bouncing bisexually

So I just learned about this thing called "gay bounce." I recently met up with an old high school friend and her and her wife dropped some knowledge on me. And as they were explaining it, I realized -- oh my god. Last summer/fall I experienced my own bisexual bounce.

Gay bounce - to my understanding - is when someone starts identifying/coming out as gay/queer/lesbian whatever - and they tend to "overcompensate" a bit by leaning towards or obsessing over more "stereotypical" "gay" behavior. I'm putting in lots of quotation marks because what the hell do I know. But anyway. 

Last June gay marriage was ruled legal in the US by the Supreme Court. I was at (my super conservative) work when I found out. I literally started jumping up and down and squealing. I, like many other people, had been hoping and expecting this day to come for years. I was so excited and felt such a strange sense of victory and community, that the moment I went on lunch break I decided to come out as bisexual. Publicly. On Facebook. Prior to that moment, only my husband knew I definitely identified as bisexual. There were a couple others that maybe knew I was attracted to girls, or at least appreciated their looks. But I had never really told another person. Before I posted on Facebook, I felt like I should discuss it with Jesse first - but when he didn't answer after multiple calls and texts, I just decided to do it and sent another text telling him I would take it down if he would like me to. Of course, he was totally fine with it. 

Honestly - my Facebook posting didn't get a ton of attention. I spoke to a few people who were supportive and maybe a little hurt I hadn't told them before. My mom was "hurt" as well but mostly decided to just dismiss it as "unimportant" (after all, I had married a man, right? that erases it, right?). I was "a few month's shy of my" 26 birthday. (You are welcome for that reference. Literally, it was one month before my birthday though.)

I've known I was sexually attracted to women since I was 17. I talked about with a(n asshole) boyfriend around that age (he'd alternate between calling it "sexy" and calling it a sin, what a peach). Jesse has known since before we even started dating. I didn't identify as bisexual until I was probably 23 or so. And yes, by that time I was (happily) married and didn't give it much thought outside of some fantasies. 

Coincidentally, amazingly, surprisingly: within a week or so of "coming out" I kissed a girl for the first time. I had never met this girl before, we weren't Facebook friends, she had no clue I had just come out. We were just talking, porn was brought up, I mentioned some of my interests... Okay, maybe it wasn't super coincidental. Before I came out I probably wouldn't have had the courage to be so bold. 

Within a few short months, I had "proven" (if you really need to do such a thing) that I was DEFINITELY into girls. And I. Was. Ob. Sessed. I chopped my hair off. I got a second piercing (its related, don't ask me how). I created a Kik and OkCupid account. I was posting on various forums. I went to a strip club (okay I'd done that already) and spent waaaaaaay too much (those lap dances tho). I'd planned out my next tattoo - a bisexual themed one (which I'm still getting, fuck it). I had picked up coloring books as a new hobby and somehow my color schemes always turned to pink-purple-blue or sometimes just rainbow. There are definitely SEVERAL blog posts about it (and yet, here is another one!). I dunno, it was all I could think of! And honestly? It was a super exciting time in my life. I had HELLA fun. I don't feel my personality changed all that much, other than being more open/forward. Definitely have had some sexually forward moments. But it was really, really amazing. And the most amazing part was realizing I wasn't alone. That a girl being into girls -- even when you're in a committed relationship with a man -- is pretty common. I felt such a beautiful sense of validation, belonging. 

Of course, it didn't last forever. My exploration slowed down. I dunno if it was by choice or circumstance or coincidence, but it did. I've settled back into my normal self - maybe with some more gay references, maybe still dreaming of beautiful boobs. And I think in some ways I have more confidence in myself. 

I miss the craziness of my bisexual bounce. But it wasn't all easy. It did come with its own set of insecurities and issues. Jesse has supported me every step of the way and we are committed to loving each other every day. But that doesn't mean it doesn't take work, hard work; our relationship is going to change out of necessity - I am a different person than I was last year, and so is he. We are closer than ever, but also we now have to be more careful about how we balance each other out. What I focus is on is that my happiness is important to him, and his happiness is important to me. It takes work and sacrifice and understanding. 

