Rapid fire impact reminders

There has been so much happening with me this year in the arenas of intimacy, relationships, and also of things of old coming into the present. Each event seems to increase in intensity, and there has been a recent surge–everything is accelerated.

I am exhausted, but not out of strength.

I don’t know what to make of it, I just know it’s all important and meaningful. I am doing my best, learning what there is to learn. I am receiving a lot of sexual attention where in the past there has been an inarguable lack of it, and I can’t lie, it’s exhilarating and beautiful and at times dizzying and certainly overstimulating. In the end this may all be about restoring balance, but where I am now is certainly not what anyone could accuse of being mistaken for balance.

In January I completed a tattoo that has been a work in progress for maybe twelve (is it longer? Probably, yes) years. Certainly it has been a transitional bunch of years. What bunch of years isn’t?

I received this tattoo, this final portion, in a ritual environment, surrounded by friends. Abraham, who did the work, has been working on this piece with me for perhaps ten years? And there is Orien and Christine, pivotal figures (especially O) in my story, old and new. Abe and his partner Gordon come up to O & C’s at least once a year for a weekend of insulated ritual tattooing. Part of the ritual is declaring an intention, and mine was this; that now that we are finally finally finally completing this chapter, things would begin to manifest.

That night things started. The drummer I ended up dating for a bit; we’d been flirting for many months, but the night I got home from my tattoo weekend is when we began acknowledging the flirtation and making plans.

The next several months included the beginning middle and end of my thing with the drummer, the final reconciliation and ultimate destruction of me and Joe, another really really quick beginning middle and end with someone else, and the heart-stopping introduction of Mason. He is the wild card in all this–he is the crush of all crushes, the one that felt like such a real and magical possibility. And yet, panning out to be a big nothing for now. Certainly not to be filed under manifestation, but perhaps someday something more will be revealed.

And in all this, in June, I went to Free Spirit. And at Free Spirit I did a shamanic workshop with Sylvia, with whom I had also beautifully and lovingly connected on a personal level. At the workshop though, Orien was at my side and Christine was at his; we all took a journey. Abe and Gordon, who are students of Sylvia’s, assisted in the workshop.

And man did I journey. I think what I’m going through now really is a spin-out from that work, though it seems all connected.

I don’t think I can possibly tell all of it, both for reasons of privacy and sheer lack of endurance. There has been so much.

There is this man. I knew him back when I was like 17-20, and he is a few years older than me. I’d never been especially attracted to him, neither then nor now, but always crazy fond of him. And it started as a silly, junior high school joke of a ‘we should make out’ nature, and turned into something deeper but also more complicated, kind of in a nothing-will-ever-quite-be-the-same-even-though-we-can’t-ever-really-be-together way (oh, that old thing). This was about a month ago.

And just in case you thought the universe was not playing along, six days later I walk outside my office building and there he is, walking towards me.

Let me be clear. He was not coming to see me. He had no idea where I worked. None. We both work in Manhattan, but not at all in the same neighborhood. This was a coincidence, if you will, of biblical proportion.

That meeting was so amazing and so validating and so important. And today what I am left with is a friendship I never anticipated; one man with whom I share a pure and true connection and who is affixed in my corner.

And somewhere in all this, in the weekends sort of bookending that storyline, there was a reconnecting with Eric. Clearly something I never, ever expected. And it remains tentative and healthily distant, but it is certainly of note. And quite a clearing.

Oh and lest I forget there was a beautiful communication about two months ago with an old heartache of mine–one I’d practically forgotten about. He offered me apologies, declarations of affection and admiration, and many tears were shed on both sides. I hadn’t forgotten about him per se, but about how truly connected we had once been. And actually I knew that day that this was a continuation of the shamanic work. I just had no idea what a floodgate was opened!

Two weeks ago

I get a call from a man who I’d been, for all intents and purposes, in love with. It was all kinds of unrequited (he is married with two young kids), it (the unrequited desire) went on for a couple years, and now it’s been two years since I’ve seen him. We speak semi-regularly, and the intensity that I had brought to the situation is gone. Now I just am happy when we talk, and it feels balanced.

