I have to admit that I swiped this video from the inimitable Dorothy, but I can hardly be blamed for not resisting.

First, it’s part of the speechless campaign, second - it involves at least the suggestion of lesbian action, and third - have I mentioned the fact that I’ve had a mad crush on Maggie Gyllenhaal for like, ever and ever? Because I have, and I do, and I lurve her.

Enjoy.

On a lighter note….

A few months ago I came across a fantastic blog written by a woman named Kathryn and immediately felt right at home. The blog, Recovering Straight Girl, was the first that I had found to directly address my current reality, that of coming out after marriage and motherhood. Not only does she address it, but she does so with humor and grace and realism. I was hooked right away.

While exploring her blog that first day, my friend J. (another RSG, about a year ahead of me in the whole process) and I came across Kathryn’s Recovering Straight Girls 12 Steps to Becoming a Lesbian and we just about killed ourselves laughing as we read the steps aloud. I just had to ask permission to post the list here.

Just to make this a little more personal, I’ll include my personal commentary below each step (consider it a warm up for an upcoming post - where I intend to talk about sex)!

The Recovering Straight Girls Twelve Steps to Becoming a Lesbian (reposted with permission from the author)

1. We admit that we are powerless over being lesbians; that our lives have become unmanageable trying and pretending to be straight.

Um. Yeah that. I made a damn good (32 year) attempt of it though.

2. We have come to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity; it is the power of pussy.

Um. Yeah that too. Powerful stuff, that.

Enough said.

3. We have made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to being with women, and have made that shift by actually engaging in hot sexual relations with a woman more than once.

Well, not more than one woman, but definitely more than once. And definitely, definitely, definitely hot.

Did I mention it was hot?

4. We have made a list of all the men that we slept with; accepted that straight sex is mediocre sex, and forgave ourselves for wasting so many precious years sleeping with men. We have come to realize, accept and willingly expect that orgasms do happen (over and over again,) and that they are a normal part of sexual relations. We have also realized accepted, and now expect that sex last longer than ten minutes. Note: Some personal training is required in this area to build up an endurance level.

For this one I am hoping that a mental list will do. Funny, I wouldn’t have categorized most of my (straight) sexual experiences as mediocre sex…I always thought I rather enjoyed it. However, having experienced the reality of being with a woman – well…lets just say everything is relative.

“orgasms do happen (over and over again)”
Funny that. I always assumed I just didn’t have it in me to be a multi-orgasmic woman. Now I know better. Not only are there more of them, but seriously people – they are ***this*** big and ***that*** long. No joke.

“now expect that sex last longer than ten minutes”
Seriously, this has been the most surprising and lovely aspect of my sexual experience thus far. It is so fluid, and not goal-oriented. Truly, all of lesbian sex fits under the heterosexual definition of foreplay, so it just rolls and spirals and spins to the edge and back again for as long as you want it to. For all you straight gals out there, at the risk of being presumptuous and rude… I gotta say, you don’t know what you’re missing.

5. We have admitted to a higher power, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs pretending to be straight. In other words: we came out, and realized that we would rather have dental work done than have sex with another guy.

Well, I have to say that there is no such thing as using the term “came out” in the past tense – because it is such an ongoing process (more on that in another post as well). The coming out process is really life long, I think.

As far as the dental work bit, well – as strange as it seems even to me, I kinda have to agree. Yikes. I really must be gay, ‘cause I hate the dentist.

6. We have made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves and with much certainty and without hesitation, cut our nails, and very possibly our hair. Note: During this step, some recovering straight women may want to also get a tattoo or piercing, this is entirely a matter of choice. A tattoo or piercing is not a requirement as of this writing.

Cut nails – check
I keep waiting for S. to notice and ask why my nails are always so short after years of having them longish, but either he is oblivious or he has decided not to ask. Note: if you’re wondering why the short nails – just think on it for a bit. Rather obvious, no?

