Kids

J. and I find it really really easy to talk to each other about the life we want to live together. Tonight I feel like giving you a snapshot of that life... Our dreams about our future kids :)

We want to name them Keegan Alexander, and Kaylie Hope. (That is, if we have a boy and a girl. Either way we want to have two kids.) We talk all the time about the things we'll do with them, like read books before bed, have epic nerf gun wars, watch only a little TV, never make any implications about gender roles that are restricting, have tea parties and board game nights and go on adventures and be happy... We've decided that when we get pregnant, we'll keep the sex of the baby a surprise so that they'll only be bombarded with all the colors of the rainbow, not just pink or blue. We'll let Keegan play video games when he's six, and date when he's 12, and Kaylie can date when she's... 13? (Even though I'd rather make her wait till she's 39 ;D...) We already refer to them with pet names, Keeg and Kayl, and they feel as real to us as our own relationship is.

It's possible this behavior is unhealthy... I've learned the hard way that when I'm in a relationship, making plans for the future can sometimes lead to attachment to an idea rather than a person... But with J., I'm fairly sure that that will never be a problem; we talk about current events and feelings and hopes and dreams way more than we talk about K-squared. We don't obsess over them, but when we daydream and talk about what we want our lives to become, they come up a lot and we love to talk about them :)

The other day I was thinking about a lot of things, and since this isn't a blog about my philosophies outside of relationships, I'll only copy the part relevant to K-squared. Enjoy!

I want my children to be as tall as mountains and small as atoms and I want them to dream in the realms of all the gods ever dreamt of and prayed to, and to have the stars in their eyes lest they trip on the dirt of the earth. I want them to laugh for no reason at all and cry tears when they discover sadnesses that they will learn are not worthy of their tears at all. I want her to never be simply pretty, and I want him to never be simply a fun guy. I want them to be infinite and almighty and completely knowledgeable of the fact that they are not knowledgeable of anything at all. But most of all, I want them to feel loved.

Do you ever picture your future, your kids, your house? Does it make you feel silly? Have you never done it, and think I'm totally crazy??? Let me know!

See you when I see you.
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Kiss

A kiss is such an amazing action. But what makes it so intense? Well there's the obvious closeness of bodies, the extra sensitivity of the skin around your lips, the feel of another's living breath on your cheek, the instant sexual responses a kiss can bring with it... And then there's something I like to think about when I think about kisses. This. When you talk to anybody, at all, unless of course you are using ASL, you communicate with your mouth. Every word you say, be it heartfelt, silly, or highly important, travels through your lips. Your lips become the passageway of every belief and idea you hold dear as they enter the universe outside your body. They shape us in the eyes of others almost as much as our actions do. Allowing another pair of lips to touch yours, bringing the thoughts of two souls together, is such an intimate expression of trust and acceptance that it becomes one of the most intense and basic actions we can use to communicate something as complicated as love.

The first time you kiss someone, people ask if you felt a "spark"... A special stirring in the pit of your stomach that is brought on by that new connection you've just boldly made. With J. and I, the first time we kissed, he was dozing in the pleasant June sunshine, and we were listening to our playlist, and I was staring at him, and I leaned down to kiss him, finally, after waiting a whole week of wanting to. Funny story, I kind of caught him off guard, as he was dozing off and wasn't expecting a kiss, but he eventually realized what I was doing and kissed me back. But there was no spark. Nada. Zip. And I was so sad and worried that maybe our relationship wasn't what I had hoped it could be. But the next time we saw each other, after the awkwardness of a first date had dispelled a bit, and we felt a little more comfortable... Not only was there a "spark", but I was thrown off my feet by the intensity of our kiss. It felt like an amazing connection between me and a soul perfectly molded to work with mine, and my stomach filled with warmth, and my toes curled, and my hands reached out for his face, and my heart started running triple time and my whole body screamed that yes, this was the right kind of kiss indeed.

As our relationship continued, kisses became more and more common, as habits do, and I was always afraid I would lose the intensity of that initial spark. But, with J., it never has. Every time I kiss him, the universe spins around me in a dizzying sensation, and he's the only thing keeping me on the ground. My body screams that I am doing something right, and that I should continue. Our kisses don't fade and we struggle to pull away nine times out of ten. The feeling of his lips on mine is probably the only thing in my life I've ever felt this confident in, that it is so right and perfect.

Have you ever felt this way every time you kissed someone? Were they / are they the one?? How does it feel when you kiss them after time apart? Let me know!

