Sexkitten

Jennifer and I collapse in the steam room after our workout. She called as I was heading out the door, her voice strain with the effort not to lose herself. I know what is coming. We’ve been here many times before. I ask her to meet me at the gym and she did.

I’ve written several posts about Jennifer in the past. She is an extremely intelligent woman, who in most areas of her life is capable of making sensible, rational, common sense decisions. Yet for many years now she’s been involve with a married man who gave her an engagement ring promising marriage as soon as he divorces his wife.

Jen is still wearing the ring, and he’s still married… three years later.

I have long stopped asking questions and giving advice. She stops by to talk, and I listen. She cries and I hand her napkins to blow her nose and wipe her tears. I don’t understand and I no longer try to. She fascinates me; this ability to stay and believe and fight for someone else’s husband. I once ask her, “Jen what is it that is broken in you that you choose this life?”

“What is broken in you that you would never think of staying, not for a single moment and fight for a man you love, even if he is married?” she asked.

We stared at each other, me thinking about her twisted logic. “Self-love,” I said. “Reason and logic, pride and compassion for his wife and children who may love him too,”

“He doesn’t love her,”

“So he says,”

“I want him,” She said stomping as if wanting to plant herself into the ground to solidify her position.

“Then one day you shall find yourself beaten bloody and washed up on shore, with the realization that you have given your life to a man who places no value on it,” I said.

“And you will always stand alone, holding firm your standards that no man can live up to,” she said.

She intrigue and scares me for all that she is and that I am not. Family and friends have distanced from her. I won't. I don't agree with what she's doing. I don't condone it in anyway, but does that mean we cannot be friends?

The calming effect of the steam-room was immediate. I realized a long time ago, that the steam-room is a place where women come to cry. There is something about the white fog that makes one feel safely lost, and where if only for a moment, we let go. I have shed a few tears in this unlikely haven.

The sound of her sniffling did not come with surprise. We had not yet discussed why she called but it was coming. We all have our way of exorcising our demons. Some people use drugs, alcohol, sex, work, food, pills…; I write my life story on a world-wide forum, yet safely hidden behind a computer screen. She talks to a woman who has learned to just listen without judgment.

Part of Jen’s problem in staying I believe, is that she is making an emotional decision to a problem that requires logic and common sense. Emotions, especially those of the heart can blind and imprison us. Stand too close to a mirror and we cannot see clearly what is in front of us. Now that I am aware of this, my first instinct is to recognize and distinguish between the two and act accordingly. It is hard to act against once heart, but there are times when it is necessary.

We are our problem. We are also our solution.

“She stopped by last night,” Jen said after a while.

“Who stopped by last night?” I asked.

“His wife,” she said with a touch of irritation. “She found the text messages that I’ve been sending John. She tracked me down. She’s really nice,” She paused as if the idea of her lover’s wife being nice is a difficult concept to grasp. “John told her that I am a desperate, crazy woman who have a crush on him and won’t stop harassing him,”

“Women know how to fake orgasm. Men know how to fake an entire relationship.” Sharon stone once said in an interview.

I wish that this love she wanted so badly could’ve worked out, that the man she chose to give her heart deserved it. “How can a married man ask for your life when his is promise to someone else?” I once ask her.

“Just because he's married doesn't mean that he's with the right woman. Do you think I'd be wasting my time if I didn't believe in our love and he in us? Why would he give me a ring if he’s not going to leave her?” Jen responded.

I didn't answer. If she didn't know the answer, it's because she did not want to know.

I close my eyes and escapes into the fog, and left her in hers. I open the secret door to my memories where I visit Kenny. He holds me to him and I am lost again in the love that once healed and protected me. I remain there as long as I could before the heat jolts me back to the present and forces me to close the door.

Once outside, I touch Jen’s hand and squeeze hoping that at least she’s feeling a little better. She will get off the crazy train at some point. We all do. But how much of her life will have been wasted? Who will she have become? What will she have learned about herself at the end of this journey?

Sometimes it's not easy to get back from the places we've been. Jennifer is not good at forgiving herself.

I am the best mother to my boys, not when I am unhappy and falling apart, but when I can stand firm and capable of making sensible, rational, and well thought-out decisions for us. That is when I am the best sister, daughter, friend and lover.

The greatest and most valuable gift that we can give to the people in our lives is the best of who we are. That’s why I am an advocate of self-love, self-fulfilling and self-reliance.