Cut hair – check
However, I rather think my hair cut had more to do with wanting to be as cool as Victoria Beckham than it did wanting to embrace Lesbianism. However, there is a page ripped out of a catalogue stuck to my fridge of a woman with short-short hair. Every now and then I look at it and wonder if I would have the guts, and if it would look good…

Tattoo – almost check
I’ve been meaning to have this done for months and months though, way back when I was still deep in denial, so not sure if this counts. However, it is this journey that helped me finally decide what tattoo to get. This will be my second tattoo– so it’s not entirely a RSG thing.

Piercing – nope
My ears are not even pierced anymore. I can’t imagine I’m going to go out and get pierced…although stranger things have happened (like me finally coming out of the closet, for instance). Side note: I am WAY into piercings in other girls though. Both of the women I have kissed have had lip piercings and I have to say, it adds a certain something to the experience! Hmmm…happy memories.

7. We are entirely ready to have the higher goddess remove all these defects of being straight: To prove it, we have gone to at least one lesbian bar, lesbian dance and/or lesbian event (preferable a lesbian folk singer); we have purchased CDs from Melissa Etheridge, KD Lang, and/or The Indigo Girls; and we have acquired at least one item with a rainbow on it.

Lesbian Bar: check, check, check, check.
I think I’ve been to more bars since September than I have in the past decade. It’s like college all over again, except with more girls and no sweaty football players! We’ve actually got a decent number of places to choose from here, although most of them are fairly ghetto. Last night we went to a Lesbian country bar, where I line danced and two-stepped the night away with gay girls from 21 to (I swear) 65!

Lesbian Event: check
Rainbow Festival, and several lesbian folk singers actually. I’ll attend my first Pride in April and hopefully road trip to San Diego Pride in July. I flirted with the idea of going to Dinah Shore with a friend this year, but don’t think I’m up for that yet! Coming up: Tegan and Sara in April, and I heard a rumor of Melissa Ferrick coming to town as well…

Music – check.
Funny story. I was talking to J’s girlfriend T one day about music. We talked about our musical likes and dislikes – including when we discovered certain favorites. Upon hearing that I had been listening to Melissa Etheridge, Indigo Girls, Ani Difranco and Tori Amos since college, T looked at me in disbelief and said in a most incredulous voice, “And you didn’t know you were gay?”!

Rainbows – check
Canadian AND American pride magnets, and my girls insist on keeping a pride flag cling-on in their bedroom window!

8. We are removing our straight shortcomings: We no longer refer to our straight friends who are women as our girlfriends, and reserve that term only for women that we are sleeping with. We have accepted that hiking is a part of life, (although secretly it can be disguised as shopping,) we have purchased a sports bra, (although we know that it’s only to be worn while playing sports.)

I have noticed that I have been more aware of using the term ‘girlfriend’ – although I would never have called the woman I was seeing/sleeping with my girlfriend (called her my not-girlfriend actually) so it didn’t seem to matter as much. I am sure that once I have an actual girlfriend I will be much more careful about how I use the term.

Not so sure about the hiking bit, as I enjoyed that even when I was playing straight. Shopping I am always up for! Sports bras…yes – only during sports. I am NOT a fan of the uniboob.

9. We have traded our magazine subscriptions to Cosmopolitan, Vogue, Elle, and Marie Clare; for new subscriptions to Curve, Girlfriends, and The Advocate.

Well, the only pre-gay magazine subscription I had was to “Lucky” (and that was only because someone bought it for me) although I admit to buying more than my share of “In Style” and “Marie Claire” in the past. I did buy a copy of “Curve” a few months back – but I think I can make up for my lack of subscriptions with my memberships to websites like “Our Chart” and how many LGBTQ related businesses/organizations/people I have on myspace friends list!

10. We have continued to take personal inventory and when we are wrong promptly admit. We are open to guidance from our lesbian sisters on things related to: the proper placement of hand stamps at lesbian nightclubs, womens basketball (especially the womens NCAA tournament,) camping, baseball cap etiquette, dogs, cats, and beer.

