Every year since 1911, March 8 has been International Women’s Day, a day dedicated to causes that promote economic, social, and political rights, safety and expression for womankind.
My friend Annie messaged me that she was trying to post the following video to Facebook and it was getting removed as quickly as it she posted it. So let’s fix that! (Thanks, Internet!)
P.S. NSFW 😉
Also, the song can be purchased by clicking here.
Why I Dance from Why I Dance Film on Vimeo.
Do you know any women in your life who do not struggle with body image? In this nine minute video segment, Jacky O’Shaughnessy, a model for American Outfitters discusses how she came to be comfortable in her own skin. This is from “The What’s Underneath Project” by StyleLikeU.
This isn’t going to be my typical “Oh why can’t I just be a lesbian?” rant – mostly because I like independent motion during sex and the male genitalia is where it’s at for me. Also, women are also people. Possibly the preponderance of those rants are only written in my head – or written and posted for about 37 minutes until I realize that the person I am at-that-point bashing might be reading my blog. It’s not like I want my blog to be known as the post boyfriend trash site, although there is an undeniable allure to the power of “ink.” That given, I’m not a staunch fan of men right now.
Lately I’ve been finding that a lot of women in my demographic (intelligent, post 40, independent, strong, and funny) have been emotionally bludgeoned by men. Bludgeoned as in used, manipulated, lied to, led on, and discarded. What is most heart-breaking about this is that as a group, we don’t want to become bitter. We are in the phase of life where we want to explore vulnerability, partnership, and open-heartedness. We just can’t find partners who will be present, adult, and compelling, and this leads most of us to assume that we are too something or not quite something else enough.
In the interest of being progressively self-aware, I hereby insert a paragraph about some vague sense of taking responsibility for personal power and manifesting our true desires in relationship. Until the rest of me catches up with that, I offer a few thoughts to other women who are struggling with making sense out of the conflicting emotions that come when we care for people who are destructive to us. I got this from my paid for friend when I was trying to figure out if I had quit my marriage.
How do we let go of men we still feel for? We realize that there are different parts of our feelings, and here they are: 1) We love the man. 2) We understand why he is the way he is. 3) But we neither trust the man nor feel emotionally safe around him. 4) And we don’t want to keep being in relationship where we don’t feel safe no matter how well we understand the man. Sometimes we don’t know that we don’t feel safe around the man until the man leaves. Being left feels really unsafe. Sometimes we recognize a much higher wisdom in this – almost like a get out of jail free card, but that doesn’t subtract that we have feelings or that we understand why he is the way he is. And that he chose (an)other place(s) to get his itches scratched. The bottom line is to ask if we feel more safe, secure, tended OR more insecure, unsure, and tentative when we are with him.
Selah.
I write this from my official role of opinionated woman and general experiencer of much emotional disappointment. When these feelings of tenderness and understanding get cojangled with hurt and rejection, it makes extricating and uncoupling difficult. I don’t like taking pleasure knowing that the next person in line will also be heartbroken when the guy gets bored / tired of her jealousy / wants more intellectual stimulation / thinks he deserves a broader audience of ego strokers – because it makes me feel small. It reminds me that I replaced someone else and scarcely batted an eye at that. I don’t like remembering the feeling of privileged recipient of attention for the brief moment I spent on the front burner. My willingness to settle for just-almost-but-not-quite-and-mostly-second-except-for-those-few-really-special-moments scares me a little bit. I want to think I believe in myself more than that.
Talking to these strong, gorgeous, intelligent, engaging, independent women who have been thrashed uncovers various levels of angst. We wonder if we will be alone. We wonder if the fractions of emotional connections we’ve experienced are the best LIFE has to offer. We (I – maybe there’s some projection in this paragraph) wonder that we are built to be social creatures, we work really hard to own our own piles of shit and be whole, and then there are no partners to play with. We wonder if there is room to be wholly us because it seems like the men we meet kind of need us to be wrapped around them. But if we are wrapped around them, then who is tending us? Do we have to choose between us and our creativity and us and love? Mix in kids and jobs, school and health… and just what the hell?
Some of us settle. Some of us self-medicate. Some of us distract ourselves with work and other creative pursuits, but one thing most of us seem to be getting really good at is figuring out that in the overall scheme of men who come and go, the one thing that remains constant is the support of our girlfriends and our families of choice.
It is 23 minutes until the final super moon of the year. I am going to go burn some sage, make a list of the dross I am ready to burn, and listen to some Annie Lennox to bring in the new.
Cheers to all!
Father’s Day can be bittersweet for people who had shitty dads, who had no dads, who no longer have good dads. It can also be hard for single moms who carry the load of being both Mom and Dad. Here’s a little something for that group created by Marshall Davis Jones.
Spelling Father from stillmotion on Vimeo.
Because this is how it would go if we date:
You are married.
We have arrived at this awkward place because I naively thought your marriage made you entirely safe and therefore I was comfortable being myself without much of a mask. At some point, the tension will become too much and you will say something suggestive to which I will respond.
