know? 11/5/10, yes sir. Always remember the fifth of November. I feel… relief. Is that weird? Among the happiness and giddyness and Love and Joy I feel relieved. Light. Like I am Home. I can kick my shoes off, get a drink, and relax. Finally. It is good.

 

And it begins… again.

Life is cyclical you know. I love coming full Circle. It lets me know I’m on the right Path… or something like that.

I started my Path as a Pagan a little over eleven years ago. I was 20 years old, married to my first husband, and we had a one year old daughter. I was green and naïve and desperate to feel connected. I did not feel connected to my husband. He was in the Army. I was a stay-at-home mom. We lived in Augusta, Georgia of all places and I was alone. I was introduced to Wicca through an (not so) old flame on one of my visits back home.  I began my studies in earnest, insanely excited about the possibilities that were opening before me as I read about the ancient and modern practices involved in various Pagan Traditions. I felt like I finally found my Way.

My husband did not agree.

We divorced two years later.

Shortly before my divorce I met my Teacher and began training with my Grove. They were my Family. During my training with the Grove I learned everything I know about Ritual. I went through my Element Walk and I worked through three degrees. I loved them. The Grove was my World.

My first Element Walk lasted four months. I’d always felt like my training was rushed. I struggled with Fire. Air too, but not as much. I’m a Cancer. Crabby Girl loves Water. No problem there. I’m grounded more than most people you’ll ever meet, Earth not a problem.  Air was a little more difficult, but I got it. Fire was difficult for me.  In fact, I didn’t really “get” Fire until well after my 2^nd degree. 

I never really had a High Priestess. There was the One who initiated me, but she did not train me and her involvement in my Life was peripheral at best.  She participated in my initiations and left my training to my Teacher. Now… well, now she won’t have anything to do with me because of my 2^nd husband.  I’m rambling now… my point is that it was in a Circle with her Coven that I first felt that I actually connected with Fire.

Three years into my training I received my 3^rd degree initiation and became High Priestess of my Grove. I received that initiation in the desert of New Mexico. It was mid June. The sun was just starting to set. The sky was an amazing turquoise behind the painful beauty of the red rock cliffs and the wind was blowing hard and straight. The wind is always blowing in the canyon. I watched as my Teacher cast Circle. I was there when he gave me 3^rd degree. But I couldn’t hear a word he said. I couldn’t feel him. I was alone with the Wind and the Desert and They were all I could hear. They were all I could feel. I was alone and I felt empty and I was confused. I should have felt connected to my husband. My Teacher. But I did not. I was alone. The Wind was all I could hear. 

Tonight X & I began our Element Walk together. We will spend the next few months working through Air. At the Summer Solstice we will move on to Fire and so on and so forth.  This was our first formal Ritual together. We worked skyclad and made Love as part of the Ritual.

To say it was Awesome is an understatement.

Tonight I felt connected. Tonight, I did not feel alone. I did not feel empty.

 I felt connected.

I’m looking forward to this Working.

Come to think of it, I’m looking forward to the rest of my Life. And I am not afraid, for once. I am not afraid.

It’s kinda funny, that.