I’ve been accused of being self-fish and cold-hearted for having the audacity to think and say that I am important. Well, I am.

I know what it’s like to be on my knees in the dark. I have cried myself to sleep, and awakened to a new day smiling. I survived CX putting a knife to my throat and threatening to kill me. And nine years of his threats, violence and psychological imprisonment. Still, I get up every day and walk out into the world. It is self-love that heals me. I am important.

I received several emails recommending that I present more a more unified message when discussing relationship issues. It was insinuated that I put little to no emphasis on parnership and seem to place no value on men. My article on Identity was mentioned several times in relation to this perceived idea.

I love and admire and find men beautiful beyond description. As a mother of two boys, I feel that I have a duty to raise men with whom women can be proud to call husband, father and brother.

I have dated some of the most amazing men. The relationships did not work, that does not mean that they were bad. In some of them, I was the problem. But let us not pretend that bad things doesn't happen and learn from our experiences. It is madness not to.

I wasn’t always a poster child for women’s power…I used to believe that my role as a woman was to support my husband in all that he aspires to be even at the expense of myself. I may make suggestions, and offer input, but the big and important decisions were made by him. I would want what he wants. Go where he said we would go, and live the life that he said we would live. I would learn to cook and he would get the biggest and best piece of the chicken.

Growing up, it was the role every woman I knew played. Why would my life be different? But it is different. We live in progressive times and I am a progressive woman. I will love support and encourage yes, but I am not irrelevant. I am important.

What happens if you place your life into the hands of someone who places little to no value on it? Women are abused, raped, killed and abandoned my men to raise children on their own every day.

At the end of my journey all I had was me and a little boy who needed me.
If I didn’t leave, what would’ve become of us?

I learned that not everyone can or should be trusted with my life.
My needs are not secondary. There is no reason why I cannot be the captain of the ship.
I have my own path in life and will be happy to share it with you should our courses align.
Sometimes I should keep the biggest and best part of the chicken for myself.

It is awfully romantic to declare ourselves ONE with a man, but that is an illusion no different than the idea of the tooth fairy. We are, and will always be individuals with separate thoughts and needs and aspirations and sometimes life takes us in different direction. What happens then?

Does a girlfriend give up her dreams to follow a man who is chasing his? I don't know. I would, if it is a decision with which I can live without regret no matter what happens.

Living a self-fulfilling life means a happier you to share with your partner. Imagine two self-fulfilling people working on the same team. Just imagine...

We should take care not to compromise so much of who we are that we become a shell existing only in someone else’s shadow. We should not allow ourselves to be used, misused and reduced to make a relationship work. It can't. It is already broken. In situations such as these, it is guaranteed that the self you’ve abandoned will be needed for your rescue.

I think of D sometimes. He is married now and blissfully happy. I know that if he had stayed for me, he would have lived to regret it. I did not ask him to stay. I couldn't. I had no right. The odds of making it was not in our favor.

And so I wonder… in situations like these, is the question also the answer?

I caught a glimpse of life today, the beginning and the end, in the face of an old woman.

Nellie is 102 years old and marked with lines that zig-zags across her face like a timeless puzzle.

She is almost bald…
The few remaining strands scatter about her head, white as snow.
She has no teeth and speaks in incomprehensible tongue.
She cannot stand or walk and reaches for her
nurse with a shaky hand.

Her mind no longer comprehends the world into which she has grown. She looks about
her, cataract eyes flickers sideways and upward like an infant discovering the world in which she is born.

She is graced now and then with fragmented faces of friends and lovers and family trapped in the fading recess of her memory. She trembles with the effort to hold on, but no use, she is lost within time and space as life prepares her for the journey back from whence she came.

“She is alone,” Anna said. “Everyone she knew is long dead,”

Once a man, twice a child, I thought staring at her from the doorway as Anna spoon feeds her apple sauce. She set her eyes upon me and pauses as if to place me in memory, apple sauce drips down her chin. I stare back, caught in a moment that takes me back in time and thrust me forward all at once.

I caught a glimpse of life today…
I saw in all my stages, what was, is, and will be, should I live long enough for time to take back all that it has given me.

Anna wipes her chin and coos at her as one would a child. Nellie gives up placing me in her fading memories, smiles at Anna, and goes back to eating apple sauce, snapping her toothless gums.

It is said that one cannot capture time. Is time not captured in the newborn, the aging, and the aged among us?