Hand stamp placement? Huh? If we’re talking sports I will need plenty of guidance. I’d only willingly attend a basketball game if it was with a bunch of fun friends, or if I was purposely going to scout for women! Baseball cap…I don’t think so. Beer…not for me.

11. We have sought through prayer, meditation or deep reflection ways to first access, then fine tune our newly realized Gaydar in order to improve our conscious contact with lesbians. We then have:
a. Successfully recognized a lesbian and tried to make some kind of contact with her outside of a typical lesbian arena.
b. Been nodded at by another lesbian who recognized us, outside of a typical lesbian arena. Note: This is a very important, but very difficult task that may take a lot of practice before achieving. Do not be discouraged, do not give up!

Damn, but my gaydar sucks. Unless a chick an obvious butch or dyke (or is making out with another woman) I have to admit that I always have that “Is she or isn’t she?” question in my mind. That is the nice thing about a lesbian bar or gay event – at least the assumption of gayness is a relatively safe one!

a. Yes, yes, yes – I did this….however, was not successful at making eye contact. I’m giving myself credit for trying.

b. Eek – not so much. I swear, if I hear one more time “You look like a straight girl”, I just might buzz my hair and start wearing ties and big black boots. I think the only way I would get recognized outside of a ‘typical lesbian arena’ is if (not to be indelicate) I had my tongue stuck down another woman’s throat, or if I took to wrapping myself up in a pride flag every time I left the house. Heck, my car (with its “Legalize Love” bumper sticker and pride decal) is more obviously gay than I am! That’s the kicker of being femme, I think, to most people femme = straight.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other straight women, near and far, in the city, in the country, and in the suburbs (especially the suburbs,) and to practice these principles in all our lesbian affairs.

Conversion/Recruitment Attempts - Check.
Ask my straight friends – I keep trying to tell them how silly they are being with this insistence on heterosexuality. Heck, if I had known what I was missing it sure wouldn’t have taken me this long! Plus, eventually I want to earn a toaster oven.

So there you have it. All you other RSG’s out there, lets hear it from you too! Leave your commentary in my comments section, or ask Kathryn if you can post this on your own blog.

I met my husband by the pool table in our college pub in the winter of 1997. I was 21 years old and thought, however naively, that I was all grown up. It seems so crazy now, how sure I was that I knew myself and what I wanted (graduation-job-marriage-house-children-happily-ever-don’t-rock-the-boat-after, thank you very much).

I think back at that young girl and wish I could whisper in her ear,

“Go now, and live a little. Experience. Dream. Risk. Close your eyes and jump. Choose potential over safety. Choose exhilaration over comfort. Choose magic over predictability. Make millions of mistakes so that you will know how to choose what you really need. Love hard and often and without reservation. Be bold. Tell the truth about yourself no matter what the cost. Own your reality without apology. Embrace your darkness along with your light. Know yourself fully before you make promises to another.”

But that’s not what I did. I was to have gone to England after graduation to be an au pair for a classical violinist living in posh London suburb. I had also considered heading to Asia to travel and teach English for a year or two. I was going to live out a dream and explore and have amazing adventures.

Instead I met S. and fell in love, and in my fear of losing him and the future I imagined for us, I talked myself out of my plans. I got a dreary, horrid, underpaid job working for a rental car company and moved into early domesticity, sharing an apartment and a life with him from that point on. And I was happy.

But I have never truly been alone.

With this latest change in my life there exists a new space – one that has not been there for a long, long time. I went straight from the fiercely intertwined partnership of marriage into this heart-wrenching sweetness with e. I staggered both spaces for some time, slowly moving myself from one to the other – but never fully existing in the place in between.

And so now I find myself on my own for the very first time in my life. This will be the first time I am not involved in any relationship that provides me with emotional and physical intimacy, the first time I am not one half of some sort of a partnership. Even though things with e. were never all that stable or dependable – there was still the comfort of that connection to keep me from feeling alone.

And so now there is me. Just me.

