Get Out (Poem)

I need to get out
Out of my brain
where the Crazy spins relentlessly like a hamster in a squeaky wheel
Consistent enough to ignore until all at once it has ground so deep into my consciousness that screaming louder is the only way to drown it out

I need to get out
Out of these four walls
where I eat too much,sleep too much
and mope around like a bra-less ghost between whisper tones, name-calling, entitled assholes tossing around their spending habits as though that were reason enough that I should feel less-than

I need to get out
Out of my skin
where I ache all over and pinch my tummy chub
lamenting the back fat that crept up on me years ago, and despite my persistent denial, still clings to my shoulder blades like unwelcome parasites

I need to get out
Out of this rut I've become calling my life
where I hate my job, love my husband
and can't seem to figure out how to push past the fear of change into a better place where once again I will wear eyeliner daily and maybe, just maybe, find a way
to earn a paycheck without being emotionally abused to the point where
all I want is to get OUT

The Sneeze

Something awful happened to me last night. I was sitting at my desk with less than 5 minutes left of work. As usual, I was wearing my yoga pants and a tank top with no undergarments of any kind. The awful thing that happened… I sneezed. 

Despite years of kegel exercises, being a woman who has given birth the old fashioned way, bad things can happen when you sneeze, or cough, or laugh unprepared. I didn’t feel it coming, so the requisite crossing of legs, bracing of muscles, etc didn’t happen. Yes, I peed my pants. This wasn’t a little, embarrassing spot in my panties; I wasn’t wearing any. This was, wet pants and a spot on my chair. I wanted to curl up and die. The only upside was the fact that I had reached a safe time so that I could ensure I wouldn’t have to take any more phone calls for the night.

Being the time of the evening that The Mr. gets my attention, he had just walked into the room. I was holding back tears and had lifted my chair cushion up to air out but still hadn’t logged out of work. He looked at me confused and asked what had happened. The ‘sneezing unprepared causes bad things’ thing is something he had never heard of.”So, every time you sneeze, you have to cross your legs or you pee?”

I knew I was being overly sensitive, as the stress of my schedule change has caused a major increase in ‘Crazies’ this week. That said, his remark that he needed to use the bathroom before I got in the shower and ‘pee IN the toilet’ caused a full-blown meltdown. I became a toddler who had just failed at potty training. 

He stayed in the bathroom while I showered, brushing his teeth and making small talk. I woke up this morning and aside from the laundry I couldn’t let sit one more day, I had tried to forget about it and move on with my day. I poured my coffee, sat down to the usual Facebook and saw that the Mr. had changed his profile picture. Rather than the kilt shot from St. Patty’s Day, he had the picture of himself standing by an official sign looking all serious-faced. I teased him about it in a comment then kept scrolling. He had also changed his cover photo to this:

I lost my shit right then and there. 

No, not literally, the coffee had not taken effect just yet!

We had been chatting about an upcoming concert and dissecting the reality verses idea of taking off work on a Monday night to see 2 of my favorite bands from my angst-ridden teenaged years. I said, “Nice cover photo.” 

He all but ignored my comment, and when I brought it up again he said he’d totally forgotten about the night before and was pretty much clueless as to why I was upset. 

We continued the conversation and eventually I was able to dam the flow of crazy, start dinner and clean house for a bit. But I couldn’t let it go. I was turning over and over in my head the possibility that this would be the thing we would have our first real fight over. I wondered if this was the first glimpse of an inner-asshole he was harboring that I had never seen so much of a glimpse of. I fantasized about putting his hand in a bowl of warm water the next time he fell asleep in his recliner as revenge. 

Another hour passed and I brought it up again. I told him, “I have to tell you, I'm still stewing over the cover photo thing. Trying to not take it personally, but... I've gotten past the crazy. Just motivated now.”

He started off with, “Huh? So confused!”

“Your cover photo after what happened to me last night. You SERIOUSLY forgot? Because I was fucking mortified over it… Can you see why it might strike me as slightly dickish?” 

“oh...I forgot what it was that I even put up there.....Had to go look at it again. Grr....foot tastes bad.”

