I’m proud of you, son.

18 Jan 2012 2 Comments

by nyota0uhura in Uncategorized

Once again it’s been a while since I posted. I just seem to go through phases like that. This has been an especially long one. But journaling has always been this way for me. Even my kiddie diaries span years in a single notebook because I only ever wrote when something was noteworthy.

 

I have something noteworthy to say today. I’ve been building up to this post for almost three weeks now. I wasn’t sure if I would be able to write it. I’m still kinda scared that publishing it will jinx what prompted it. But I’m not the only one who can do with a good hopeful story every now and then. I need to share the love. So here I am.

 

I’ve found love again. Not in the arms of somebody, but through the arms of somebody. I made it happen. And I’m damn proud of myself. Being in Switzerland has been a barren wasteland dating-wise. People look at me like I’m crazy when I say I haven’t been with anybody in five years. Most people can’t even fathom what that means.

It means that every day, you get a bit lonelier. Every day, you ask yourself two questions: Is it me? Or is it them? Over time, you tend to think that it’s you. You who are unloveable, impossible, ugly, desperate, reeking of need. My friends kept telling me it wasn’t me. That it really was Switzerland, Zurich specifically. I wanted to believe them so badly. Deep down, I don’t think I ever did.

Before I met my first real boyfriend, I’d been in a similar situation. I had fully convinced myself that I was 100% unloveable. Forever. And ever. Then he came along. And loved me. To this day, I remember the intensity of what I felt when it hit me: “No, you are loveable!” If I think back to it, I feel it as if it were the first time. I couldn’t believe how deluded and wrong I’d been. When we broke up – it wasn’t a bad breakup – I told myself to hold on to that revelation. Hold on to the knowledge that just because this was over, didn’t mean I’d have to resume my lonesome existence. I was unluckily in love for a while and six months later I had my next boyfriend. Steve. Steve who changed everything. Steve, who reconfigured my internal makeup in a myriad of ways. That breakup was bad. And suddenly I was alone, in Switzerland.

For a year and a half, I didn’t mind being alone. That’s how long it took me to get over him. During that time, getting together with someone wasn’t even an option I wanted. When that mourning period ended, I realised it wasn’t an option I had.

Year after year, on the 1st of August, the day Steve broke up with me, I felt the loneliness grow. The lack of love etching itself deeper into my soul. I tried to date. I tried people at uni, at work, over the internet. Nothing worked. The people I met in real life weren’t flirting with me, they were just being nice – a very Swiss, very confusing characteristic of the indigenous population. The people I met over the net were freaks. And not the good kind. I stopped trying.

The delusion that I would never find love again crept back into me. There’s no fighting that feeling. If you ignore it, it grows stronger. If you try to think it over rationally, it grows stronger. If you accept it – and eventually you do – it starts dancing on the grave of your capacity for love. And no matter what you do, it hurts unspeakably.

 

I’m not sure why, but I decided to fight it with one last battle. I only know that the love my friends have shown me in these trying times – in a nutshell: I’m broke, stressed out & ill – somehow factored into that decision. I can’t explain it any better, I’m just sure of it.

I ran a personal ad through Craigslist Zurich. I advertised myself up front as a bbw: a big beautiful woman. It’s an internet-created term I’ve never really liked, but it’s to-the-point and it is, in the end, what I am. I explained that I was looking for love. The ad ended with “skinny fetishists need not apply”. I expected maybe two or three answers. I got around 20. And that’s not counting the idiots who sent me cock pictures (this is the internet after all).

 

I started going on dates when I got back to Zurich after Christmas. I haven’t even met all of the guys that I’m planning to meet and already there are a few very good apples among them. Two stand out in particular so far, though for very different reasons.