See you when I see you.
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Resolution

Last year on New Year's Eve, I questioned how much I "loved" the man I was with. The year before, I had said "I love you" to him the first time. So much changed in that year, and in this one. In this year, I left someone, became a new person, found the love of my life, developed a rock solid relationship with him, fucked something up, but pushed through and confirmed the strength of our relationship. Last year, my resolutions were to lose weight,  find a job, and be a good girlfriend for a man who didn't deserve me. This year, I don't need to change, at least not to please the man I love. This year, my only "resolution" is to be happy. Simply, completely, Happy. To change the things I can and to accept the things I can't. To smile when I want to cry and to find good traits and wellness where others only see despair and hatred. To never hate. To explore and explore and explore and explore and be content to know that I know absolutely nothing. To be, and be content. To be, and to search, and to laugh and love and give and live. Last year, I changed, and found the capacity to be this person of happiness. This year, I will find this happiness.

According to this amazing man on this video, we are, by our own perspective, the scientific exact center of the universe. At every moment. I am the center of the universe that surrounds me. I react and feel and think in a way totally unique to myself, and the rest of the universe goes on around me. No matter what I do, the universe will continue to grow and think and react and BE in a different way than me, and I cannot ever change that. So, I sit in my center and I observe and I explore and I learn and I contemplate, and I take away the fact that nothing is the same, and I am the center, able to observe everything around me.

Another thing to think about: the future just happened. And again. And again. Now. And now. And now. The "future" is happening every single second, but we waste it's potential and fullness with plans for big things to do. Nobody plans to breathe and eat and drink and sleep and live in their "future". People plan college and marriage and kids and a house and the mortgage and other peoples' funerals, and they breathe and they live right through the little moments. The little moments, wasted. Gone. The future? The present, the past, the long forgotten. Imagine all of the breaths you've ever taken in your life... and do we remember a single one? I'm not saying I'm about to start counting, come 2013. But I'm going to start contemplating.

Why would I ever waste a single second being worried or mad or sad? What is there to be sad about, really? Besides large events, life is precious and wonderful, and five minutes of happiness and appreciation of being alive and doing something outweighs five years of petty, shallow sadness.

I'm not turning my back on the importance of passion and the potency of amazing ranging emotions. But when I say being alive, I'm including all of these emotional considerations. I've said before what I think it means to be a person, and to think and feel and love and learn. Being happy about being alive might just be shadowed over by a shitty day or a crappy event. But in the seconds and breaths between the darkness, I'm going to find light in being alive. And that's that.

Happy New Years, everyone. What's your resolution?

See you when I see you.
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Abandoned

Do you ever find that one friend who decides they get tired of you and leaves your life, thinking they can just waltz back in when they feel like it? Yeah. 

"I will not be brutally abandoned only so I can sit patiently and wait until you decide you need me. I have always been here and I have always been me. It's not my fault if it took you too long to realize that."

Sometimes I think I've pushed people away recently because I have changed so much this whole year of 2012. I've grown into myself, and realized what I believe and stand by in my life. Through this change, some of my friends have realized that I'm no longer the best match for them, and have moved on, which is ok. Other friends have come into my life, and I've formed great bonds with people who think along the same lines as I do. Still others, people I used to be friends with who decided I was too annoying in the past, have noticed my new maturity and have tried to come back into my life as if they had never left. But for me, it doesn't really work like that.

I'm all for forgiveness, I really am. I believe people really can change (lord knows I have) and I think that people fuck up sometimes, and that that is just to be expected. But when people purposefully leave your life, even when you need them, and then come back hoping you'll do everything for them you always had as if they had never left... That's a little hard for me to stomach. I don't deal well with being left for "better things" and when I'm hurt, I'm hurt, and it's hard for me to forget that hurt feeling. Even though I have changed, I have always been basically me (caring, willing to help, listening, and supportive) and those are the qualities you cannot give up on just to come back to when you decide you need them.

I'm not mad. I'm a little disappointed that the person causing me this angst thinks that I love and care shallowly enough to accept that they "miss me" and that they want me "back in their life" after they didn't answer my messages for six months straight. I'm a little disappointed they think so lowly of me that I wouldn't be hurt by their actions, and that I don't deserve an apology. I'm a little disappointed they left in the first place, when I was only trying to grow closer to them in the first place. But I'm not mad. And I will forgive them. But I may not forget.

Have you been abandoned? Have you been the person on the other end, and what did you do? Let me know!

See you when I see you.
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Parents

This is a blog about relationships, and I know I definitely stick to pretty much the same topic- my heterosexual, romantic relationship with my lovely partner, J.. However, there are other relationships on my mind today, namely my relationship with my parents. Oh boy. Where do I even begin?