And then my Prince Charming emerged in full force. “Pictures, plural, changed.” 

He had taken down the ‘Mr. Serious Face by a Government building’ photo and replaced it with one of the two of us on the way to The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The picture of himself in full-on Dr. Frank-N-Furter Drag, fishnets and my corset. He also changed the cover photo to the group shot from the night.

I told him, “Smiling LOTS right now... but I totally understand if you don't leave that up long.”

His reply, “Hehe...fuck it. Fuck it all.”

I am so in love with that man! And I am so wearing underwear during working hours from now on.

One Year Ago...

One year ago, I had just come home from my first weekend with The Mr. Our first date had been that Wednesday, May 31, 2012. We saw each other again that Friday, then on Saturday morning we ran off to Austin for a weekend. This is what I wrote when I got home that Sunday evening: 

I met a man. Not a boy or a guy, but a MAN. OkCupid got it right this time, but what a mean trick! He is moving to the East Coast at the end of summer ...To say we are cut of the same cloth is an understatement. 

Right now I’m trying to weed through the Fuck Struck hormones and the sensation that he is the missing other half. Someone in a place to fall hopelessly in love might describe him as my soul mate. SCARY! And it’s not that I’m not ready and willing to get into a relationship, it’s the grown-up in me that knows the reality of things. The grown-up in me that says even if he is the man of my dreams, the ooey-gooey hormones won’t wear off in time to make a rational choice to do something like; I don’t know, pack up my life and move to the East Coast. 

I can’t remember the last time I felt like this. It really is a chemical addiction akin to being high on drugs. When I’m with him I don’t get hungry or tired. His touch makes me more relaxed and content than I have been in ages. He said to me that he can’t stop kissing me when we’re together. This morning, lying in bed in the hotel in Austin he reached for me and said he got a chill that felt like a push towards me that he couldn’t resist. 

... And I won’t get started on the intimacy topic. It’s so intense on all levels. 

This man is masculinity personified in my eyes. 

It’s really hard to not think about the possibility of ‘Happily Ever After’ when the man in my bed looks so much like Prince Charming.    

      

That August I packed up my life and moved here with him. We were married in January, and embarked on another layer of the journey to ourselves in February. 

Despite all the ‘real life’ we have run into, as is inevitable in ‘grown up land’ he is absolutely my Prince Charming. The ooey-gooey stuff has never stopped, and I don’t think it ever will. All the little things he does, reminds me how spoiled I am. He preps my coffee every night, leaving a mug beside the coffee pot for me. He is known to grab the massage pillow unprompted and order me to lie down to be pampered. He takes care of most all of the regular errands between work and home, then plays dishwasher Tetris for sport. He cooks dinner while I work and brings a plate to my desk. The teenager teases us for never being more than 3 feet apart at any given time, and we both love it. He opens the car door for me, kissing me before I sit down, and then reaches for my hand while he’s driving. We regularly stay up into the wee hours of the morning just talking and holding each other, unpacking all of our emotional baggage and arranging a shared closet. I could go on and on about all the ways he takes care of me physically and emotionally… 

A year ago, I was falling and it was scary. When I decided to pack up and move with him I used one of my more common phrases: I am either being really brave, or really stupid!

 

On May 31, the anniversary of our first date, The Mr. bought me roses and a card. He brought me out of our room on a break from work and kissed me and said, “I know that each color of roses signifies something different. I picked the rainbow bunch because you mean everything to me.”

Going, going... But not yet gone.

The Mad Scientist has to go away this summer for a few months. The leaving and the going thing sent me spiraling into the fear of The Mr. having to do the same.

I know that none of these fears or at least the level of fear and anxiety that this is provoking, have anything to do with the 'right now.' Rationally, in my grown-up brain I expected this.

And then The Mr. gave me dates. He will be gone for two to three weeks right around our 1st wedding anniversary to train as an alternate for a year-long... ugh, I can't even say the word... a big D.