I need Jesse: emotionally, sexually, mentally, down to my soul. I also need to experience every aspect life has to offer me.

In some ways, I have it pretty fucking good. 

love,

lisapink(purpleblue)


p.s. anytime I have the opportunity bounce back I am so totally ready.

fourteen

Okay, if a therapist is part psychic, is that how you know he's really good? 

My emotional development stopped at 14. Scared, awkward, hurt. 

When I see teenage girls - my nieces, especially - I want to fight for them and hug them and tell them its all going to be okay. I want to tell them I know exactly how they're feeling (even though I probably don't) and that they are awesome just the way they are. 

When I see myself, all I can see if flaws, mistakes. I'm fat, I'm stupid, I'm selfish, why did I say that, no one likes me, I'm going to fail. 

But I would never let anyone else say those types of things to a person - especially a girl just trying to figure it all out. And that's who I am inside. And that's how I need to treat myself. I need to love myself, be my own champion, protect myself, be my own mother. I've been searching for a mother's love. My own mother will never be able to give me what I need. No one can fill that role - except myself. I am capable of giving myself what I need. I'm taking back the power of a mother. My own has abused that power, hurt me with it, betrayed me time after time. I will not allow that to happen any longer - not by her or myself. There is nothing worse than being your own abuser - you are the one person you can't get away from. The one person that no one else can see is hurting you. 

I am beautiful. Kind. Loving. Intelligent. Strong. I am my own best friend. I am my everything. 

I felt so good about all of that last week. I felt like it was the perfect solution to my depression. But there's one little loophole: 

You're not always the only one saying bad stuff about you. Sometimes other people say bad stuff about you. Sometimes it might even be true. You can only love the good parts about yourself - what if you legitimately have some bad parts? You don't mean to have bad parts. Sometimes I just don't know how to cope and it comes out that way. Sometimes I can't get out of bed. Sometimes other people can't take care of me. Sometimes I'm self-conscious and sad and angry and it comes out in ways that hurt other people. And yes, its only because I'm hurting so very desperately myself. But they can't know that. And even if they do, it doesn't make it okay. 

I'm a black-and-white thinker. I shouldn't be, but its hard to change. So when I hear bad stuff about myself, over and over and over again, I can't help but feel there isn't any good left to love. 

I'll work on it, I guess. I don't know. 

love,

lisapink

This. This. So much this.

An old friend, one whom I haven't had much contact with in recent years, sent me something tonight. I'm so grateful we've made plans to reconnect again. What she sent me was so beautiful, so perfectly encapsulates so much of what I feel in my heart so much of the time for so many people. I think there have been times in my life when I haven't felt this way -- self-absorbed, young love, lost and confused times -- but my soul never can stay detached for long.

You, whoever you are, reading this now: I love you. And I choose to love myself just as I love you: fully and deeply and unafraid. I'm here for you.

Love,
lisapink

"Can We Be Lovers & Not Have Sex?"
Via Brentan Schellenbach
http://www.elephantjournal.com/2013/10/can-we-be-lovers-not-have-sex/

"Can we be lovers and not have sex?

I want a life of a million lovers.

I want to love you.

I want to love you if you are male or female, young or old, single or married…

When I see you we will embrace and hold a hug long enough to glimpse some insight from each other’s heartbeat.

When we walk down the street we shall link arms, pause frequently, and turn our toes and noses towards the other to speak directly without modesty.

I would like us to share the couch together, rather than creating a “do not cross” line where we may as well be sitting on brick blocks seated four feet away. Give me your knee, your foot, your thigh—let your body dangle on top of my body so I can know you the way litters of kittens know each other.

I want to show up to you and look into your eyes instead at your eyes. I want to feel your hand and be consumed by it until the rest of the world ceases to exist. I want to be in your presence and be in want of nothing.