I've never had a perfect relationship with either of my parents, more like fleeting moments of "good" in which I seem to be on the same page as them and everybody is happy. But outside of those moments, not only are all of our wavelengths totally different, but they also violently crash and cancel out in a frightful scene every so often. While my dad is an aggressive and very lazy hypocrite, my mom is incredibly judgmental and two-faced. I don't think I could subjectively describe myself well enough for fairness sake, but to be as critical as I can be, I'm fairly arrogant and attention-loving, and I take sides really easily, especially since I'm argumentative. So, that's our jolly fun-time family dynamic that lays the base for all of our... adventures.

My dad has always been a yeller, even when he was just engaged to my mom 27 years ago. She always tells me about their first fight, and that she was shocked at his behavior, and how now it is pretty much his go-to "angry man" behavior. He screams and yells and curses and throws stuff, hits walls, stomps feet, slams doors... He really goes the nine yards. What's worse is that usually he puts words in peoples' mouths and makes mountains out of mole hills, and so his arguments are not only pointless, stupid, and inefficient, but often childish and wasteful, as well as incredibly hurtful. He would sooner yell at you until you cried, and then continue to bitch because he felt guilty, than calmly ask you to re-explain yourself so he knew what you were actually trying to say. This is also the same man who, when given ONE chore for the day from his wife (who is also the only one working, the only one who shops and cooks, and the only one who helps me with school) doesn't JUST sleep all day and not do it, but also scream at said wife when she asks if he did the chore, asking "how dare she force him to do something when he already does so much?" Yeah. That kind of man.

As for my mom, she is ridiculously judgmental. She will go to church, pay her dues, "pray" reverently, and then bitch incessantly about anybody who didn't please her on the way home. Even people who are just being who they are can't hide from my mom's hell-fire. She calls people out for being "strange" or not "normal" enough like it was her job. All my life she's slipped me snarky little comments about my weight or appearance, never agreeing with my sense of fashion, always criticizing anything she didn't like (down to something as simple as blue nail polish or yellow eye shadow). My sneakers, though comfortable, functional, and worn down, are an "embarrassment" to her, and so she insists I throw them out. God forbid I suggest we shop at Sears because "people like us don't shop somewhere like that", even though I've seen her count pennies and cut coupons for toilet paper more times than you would care to know. She thinks her way is the best way, and that is that.

Something both my parents share is an inability to think outside the box, or to search for meaning in their lives. My mom is convinced there is a heaven, and that she is going there because she is religious, and that that is all she needs to do. Sure, she helps homeless people at a shelter every couple of months. Sure, she helps out at church. But does she make the world a better place mentally and intellectually, ever? Not really. In fact, her judgment taints others and her view of the world, and while luckily only clouding her own vision, still gets in the way of others if it changes her actions because of it. As for my dad, he's open to new ideas, but only if he agrees with them. The man won't argue against gay marriage because he thinks that people should have equal rights... But he will argue against it because it's "not natural" in his eyes.

I didn't come on here tonight to complain about my parents. Everybody could do that if they wanted. I came on here to talk about relationships. So, here is what results from these crazy parents in my life. Obviously, I'm nothing like them, or I would never notice these atrocities the way I do. But I never say a single thing about it. Because, truthfully, the pair of them are too thick to realize that I am different and that I look down on them. And if I ever tried to tell them, or make an argument that I was their intellectual equal, or superior, I would be quickly discouraged, not listened to, and dismissed to my room while I learned my "place". So, our relationship has developed into that quiet thing that turns it's head when intelligent conversation comes dancing into possibility. Our differing views and personalities make it impossible for us to talk above the trivial and inconspicuous, and so our relationship has stunted while I have grown, and I can no longer meet them eye to eye. Whether or not they see that, I'm not sure, but it has happened in the past year so quickly it's slapped me in the face at every conversation with it's harsh newness.

Although it's perhaps a shame that I will continue to let my parents live in the blissful ignorance that I am their faithful, willing daughter, it's best for them. They have functioned for 26 years without me throwing in my stubborn thoughts and opinions that belong in this century into their workings. Now the oil is thinner and my seemingly outlandish behavior does not help. I see the question "how is this our daughter" in their minds at every left turn, and so I always veer right. Little do they know I'm only traveling further and further away.

Have you drifted from your parents, or are you similar to them? Do you have a good or bad relationship with your parents? Let me know!

See you when I see you.
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New

Every time J. and I hang out and have the opportunity to have a little fun, we generally take it shamelessly and quickly (because we are, deep down inside, simply horny teenagers), and tonight was no different. We probably pissed off a couple of movie-goers who happened to look the wrong way while we were smooching, but we tried to be discreet while sneaking kisses during the film. But whether it was the suspense and secretive sense added by the public setting, or the precious time together after a little while of not having a chance to be together, every single time J. kissed or touched or caressed me, it felt brand new. Every breath I took felt like a gasp of fresh air and every breath he took mirrored the intensity and emotion of my own. All of his skin, his face, his eyes, his lips, his mouth, all of it felt new. His voice sounded new and beautiful in my ear and his hand on my face and in my hair sent new tingles and shivers down my back.