We will have a steamy time of sexting banter and you will develop this conviction that I really am what you have always wanted and all that you are missing in your stagnant marriage. I will try to point out that you are in the middle of a very intense guilt fantasy, and I am simply the object of your midlife angst. I will be convinced and convincing. At first you will deny this and try really fervently to show me this is not the case. I will actually begin to believe you just about the time that you realize that it is so.
You will become conflicted, begin to backtrack, panic, and blame me. You will disappear, go dark. I will go into retreat mode after a very short period of trying to keep communication lines open. When I realize that is fruitless, I will lock you into a very tiny dark place in my heart and I will lose a long weekend to being completely overwhelmed by negativity and self-loathing. By Monday I will be pissed and filled with a renewed sense of fuck you, and I will begin to recover and wonder why I let myself get off my own life and wrapped up in the idiocy of your guilt fantasy.
You will eventually miss me to the point that you will make contact. We may or may not have a flare up, but I am done with you and am comforted only by knowing that you wake up and go to sleep thinking about me.
If you are kind of married: long strained, separated
You are the worst kind. See above but add in the feverish manner in which you will attempt to convince me that the only reason you are still with her is convenience for kids or logistics or health insurance. You will be struck by my intelligence and attention. I will be struck by what I wrongly perceive as emotional intelligence by your ability to diagnose the strangely textured mess that is your marriage.
In this scenario, I get suckered in by your explanation and the attention that you are enjoying showering on a woman when actually what is going on is that I just haven’t quite made it to the part where I realize probably the reason your wife isn’t responding to you is that you are a boy in a man suit and she has figured this out. You still love her but you miss her attention. Soon you will realize that I am an actual person with actual children. You will begin to think that I am after you for your resources and you will begin to do the math on the cost of being involved with two households. You will also begin to realize that now that you are considering making a real move, you might as well figure out if I would be the right person to do this with.
You will begin to backtrack and though I will save myself the embarrassment of finding that your dating profile is re-activated, I am pretty sure that it is. You will start to ask me questions that are designed to instill doubt in me, but I won’t have quite figured that out yet. When you test me with the idea that you may never divorce, and I respond very rationally with the scenario of my life energy going toward what takes best care of me and if I am on my own financially, how is that going to feel when my efforts come before you, you are slightly offended.
When you suggest maybe I just like you because you have a good job, I will hate you from my core and know that you understand nothing about me. I will be too passive to break it off right then, but I will lock you into a very tiny dark place in my heart and I will lose a weekend to being completely overwhelmed by feelings of rage and hatred. By Monday I will be pissed and filled with a renewed sense of fuck you, and I will begin to recover and wonder why I let myself get off my own life and wrapped up in the futility of being your toy.
Your wife will eventually get her sense about her and leave. You will eventually date other women and realize what an idiot you were. There will be no flare up. Linking my willingness to trust you and let you in to me wanting you for your money was a bad, bad move.
If you are single
I will make it very clear that I have three kids half time. I will explain that I am volcanic financially, and I’m not in a position to rush into anything. We will be struck by each other’s witty banter and business acumen and we will end up sleeping together way too soon.
I knew this was a bad idea, because you will begin to backtrack and panic almost before morning hits. Though feedback I’ve received would indicate this is not a lack of skill in the intimate arts, I am beginning to wonder. I am not going to rush you into a dark box because this is new territory. Maybe single guys are different than married guys.
At least you answer the phone when I call and ask, “I just want feedback. I’m not trying to stalk you.” You explain that I have three children and am financially volcanic. Most of a Saturday blown out, but mitigated by a text from the married guy who assured me I am still desirable. Whatever.
When you call back months later to ask me for help with a writing project and ask if I’m still sexy, it takes great pains not to tell you to go fuck yourself.
If you are single with kids from five different women
You are such a sweet guy. You are kind, you listen, you tell me I am amazing and you clearly enjoy being around me. You open doors and hold my hand. And then I find out that you would really like to get custody of your youngest daughter and you think I am just the woman to raise her.
*****
There are two reasons that I am not gay. The first is that I am not physically attracted to women. The second is that if I were, women have the same baggage men have.
I lose far too much time wondering why we humans need contact when it seems to be such an impossibility. I lose far too much time wondering why I still want connectivity when I see little evidence of its existence. “Just take your mind off it,” people say, like I’m 13 and having my first crush. Understand this, I’m 46. I get that it doesn’t happen when you are looking for it.
My fear isn’t that I can’t find guys who find me attractive. Shooting fish in a barrel. My fear is that I am creating a decision point somewhere between my head and my heart where I am trying to kill my desire for it. I find myself getting bitter and having a really short leash on anything that smacks of doubt or rejection. I am fighting the belief that I must be somehow defective. If for no other reason than because I don’t even want to try with single available men.
I wonder if distrusting men is in my blood and I am acting out some karmic debt. It makes me sad because I’m kind of fun to be around and I am a generous soul.
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