I would like you to leave our time together feeling loved and free and full of your most vibrant and luscious hue of you-ness.

Please do not get confused: I do not want to have sex with you—whether you are male or female.

I have no sexual agenda, as you know, because we laugh at the freedom we feel to speak to strangers for reasons other than because we have to or because we’re hitting on them.

For me, sharing sex with someone requires a certain alignment, and I do not take that lightly. My sex requires that I can possibly foresee living with a person and combining all my stuff with all of their stuff (and I mean physical, emotional, cognitive and spiritual stuff—the stuff that just feels heavy if it’s not the right fit, but feels buoyant beyond imagination when it is). It is delicate, it is careful, it is not presumptuous or impulsive.

And I do not think that our connection is somehow weakened because we do not share our bodies with each other.

For love is love is love is love, and that is what I want.

I only want us to fall in love.

Now I realize that at some point, either you or I may change our minds and crave sexual expression with each other.

For I am human—as are you—and we have wants that change and grow.

But if that desire should spring upon one of us, I hope that we will talk about it, the way we talk about the universe, cultural tropes, the nature of depression, what makes a good cup of coffee, and how your day was yesterday.

I hope that that topic of conversation is no more avoided than talking about the latest episode of Doctor Who or how to effectively clean one’s mouth from Oreo breath.

I would like you to share yourself with me—every stitch of you—so that I may be warmed and nourished by your tapestry. And I would not like you to worry that some of your threading is inappropriate or uncomfortable to share with me, because I am only here to accept you exactly as you are and to take interest in the way you step through life.

So lay on me your doubts, your troubles, your faux pas, your suffering, your sadness. Lay on me your hopes, your dreams, your excitements, your curiosities, your guilty pleasures.

I want to see you how you see yourself.

And while you tell me all of this and more, I would like to rest my eyes upon your eyes, and take my hand upon your back, and laugh up to the ceiling as you divulge, because it is in these moments of pure exposure that I bask in the ever-so-specific you, and I become the ever-so-specific me, and even though you’ve never stepped into the tides of the pacific and I’ve never ridden a skateboard, I am more sure than I’ve ever been that we are the same.

I don’t care if I see you everyday or if I see you only just the one time when I happened to be in that coffee shop and you happened to be making my drink (which was delicious, by the way, and thank you for not rolling your eyes when I asked if your only non-dairy milk was soy)—I want to be your lover.

And I will have the lover whom I share a bed with, and it will be none the less—on the contrary, that love will be all the more—because I take on another million lovers.

So if you’re ready, let me see you and let me love you.

My insides, my arm, my couch, my laugh, my eyes, my toes are all for you.

I hope that is enough."

Bffs

Summer and Marissa. Bo and Kenzi. Blair and Serena. Leslie and Ann. Lucy and Ethel. Jess and Cece. Elizabeth and Jane. Sarah/Cosima/Allison/Helena. Ella and Aeriana. Abbi and Illana. Poussey and Tastee. Tina and Amy. Shawn and Gus. Lisa and Chels. Girlfriends are like the most important relationship in the world. They define who we become. They anchor us to who we are and watch us change into someone new.

And they make us not feel so freaking alone. Like, yeah, I'm sitting here on a Friday night. Drinking alone. But it hasn't always been this way and it won't always be this way. Right?

Aw fuck. I know. I know exactly how this sounds. And you're right. I'm just in this stage. I have to wonder if anyone else has these stages? I wonder what anyone else thinks about at all.

How do I break this? I need to bitch slap this soul-sucking social slump. I need a friend. Someone, here, now, who will girlfriend with me. Bitch over drinks about all the drama in our lives that really isn't that bad and laugh at reality TV and tell each other we're still hot even though we need to lose an unspecified amount of weight and who the hell else will understand how much our wonderfully sweet significant other bugs us sometimes! And then we go home to our significant others and tell them everything we couldn't tell our girlfriend and are we really beautiful even we look nothing like when we first met???