The knowledge that The Mr. will be gone for a couple weeks is manageable. The timing bites the big one as that month is not only our 1^st wedding anniversary, but his big Four-Oh. We’d talked about doing it big with a trip to Vegas or something memorable for the milestone. I went skydiving for my Three-Oh, and plan on continuing the trend by really celebrating those decade milestones. The Mr. agrees, just not with the skydiving thing. That’s not his cup of tea.

We are still seven months away from that, and a lot can happen. We don’t know what things with The Mad Scientist will be like by then. We don’t know if we will have opened things up more, redefined our boundaries, made new friends closer to home… a lot can happen in 7 months. But The Mr. can turn into the King of ‘What-if’s’ pretty quickly. He gave me the dates on Wednesday while I was still working. I wanted to have a melt-down right then and there, but my break was over and I had to put on my Big Girl panties and continue being screamed at for another few hours. My root canal was Thursday. That meant that on Wednesday night I had to take a Xanax, then again on Thursday morning I was medicating to quell the anxiety I have over unwanted things drilling into my mouth. *Insert cute innuendo here*

My first real meltdown happened in the dentist’s chair. I was laying there doped up on Xanax with the nitrous mask strapped to my face. There weren’t any clear thoughts, just fear as I started to cry uncontrollably. The dentist and his assistant were just sitting there waiting for the topical numbing cream to take effect. My ear buds kept falling out and I had to move my glasses to wipe away the tears. The dentist was genuinely concerned and said that we didn’t have to do the work today if I wasn’t okay. I just asked if they would get The Mr. for me.

For over an hour The Mr. held my hand while they worked in my mouth. The nitrous high came and went as they mixed the oxygen flow. There were no thoughts except of the memory of huffing balloons full of nitrous with friends in my 20’s and thinking that The Mr. just *had* to try it. There was a small annoyance when I reached out and The Mr.’s watch was in between me and his skin. I unlatched it with surprising skill, given the situation. At another point when the oxygen was higher than the nitrous I heard the sounds of daytime TV from the screen they have mounted on the ceiling. I gestured to get them to turn it off. Pieces of forgotten ASL came back to me in that moment. The Mr. had no idea I knew any sign language at all.

Last night I had a little more of a meltdown. The tooth pain coupled with my ‘soft foods only’ diet had me hungry, cranky and the Xanax just killed any semblance of my ability to keep it together. I keep reminding myself that this is different than the marriage with my ExH was. The Mr. and I did move very quickly, but we have put so much time and effort into knowing each other inside and out. We talk about all the heavy things that people in other relationships keep hidden out of fear of rejection. We work through the issues that got in the way of being our true selves and never stop talking about everything- big and little.

I recently told the Mr. that when we met I knew he was still a work in progress. I had already spent years accepting who I am and how I got here. I have already learned my boundaries and why I’ve got them in place. He never had the chance to explore things the way I did. I told him that I knew some assembly was required. He has pushed some of his own boundaries by choice, and is working through the process of defining it all in his own language. We all need that.
 
Last weekend seems to still be weighing heavily on his mind:

“In that moment he lost a piece of the illusion. The line between reality and the pornographic fantasy he’d been fed for so long came crashing down. The immediate response of the cleanup crew was validating and allowed the mending to start right away. But in the aftermath it became clear that there were bigger holes to fill and he owned the only shovel in the world…. ”

Sex and Breakfast

Meals have always played a major role in socializing, bonding and general human connection. Dating most traditionally involves going out for a meal then an activity of sorts. The type of meal can signify the intent of the interaction or the stage of the relationship. Going out for coffee is a non-committal ‘getting to know you’ before deciding if a full-blown meal would be enjoyable. Going for happy hour is another step in that evolution. This means, we will have booze and lower our inhibitions but still not sit alone at a table and try to master the art of conversation while our meals get cold.

Actually having a meal together is another level. We are at a table and the only other person that we will speak to is our server. Unlike the random drunk beside us at the bar, the waitress’s interruptions will primarily involve our menu choices and the ever-crucial desert decision. That weird drunk guy at the bar… he will interrupt or butt into the conversation to talk about the game on TV, make small talk, or even attempt a solid cock block from time to time. Point being- dinner at the table is more defined. It’s not until the 2nd or 3rd meal together that people will start to learn a balance between talking and the eating laced with comfortable silence. That’s how you know you may be forming something.