I don't know if anything was different tonight than it ever has been before... But it all felt new and wonderful, and pretty much magical.

There's something about J. that only shines through in moments where we are absolutely together and seemingly undisturbed by anyone around us. He gets a certain way when he feels comfortably alone with me that he never gets any other time. He becomes more intimate, both gentler and more urgent at the same time. He pulls my face close to his and reaches for my hands to hold him as well, and he breathes deeper and quicker, and he kisses harder and softer at the same time, and it's all really incredible. The first time he kissed me when we were alone in the car, I was shocked (pleasantly) at this new sensation, but that was months ago, and that couldn't have been the newness I felt tonight. So, while all of that was there tonight, the newness was something different.

J. and I also have this thing where we say "I do" instead of "I love you" sometimes, because it holds more of a promise than the intent of "I love you" and resonates deeper with both of us. It's still a new thing in our relationship, and we definitely don't over use it, but tonight at one point I told James I loved him, and when he said "I love you more" I simply replied "I do"... To which he promptly whispered back "I do, I love you baby". This sent chills down my spine and all over my body and filled me with an amazing warmth because the love of my life was promising me something special and whispering it in my ear and I felt simply incredible. But, that wasn't what the newness was from either.

I don't know about anybody else, but when I date people, I tend to fall into a pattern of kissing with them pretty quickly, and I usually don't venture far off that path with them. However, with J., we both like to switch things up and try different techniques and pressures, etc, and it keeps things fun and exciting and we discover new ways to spice up our simple kisses. Tonight we were all about that. For nearly 2 straight hours, we kissed, and kissed, and kissed, and every single one was different. But that wasn't it either.

It was mostly, I think, the thrill of being loved through all the shitty things that have happened recently. I made a bad decision a week ago; a decision that could have ruined us if I or J. had chosen to let it. But we didn't, and we pushed through, and we celebrated Christmas, and we kissed in a movie theatre, and we whispered I do in the darkness, while 100 people around us were oblivious to the beautiful nascent loving thing that was being created in the back row amidst teenage lust and love and forgiveness and the relief of moving on. And that new level of connection, of love and total happiness was that feeling I experienced in my partner's arms tonight. And I loved every second of it.

Do you have moments of new? Do you ever feel that incredible sensation of becoming stronger, of forging another link in the chain of a relationship? Do you think they stick out as much as I feel they do? Let me know!

See you when I see you.
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Options

J. and I had originally decided that we didn't want to have sex until I was on borth control, just to be on the safe side. Recently we have learned and figured out that I probably won't be able to be on the pill until about a year from now, and while we're in no hurry to have sex, the wait seems a little daunting and annoying and nearly pointless. So, lately we have changed our policy a bit... Not to just say fuck it and have unprotected sex, but to have condoms around and available as options with us in case we decide we are ready to have sex and want to have sex so that if that is the case, we can do so safely and without too much worry. It's not that we are going to immediately rush out to do it, butthat if we decide we are both ready, we can indeed have sex.

I think options like this in a relationship are really important, for some obvious and not so simple reasons. Firstly, the one that seems obvious; unprotected sex is not a good idea, especially not for the first time, and it is a much better plan to have back up than to have no plan at all. Secondly, with an easy plan that doesn't have a set time limit, J. and I are free to decide the exact circumstances of the first time we have sex. We don't need to plan around anything other than our normal plans and as long as he always has a condom in his wallet, we also have the freedom of spontaneity, which is a good thing for us personally because we are very spontaneous people.

The less in-your-face reason i think it's good to have options of any kind in a relationship is that there is simply more freedom for both partners to make the relationship more personal and tailored in respect to individual wishes and needs. There should never be ultimatums in relationships revolving around important issues. It should not be "sex now or no sex ever" or "marry me or never speak to me again". People do not work robotically, and compromise is necessary for a healthy relationship. Without compromise there is dominance and loss of expression of individual beliefs and feelings, as well as an unhealthy feeling of pressure that can lead to regret or hurt feelings. Options lead to compromise and relaxed decisions in love and those are essential for healthy relationships.

Whatever happens in the sex department between J. and I will happen; all I know now is that we have the ability to decide when where and how we lose our virginities, and I'm really happy and grateful for that.

Did you have options when you were faced with losing the v-card? Did you lack options and wish you had had them? Or was it spontaneous and optionless and amazing?et me know!!!

See you when I see you.
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