Although my life is still (and will always be) hopelessly entwined with the lives of my husband and children, at the root of it all I am standing on my own. It is exhilarating. It is frightening. It is mind boggling. I feel larger than life and very, very small.

There is space - both inside me and surrounding me - that I am accustomed to having filled up by another. Space in my heart and in my mind. Space in my arms and in my hands and in my bed. But, although there is sadness and loneliness in those spaces, they do not feel empty. No, I rather think they feel full; full of reality and full of potential. Still, the first instinct with space is to fill it. To rush to distract, to replace, to find another something or someone to focus on. To seek the freefall of infatuation and to get caught up in something outside of myself.

“It is a transformative experience to simply pause instead of immediately filling up the space. By waiting, we begin to connect with fundamental restlessness and well as fundamental spaciousness”. ~ Pema Chodron.

The challenge here, I think, will be to hold that space for now. My gut tells me that it necessary to not just keep this space open, but to expand it to make it even bigger – and then to learn how to fill it with myself. When the time comes I will be able to welcome someone else into my space, and to share it with them from a place of strength and wholeness.

I came across a quote the other day, from a woman named Susannah who has chronicled her own journey of grief, loss and growth with words, photography and art on her incredible blog, Ink on My Fingers:

‘I know now that sometimes loneliness is needed, time alone to sort through the debris and have the chance to mend your sails before you set off on another voyage; time to work out your place on the earth without the need of another person to anchor you; time to meet yourself in your heart and sit with her without judgment or expectation. It’s never easy, but it is essential.”

I need to take the time to accept and sit quietly with the pain of my losses (both of the magical potential of creating something real with e. and the loss of a profound and very concrete past with S.). I need to lean into the totality of these experiences, to welcome them into myself as integral parts of my growth and learning. I need to figure out how to anchor myself to ME, instead of to another. Instinct makes us want to run from the pain, to hide from the discomfort of experiencing the negative parts of life, but that often leads to us slamming into the same life lessons over and over and over again. I’m ready to move on.

I believe we never manage to let go of painful experiences until we let ourselves experience them completely and without reservation or fear. It is not easy to sit with pain, to not only accept it, but to invite it in the aching and the tears and the regret and welcome ourselves to the experience of it in a real and multi-dimensional way. To say “this fucking sucks, but lets just see what it’s like to dive into it headfirst instead of trying to escape”

When we let the dark emotions flow, something unexpected and unpredictable often occurs. Consciously experienced, the energy of these emotions flows toward healing and harmony. I’ve found that unimpeded grief transforms itself into heightened gratitude; that consciously experiencing fear expands our ability to feel joy; and that being mindful of despair — really entering into the dark night of the soul with the light of awareness — renews and deepens our faith. ~ Miriam Greenspan

That is not to say that I intend to embrace a life of celibacy or that I would close myself to the potential of what comes my way. No, this journey is all about welcoming experience and saying yes to the universe (or to a harmless date with a cute girl). However, there is a difference between recognizing something that comes your way and actively seeking it for the wrong reasons.

And so I think of my 32 year old self, scarred and bruised and weary, but excited and strong and eager, and I think tonight as she is drifting off to dreamland I’ll try to remember to whisper in her ear…

“Go now, and live a little. Experience. Dream. Risk. Close your eyes and jump. Choose potential over safety. Choose exhilaration over comfort. Choose magic over predictability. Make millions of mistakes so that you will know how to choose what you really need. Love hard and often and without reservation. Be bold. Tell the truth about yourself no matter what the cost. Own your reality without apology. Embrace your darkness along with your light. Know yourself fully before you make promises to another.”

I hope she listens.