From the ‘going out meals’, people move into the ‘dinner at my place’ which for most women is code for, “I’ve decided I want to fuck you.” My personal hierarchy when I was single was a little different. I wouldn’t cook for anyone I hadn’t slept with yet. I also wouldn’t go down on a guy that I hadn’t had intercourse with. It was always my belief that I needed to know that he would take proper care of me before I would spoil him whether with fellatio or fettuccine.

The hook-up culture we have begun evolving into doesn’t often follow any of these rules. There aren’t always the ‘getting to know you’ coffee, drinks, dinner type of dating associated with having sex with someone once, or even on an on-going basis. The “friends with benefits” style is becoming more common and more mainstream. I seemed to do that a lot in my married-and-cheating days, as well as in my single life. It was less complicated and there weren’t the same labels and expectations of ‘dating’ and having a ‘boyfriend.’

In our “not poly, not swinger, non-monogamous” adventure, we have discussed the ‘label’ and the ‘relationship’ with The Mad Scientist mostly in deep, intimate talks and once in a drunken Facebook chat. How do we define the relationship with a guy who is not bi but will play with the Mr.? Who we have drinks and dinner out with, but also have movie nights and cards in with? Who drives an hour to hang out with us, but leaves most mornings before coffee? A guy who we have gone to events with and the check gets split in half but sometimes the server puts me on The Mr.’s tab, and sometimes on The Mad Scientist’s?

We talk about him when he’s not here, and discuss all the self-exploration his presence brings into our marriage. We worry about him when he seems exceptionally stressed out, or when he’s sick and we know that he doesn’t have anybody there to take care of him. We both like his dick. We both have fun hanging out with him and listening to his stories about growing up with brothers in the south. We all three have a blast watching bad B-movies and playing MST3K over beer and pretzels. We aren’t having sex with anybody else, and until recently it had been inferred that he was also flying solo between our visits.

This weekend he showed up with a hickey; a deep, purple, unmistakable mark on the side of his neck. He’d mentioned plans a couple nights during the week, but was non-specific about it. What he chooses to share or not is only our business if it involves a prescription. But being a crazy chick first and a grown-up second, I did have a moment of irrational jealousy when I first noticed it. I’ll own that.

The funny thing was that the next morning while The Mr. and I were making breakfast, The Mad Scientist walked into the kitchen with an odd look on his face. His tone was almost accusatory as he pointed to his neck and asked what that was all about. My reply was genuine belly laughter as I told him he had shown up with it the night before. He had no idea it was there, and started texting the chick he’d gone out with while The Mr. and I finished breakfast. I made the remark that I don’t mark anything that’s not mine, and that it’s just bad social tact to mark anyone without long hair like that. Apparently she texted The Mad Scientist and said that she’d just been ‘lovingly sucking on his neck.’

My reply, “Sweetie, lovingly sucking happens below the neck…”

We’d talked about the date and that he really liked her. He said that she was the first single woman he’d met recently and been interested in. That was a point of validation for me in a way. Part of me had wondered how much of things were about the novelty and friendship we’d all established verses the actual interest in me in that way. It was somewhere between that conversation and the boundary pushing experiment with The Mr. that any hint of catty girl-brain jealousy had been replaced with genuine happiness that The Mad Scientist had met someone cool that lives closer to him than we do.

The hickey brought up the question of how to proceed if he does take things further with her. The Mad Scientist wanted full disclosure and asked me what my thoughts on it were. Again, I repeated my policy of ‘Unless it involves a prescription, it’s not my business.’ We talked about our recent physicals and that everything came back okay for us both. There was a little more detailed ‘grown up talk’ about condom use and scheduling. She is apparently part of the ‘Kink Community’ which implies a non-traditional approach that may allow for continued open non-monogamy on his part. He said that she knows about us but being that it’s so early in things that he’s not sure where it’s going. On top of that, he has to leave the country this summer for work. He said he’s not sure how that will go with her, and that he wouldn’t expect her to wait for him or anything like that.