I'm not trying to be shallow or ungrateful or self-centered. I know that I am so lucky in so many ways. I'm trying to be patient, to find a person or people who I can truly connect lives with. Just because it doesn't seem to be here yet doesn't mean I'm going to give up. But oh God, it fucking sucks in the process.

i dedicate this post

Hey girl - I wanted to take a minute to let you know that I’m gonna miss you. I know we didn’t get a chance to become super close - but it doesn’t matter - you still had a big impact on my life. For the first time in a long time (maybe ever) I met someone who made me feel like I’m unique but I’m not alone, that maybe there are other people out there who would appreciate the things that make me, me.

I admire so much about you!

You’re like fiercest feminist and it's beautiful. You actually care/are aware of politics, and you’ll fight for social equality anywhere, anytime. You’re boldly and wonderfully outspoken. But you’re also sensitive. You truly care about the people in your life, and you aren’t afraid to show it. You get that life isn’t always peaches and roses, and embrace that darker side of emotions. Yet you don’t let it pop your pep. You’ve been through depression, religion, all these things in your life and I can tell that you know you relied on your own strength to get you through. And you love books! Ugh, you are fantastic.

I never got “casual” people. Passive people. The ones who don’t care too much about anything, or would rather not cause “contention,” who wanna keep chat light and simple. The ones who glide through life with their eyes closed to anything but the stuff that feeds their blindness. That’s not you. And it's not me. We’ve got our eyes wide open and are seeing life for all its crazy, painful, goddamn beautiful bullshit.

Good luck, girl. You are going wonderful places.

love,
lisapink

Kathleen Kelly

Too many thoughts to even put in to words. It's actually quite rare for me. I've been feeling hopeless. Is there any reason to believe the future will be any different from the past?

"I lead a small life - well, valuable, but small - and sometimes I wonder, do I do it because I like it, or because I haven't been brave? So much of what I see reminds me of something I read in a book, when shouldn't it be the other way around?" - You've Got Mail

I can't always tell if it's been valuable. How could you measure that? My own measurements always fall short. I've tried to be brave. But I've never managed to be big. I've never lived life fearlessly. And it's the only life I have. Why do I wait to be validated, to have love proven to me, to know the outcome before I leap? I spend so much time worrying, questioning, staying safe within my fear. Isn't that what I fought to break free of?

I want to let go of everything keeping me in my smallness. Yet somehow it doesn't feel possible. Not all ties are our own making.

Ignore this last bit.

love,
lisapink

The numbers scroll by in a familiar, comforting wave. Ten days, complete the Registration. Two months, end friendship with Gresham. One year, forty-six days, meet Turi. One year, eighty-five days, fall in love with Turi. Four years from now, we will be mothers as I lead the Xontinuum into its next era of knowledge. The Past. The Numbers show there is no longer wishes and longings; all will be fulfilled and all will be best. I smile and close my eyes. Then a tug of the lips downward. I can't explain it. The area beneath my breastbone has that off feeling again, as if something in there has been reduced. I think of Turi and its almost as if one year won't be soon enough. As if it'll be.... Too late? It doesn't make sense and I grasp my Adhesion tighter to my chest. There's no such thing as too late when I have my entire future written out in my hands, down to the second. Life is always on time.

I didn't tell you so

My mom is moving back to Utah. With my dad and their adopted kid obvs. I just forget to mention them sometimes.

It's been barely six months. Apparently abandoning your entire family for some random ass city isn't the path to true happiness.

Mixed feelings. I just want a normal life with a normal mom but I guess it's too much to ask for.

My therapist said I can't say I told you so but I'm saying it here.

Still
Moving back doesn't erase the emotional trauma she caused.

God. There are so few people in this world I can count on. And lately I've been too fucked up in the head to even appreciate. All I can see is what I don't have.

love,
lisapink