I caught a glimpse of life today…
And recognized what I was being shown; a life over a century old. Experiences, insights, mistakes and lessons learned, locked away and inaccessible in a degenerative mind. We go back the way we came.

I am more thankful for this outlet than I have ever been. What better way to record a life, to capture in motion moments, that if not documented, will disappear with time?

There may come a time when I will be unrecognizable to myself.

I hope that everyone had an enjoyable Christmas, that family and friends was a priority. Mine was quiet and reflective. Not to sound like scrooge, but the older I get, the less into Christmas I have become. I find the season stressful. I am glad that it’s almost over. Had it not been for the boys, Caesar more so than Thorr, I would have disconnected from what I have come to view as commercialized madness a long time ago.

My feeling about the season is partly cultural. I was born and raised on an Island where Santa Claus did not come. There were no toys beneath a Christmas tree come Christmas morning. But the season was festive. There was music and dancing and children playing in the street. Wild flowers decorated the landscape in the most magnificent colors. Visiting friends and family was pleasurable.

For the past few years, I’ve been feeling as if I am playing a game that I don’t want to play, but can’t quite get out. Caesar still believes in Santa Claus. And there is no escaping the commercials and the expectations that is associated with celebrating Christmas. I have friends who are devastated because they cannot afford to buy their children the things that they want which amounts to hundreds of
dollars of stuff. Love is not enough.

As much as I love the pleasure that Caesar gets from ripping through gifts that he believes comes from Santa, a part of me cries out in shame.

There is so much suffering in the world…so many children dying of hunger at this very moment. The excess, of which we are a part, paralyzes me.

I speak to Caesar and Thorr a lot about kindness and the importance of sharing with
others. I want them to understand the value of a dollar, and not take things for granted. I want them to respect life and have compassion for those who are less fortunate. I know that long after they have outgrown the stuff, the values will remain. The simpliest things in life, the stuff that doesn't cost anything, is the most valuable. I want them never to forget that.

I want to take this time to thank my readers not just for sharing my life all these years, but for the privilege of making me a part of yours. I have met some of the most amazing people. I consider many of you friends. I am grateful and thankful for you. As we approach the new year, I lift my glass to you...

Cheers…to us,
The life we’ve lived
The places we’ve been
The lessons we’ve learned
And the people we’ve become.
May we stay true to who we are…
May we live our dreams
May we know our strength in our darkest hours
May we never lose our capacity to love.

The name given to me at birth was based on a mistake that went back two generations.
My father was given for his last name my grandfather’s middle name. And so it came to pass that my sisters and I would also inherit my grandfather’s middle name as our last name.

When I got married, I took my husband’s name...

By the time we divorced, there was very little that I liked or respected about him. Yet I was stuck with his name. For sixteen years, whenever I signed my name, or hear it call out loud, I cringe. I was as disconnected from it as the shattered marriage by which it came.

I tried once to explain it to my friend Allie letting on that I was thinking of officially changing my name. She gave me a look where one of her eye brow lifts high and the other drops so low she looks insane. I giggled as I almost always do when she does it.

“It’s a damn name,” she said. “What do you mean it doesn’t feel like it belongs to you?”

“It’s not mine,” I said. I doesn’t "fit" me,”

She stared at me.

“Kit, it’s a name,”

I changed the subject.

I’ve known Allie for more than twenty years, long enough to know that she would not understand. How could she when I could not quite put into words a knowing that a name is not just a name. It is identity. It is a connection to self that when taken away, is catastrophic. We are all born into a name, history and a legacy that are an integral part of who we are. I spent years saying I am to a name I didn't want, one with the essence of a failed and tragic marriage. There was no pride in it.

Whose idea was it that a woman should give away her name in marriage? To give away her SELF? I will not be doing that again.

In one of the stories my father used to tell me, a woman says to a slave who was renamed by his master, “Slave, what name were you given at birth?” The slave thought long and hard...so long that the woman had to repeat the question. After a while, the slave looked at her with sadness, "I can’t remember,” he said. “I’ve been a slave since I was a boy,”

I have never forgotten the story of the slave who could not remember his name.

Earlier this year, I changed my name to the one that is my birthright. It was not a simple task. I had to change my drivers license, passport, credit cards, contact social security.... But it was worth it. Now when I hear my name, when I say it, when I sign it, there is pride and recognition. When I say “I am” it goes beyond personal, its ancestral. Whatever the legacy, it is mine.