The thing that took me by surprise a little was that he had disclosed to his employer in some manner that he is “in a relationship with a couple.” There are many other euphemistic ways of expressing the situation that would have kept him in the clear in terms of disclosing ‘risky behaviors’ or other things that could jeopardize clearances if found out second hand. To me, the term “in a relationship” means that we matter to him, which is something we had questioned in a way. We had wondered if we were putting more emphasis on things because of it being our first experience with non-monogamy. We wondered, and never got a clear answer on how he views this. Would he refer to me/us as ‘friends with benefits’? Or maybe call me a ‘girlfriend’ in conversation? Either way, we matter enough to disclose not only to the employer but to the girl that gave him the hickey.

On the same note, we have talked about plans for our birthdays which fall in the same zodiac shortly after he will be back at home. Not that we are ‘committing’ to anything, because that’s not what this is about. But I think it says a lot about the kind of connection we have formed and it makes me happy.

There were so many things about this weekend that validated and solidified things in my marriage and in our relationship with The Mad Scientist…

All of this started because I was thinking about the evolution of meals and relationships. This weekend was the first time The Mad Scientist stayed, not only for coffee but for breakfast. We had bacon, eggs and chocolate chip pancakes.

Sex and breakfast is a step in that evolution that seems to add a little more familiarity and bonding no matter what a relationship is called. For now, we’ll just call it “Awesome!”

Those Bitches!

Seriously... So I wrote something not a week ago and then saw the very same topic on a website I happen to love. Those Bitches! They are doing what I love for a living, and here I am just being all catty and jealous over it. Where do I even begin on how much this frustrates me.

*Sigh*

Here's what I wrote in its unfiltered glory. I only posted part of it on my Facebook because it spun into a rant about work:

I am a powerhouse. I am a force of nature.

The Mr. said to me, while we were still in the ‘getting to know you’ phase of things, “You have your own gravitational field. It’s like people come and go from your world in an orbit, but they never truly leave.”

I am pretty fucking awesome at everything I do. And, damn it! Why aren’t we “allowed” to proclaim such positives about ourselves?

It is one thing to finally learn how to graciously accept a compliment, but even now when a random stranger like the receptionist at my doctor’s office for example, looks up from her computer screen and says, “Wow! I love your hair!” I sense a change in her tone when I reply with a simply “Thank you” rather than some kind of self-deprecating explanation that “It’s a mess today” or some other such excuse that really means “I don’t believe that my hair IS fabulous.”  

Well fuck that! My hair IS fabulous! And yes, I just saved our company another couple thousands of dollars in pay outs because I didn’t stop when I was told ‘No’ the first 4 times. I also got these ‘non-refundable hotel rooms’ refunded, helping our company live up to the reputation they have for taking care of their customers. *And by the way, I don’t believe that I am only number TWO on that list of stats. I clearly see seven names and seven schedules and one of those names is someone who does NOT currently do our job. You are not fooling anyone!*

While I’m at it, I am livid that I may have to start working on the weekends again. I have not worked a weekend shift in over two years. At the last call center I worked for, I was promoted into leadership as a trainer before my training had officially been completed. Even in my ugly skirts and clunky heels, I walked around the place like a rock star and was treated as such. My reputation as the “Wicked Bitch of the West” didn’t stop the corporate big wigs from offering me the work from home gig when I announced that I was leaving Texas. These days I still talk to people in that call center as part of my job. Someone I’d never met called me by the wrong name once, and when I corrected him he replied that he was surprised he would confuse me because everyone around there always talked about how “Hot” I am. I guess my skirts weren’t as ugly as I thought.

*PS- that really was a typo. The guy that out-ranked me is fabulous and I adore him. Except that the fucker got the shift I wanted. So I hate him. But I love him. Really. And now I'm working 8 hr days instead of 10 hr days.

And here's what I came across on my news feed this morning:

http://www.xojane.com/fun/i-can-take-a-compliment-but-i-cant-dish-it-out-sort-of

THOSE BITCHES!