Last night I thought maybe I was broken, but then…

…the mindlessness of a long aimless car ride at 1am and desperate texts of ‘I’m not doing so good help me please’… the therapy of loving voices telling me that driving and talking on the phone and sobbing were maybe not such a safe combination and I should pull off the freeway now and telling me ‘no-no-no-you-were-not-stupid-to-believe’…and the clarity that comes with purging pain by messily scrawling frantic thoughts in a journal without caring if the words make sense… and the spent numbness that is found at the end of the tears… and the peace that comes with falling into a deep comatose sleep… and the space of a new day to provide perspective…

All that and I think now that I’m bruised and battered and deeply sad certainly, but not broken. I remembered all of a sudden (with a jolt that made me sit up straight and laugh out loud) that I’m strong, and confident, and whole. I went into this with my eyes wide open and my head up and that I can choose to leave it the same way. “Oh yea” I said to myself. “I forgot for a moment that I was always in control of my choices”.

It always hurts to find out that someone or something is not what you thought it-wished it-wanted it to be. Actually, when I dwell too long on the knowledge it starts an ache in my chest that I don’t yet fully know how to process. But all the wishing in the world cannot make something into something different than it is, and so my job now is to just sit with that ache and accept it and feel it and experience it in it’s entirety until it starts to fade.

I spent some time last night and today being angry at myself. Angry at myself for caring, for trusting, for believing, for not listening to multiple warnings from good people who care about me. I started to move into a place of bitterness and regret. And then, luckily, I decided to read back through my journal and found this, written back near the beginning.

“What am I doing here while she lies sleeping? I wonder if I can keep my heart wrapped and protected, or if the miniscule cracks I can already sense will continue to open, creating a chasm so deep that the only options are bliss or profound hurt.

I do not want to hurt. Bad enough to be causing profound pain in another without living in that place myself. But I cannot - will not - run from this thing, whatever it is. Nor will I run from this person, whoever she is. I will try to protect myself, but I will not close myself. I will allow myself to be vulnerable, even though I know what I am risking. After all this growth, all this expansion, all this truth, there is no other choice for me.

I know enough to understand that the truest, more purely brilliant life is only available to me when I open myself fully to the universe, to the bigger picture, when I realize that I am not in control. Having caught glimpses of that brilliance I could no more close myself off to her than I could somehow stop this entire transition. Perhaps it helps that I sense vulnerability in her also. She still does not feel entirely safe to me, but I am feeling safer with her.

By necessity, by logistics, by design, whatever this is between us - or whatever it might have had the chance to become under different circumstances – has to remain light, casual, no commitment, no promises, no strings. And that is okay. It is what it is.

And so I sit here while she sleeps, feeling far more peace than I have a right to be feeling given the circumstances of my current life. And I know that the source of this peace is simple – it is because I am not trying to plan, not trying to orchestrate, not trying to manipulate or decide. I am simply letting it be, letting it become (or not become). Realizing that I may start to care, and yes, I may get hurt, but that in the end an open heart will find what it ultimately needs.

I will trust this heart of mine. I will because I have to. It is all that I have.”

And then a little while later I came across this quote I had jotted down from “Eat, Pray, Love”

“It’s still two human beings trying to get along, so it’s going to become complicated. But still humans must try to love each other. We must get our hearts broken sometimes. This is a good sign, having a broken heart. It means we have tried for something.”

I tried for something. I tried with all that I had, and the knowledge of that is what makes me know that this will ultimately be what it needs to be. And it did get complicated, and it was sometimes as messy as all human interaction has the potential to be. Feelings were shared in the safety of 3am darkness, and promises of a sort were exchanged, and hearts got involved (ahh…the capacity for messiness increases exponentially here).

It was intense and volatile, rarely easy and simple. Life circumstances - mine and hers - didn’t allow things to unfold slowly and gently. Instead of a normal beginning (as if there is such a thing, really) we’ve been on a rollercoaster and there are days when I think I’ve been so caught up in it - so entangled - that I’ve forgotten how to breathe.

And when it was good it was so very good, and when it was bad it was pretty damn bad. But to speak of regret? To let self-blame and personal recrimination creep into this and turn it into something that makes me feel bad about the choices I made? I realize today just how pointless that would be in a way I just wasn’t able to see last night. It would take over three months of a relationship that was valuable and worthwhile to me and turn it into something to feel bad about.

Not gonna do it.