 

The first is Blu*. He seduced me. Completely. This may be the first time in my life that I haven’t done the seducing. Haven’t had to work so hard at it. I love this about Blu. He saw me and the instant he cheek-kissed me hello, I felt that he was enraptured with me. He’s serious looking, very straight posture, great composure. But I could feel that everything in him wanted me. Twenty minutes after our first date ended, he’d sent me a text message to follow-up. Later that evening he confessed that he had, indeed, been captured by my heaving bosom, that it cost him a lot to concentrate on our conversation. On our third date, I went to his workplace and we defiled the entire backroom.

As I laid there on a massive wood table, soft as butter to the touch, looking up at him, I could’ve cried. I felt beautiful. And he’d done that. If you feel ugly by yourself and uncomfortable in your skin, no amount of affirmations that you are a beauteous being worthy of all the love in the world will help. In my experience, affirmations are a lie and a pile of bullshit. You know how you get to feel beautiful? When someone looks at you like they are watching an amazingly brilliant sunset painted by whatever gods may be. When they look at you like they are discovering a rare flower. When they look at you like that, you feel beautiful.

In my case, it definitely took someone else for me to recover that feeling. Feeling beautiful. I can’t say it enough, even if stylistically it’s making this blog post go down the drain. But you know what? While it might have been someone else’s merit that I got to feel beautiful, it’s my merit that I’ve gotten this feeling to stick around. Only yesterday I looked in the mirror and all I could think was: “You are a beautiful woman. You’re going to be ok.” And also: “You had sex again! WOOHOO!”

Feeling beautiful made me beautiful. In more than one way. I went to work, chipper and happy. I got more flirts out of it! I eat better and work better at my uni stuff.

This is not a story about Prince Charming. It’s not a romantic rescue story. Blu and I aren’t together for now. Maybe we never will be. I’m not even sure I want or need us to be! But it’s a fact of life – and no self-help guru ever admits to it – that another person can be the catalyst and the support for your happiness. We can’t do it all by ourselves. We need other people. Friends are one part of that equation, but only lovers can complete it. The one thing there is to master is this: take that feeling of beauty and run with it. That, no one can do for you. Only you can keep the spark alive. Right now, my spark is strong. I fear that sooner or later I’ll lose it again. But right now, I’m savouring it.

So much so, in fact, that I’ve done something else I’m proud of. It involves the second man I mentioned earlier, Dorado*. I didn’t date him. We just got straight to business. And it was fantastic. Why am I proud of that? Because I’m taking what I want. Dorado isn’t a guy I would ever consider dating. Or, “worse”, be in a relationship with. He’s sweet, successful, well-mannered and I have no interest in him other than as a sex object. And you know what? That’s okay. For the first time ever, I’m having “sex like a man”. I decide how, when, where and with whom. No emotional strings. He’s great in bed and we’re incredibly compatible but I feel not the slightest need to take it anywhere beyond that. I adore handling things this way. Feeling things this way. Funnily enough, the man I dated whom I saw and wanted to lick all over, he is the one who I’m dating traditionally. Even kissing hasn’t been on the horizon with him yet.

 

I’m in charge. I’m beautiful. This is my show.

 

Was this what I set out for when I placed the ad? No. I had no plan except that I wanted to meet people who might find me attractive enough to date me and see where things go. I’m doing that now. I still want a relationship. Badly. I’m not too coy to admit it. But this? This is a good start. It’s a surprising start, to say the least. Maybe one of these men will be relationship-material. Maybe none of them will be. But I got a slew of new experiences out of this and I feel beautiful, inside and out.

 

I got to arch my back and stretch my legs lasciviously on a wooden table in a furniture store. I got to pout my lips and open my eyes big and see a man’s soul beg for mercy just because of that. I got a straight and sober Swiss to defile his workplace! I must be on to something. Hopefully, when I find it, I’ll know it and know how to cherish it.

 

Because that’s really all I want. An arched back, half-open lips and a love to cherish in my heart. What journey will take me there, remains to be seen.

 

Live long and prosper, peace,

 

Anna

 

* names changed for the sake of their anonimity