But he’s calling to say he needs to see me. That he has this secret he’s been wanting to get off his chest for years and I was the only person in the world he trusted with it and he was ready–now was the time. (just for some background, there was talk of this secret/confession a few years ago. he just ended up dropping it. putting it away, to be more precise.) So we make a plan. And I am shaking. I’m barely curious about what it is, for me I am just so moved and flattered and excited.

The very next morning I get a lengthy email from someone–I just can’t tell this story at all but it was an amazing message; one I really hadn’t anticipated receiving.

And half an hour later I get an email from Joe. It begins like this:

I am sorry. I love you. I am sorry. Sorry for the fact that we did not work out as a couple. Sorry for all of the pain that I may have caused you as we tried to build something. Sorry for all of the times that I just didn’t get it or wasn’t aware enough to sense your needs, wants, concerns.

It continues from there. It was out of character for Joe to give so much. Not… that sounds so shitty of me. But he wasn’t generous when it came to communication. He would be available upon request, and he would say what was needed, but he rarely made such offerings. And it always seemed incongruous with who he really was. And I’d told him as much. So this seems both out of and in character for Joe. I responded; there was a bit of back and forth. I am not ready to just swallow the rest and be friends, but I know (have known all along) that is in my future.

So uh… that was all in 15 hours.

Since then, I have received the confession, which turned into just an amazing evening of sharing and fun and closeness. He told me, when he was already gone, safely on his way home, that I am one of the few people he can talk to the way that we talk, and he finds it really attractive. In me. Him saying that to me was such a gift, after never ever knowing it before. Ahh, the lure of the married man. And I do adore this one.

And just when I thought I could rest, another man, who is sort of peppered throughout different places in my past, both distant and more recent, started poking around. This one is a very odd situation. It’s kind of cat and mouse, or maybe cat and cat (or mouse and mouse). I can’t figure out what is or isn’t happening, but I cannot ignore the fact that out of nowhere, I found myself on the phone with this very attractive man for nearly two hours.

And okay this is just the fucking weirdest. Saturday morning (the morning following the aforementioned phone call) I leave a comment (the first in what will become a long thread) on a facebook post of a celebrity–not like, a George Clooney level celebrity, more like a Jill Sobule level celebrity. And the third comment after mine is from a man I’d slept with about four years ago–a really nasty person, the one I sincerely regret. I’d never seen him on there; would have not been able to come up with his last name without being prompted by SEEING IT RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF ME.

I’d already begun asking myself, Who else? Started looking back into my history to see who else might pop up. But I’d never come up with that one. And really, if someone bad is going to make an appearance, that was a pretty safe way for it to occur–truly, literally, just an appearance, entirely non-invasive. Just a little startling.

That day (oh. Yesterday!) I went to an absolutely wonderful wedding. This was the wedding, and next weekend will be the handfasting. Yesterday I began telling Orien just small pieces of what’s been happening, and I said it started all the way back with the tattooing. Now, I had given Gordon, Abraham’s partner, a down payment on a new piece–a peacock tattoo that I’ve been thinking about for over three years. And we were planning on doing this next January, back at O & C’s. Only Orien says to me yesterday that Gordon is planning on coming up for the handfasting and doing tattooing and I could get my tattoo next weekend.

Like I said, it’s all intense and it’s all accelerated. I had tears of joy that this work will be happening next weekend.

One of the repeated themes, from every single one of these guys (well except for the regretted asshat) is, You are one of the most amazing women I have ever known and you did then and do now impact my life.

Now, there is some pain associated with receiving this message, over and over and over. Because of course what goes along with it is And, y’know, I hope you find someone who clearly isn’t me but who recognizes this and loves you the way you deserve (and whom you love back). And that gets a little old.

But it is exquisite, even when it is exquisite pain, to be receiving this message, and in such high doses.