I don’t ever want to go into any relationship from a place of distrust. I don’t ever want to stop trusting in my heart and in what the universe provides and in the simple beauty of what might be. It’s not who I am and it’s not who I want to be. I believed, I trusted, I hoped, I tried. Sometimes I was let down, disappointed, hurt beyond hurt. Sometimes, but not always. Sometimes I laughed till I was gasping for breath, and sometimes I had conversations that touched me at my core and sometimes I was held in a beautiful embrace and kissed till my toes tingled.

It’s so easy, when something ends on a negative note, to let that negativity form the foundation of the memories you take with you. But what end-of-relationship rule book says that this is what I have to do? Just like all the choices I made in this relationship, that choice is mine to make as well. This was a space and time of profound learning and growth for me, and she was a huge part of that. I refuse to minimize that by letting bitterness and blame overtake me because of circumstances far beyond my control.

I was in control of my choices all the way along, just as she was in control of hers. Even when it was hard and I thought that the smartest choice was maybe to cut out and run away, I made a conscious choice to stay in it. I made those choices because my instincts told me it was worthwhile, that she was worth the effort, that it wasn’t done yet. And then last night, when it was no longer worthwhile or healthy or good for me to stay in it, I made a choice to leave it behind.

It’s not a choice I wanted to make. I wish, with all my heart, that it could be different. But I could no more control the outcome of this than I could have controlled growing to care for her so deeply in the first place. I made all those choices from a position of strength and optimism and hope-against-hope, and so to descend into bitterness and blame gives the negativity far more power than I want it to have.

A little farther along in my journal I found this:

“Bottom line: I am learning more – about myself, my boundaries, needs, weaknesses, failings, strengths, blessings, expectations, limitations, gifts from my relationship with e. than I have from anyone in a long, long time. That alone makes it worthwhile.”

And at one point I wrote her a poem that included the following:

and I know
from experience that
i often find my
teachers
in the
strangest places
but I bet
you never
imagined yourself
a guru
to anyone.

i told you
that you should
give yourself
more credit.

And so I am going to choose what to take from this. I will take the lessons she taught me. I will take new knowledge of my relationship needs and new resolve not to compromise. I will take an even stronger understanding that the potential for something real is always worth the risk. I will take a deep understanding of what an offer of unconditional love and support is truly grounded in. I will take memories of something that will always be special to me. I will even take a long a sliver of hope that the story is not yet completely over, because despite the hurt that girl is still way under my skin.

Yes, she hurt me. She made choices that made me feel utterly insignificant and that negated everything I had offered to her and all we had been through together. I lost faith that the words she said, the feelings she expressed, the commitments she made meant anything at all. Her actions made me realize that expect to have any sort of healthy relationship with her right now is pure crazy-making. I can’t forget any of that. That hurt and disappointment and wish-it-could-have-been-different is still pretty fresh and raw. But this is my story now, my life. I get to make the choice about where to go from here. I’m sure I won’t always be this Zen about things and that the hurt and regret will still pounce on me when I least expect it, and there will be more tears and more sadness – but right now I feel centered and solid and I’m going to run with that.

I’ve taken a step off that rollercoaster, begun to extract myself from something that I really wanted to work, but that just couldn’t be right now for a million and one different reasons. And with that step away - with this new emotional space - I feel myself breathing again. I can sense a new perspective on my current reality that was lacking when I was so caught in the current of all that existed between us and around us.

Bruised but not broken. Yeah. I’m gonna be okay.

I recently began contributing to multi-author blog called The Lesbian Lifestyle, posting excerpts taken from my posts here on awakenings. They are currently running the annual “Lesbian Blog of the Year” contest and are accepting nominations. Checking out the list of those already nominated I’ve added a few great looking blogs to my blogroll to check out when I have more time. What’s more, I actually received one nomination yesterday, which was a nice little pat on the back considering I have not been writing long (thanks MLC!).

So head on over, check out the diverse collection of writings and fabulous authors and nominate a blog or two while you’re there!