The Heart Of 2008

I started 2008 with a semi-broken heart which only got worse. But a few months later, after some serious soul searching and new friendships, I started casting ye old dating net. Craigslist, friends of friends and co-workers. I was terrified that once I got thrown into the dating pool that my lack of ‘game’ would become painfully apparent and I would be shamed in the land of lesbians. But I pushed forward and did my best to make inherently awkward first dates as enjoyable as possible, which they always were.

There was a time when I dated 3 or 4 people consistently (and I use the term dating extremely loosely here). It varied from weekly dinner dates with no kissing to intense love affairs complete with grand gestures. I reconciled the relationship that had ended earlier in the year and once again found myself in a familiar bed. I dated casually and balanced an impressively full dance card with grace.

I was charmed and wooed and pursued. There were long conversations, peanut butter and jelly lunches brought to me at work, tropical flowers on my table, beautifully handcrafted cards, sweet text messages and expensive dinners I didn’t know what to do with. To say I was lucky would be an understatement of grand proportions.

But there was also ugliness. Pools of doubt that I got stuck in for months at a time. Love that didn’t behave as love should and a shifting of self that I wasn’t proud of. There was rage, confusion and shameful dependency. There were secrets, hateful words and lonely nights with a body right next to me.

By October I was only dating one persin. It was an intense crush that I never considered pursuing, which turned into a 9 month relationship. We were different in almost every way but I was intensely proud to be with hir and that heart tingling crush never subsided. Still we were paralyzed by the day to day and an inability to support each other. She simultaneously opened and closed me in ways I haven’t yet been able to articulate. My relationship with hir recently ended but I feel it reverberating through me everyday. The missing hir, the anger, the shameful parts. I truly believe that we tried our best with one another, but our best was far from good enough.

So I sit again at the mouth of the new year with a semi broken heart, but I am grateful for a year of learning and love. Grateful for having been forced to confront some ugly parts of myself. Grateful for the sense that all of this is leading me to something more. But above all, grateful for those who shared themselves with me this past year. I am forever changed by the care, desire and tenderness they’ve showed me. I start 2009 with an awareness of self that I didn’t posses before.