Hello Coco : A diary

Category: Uncategorized

  • Redefining the ‘Comfort Zone’

    I still laugh to myself when I say that I’m casually [short-term / he is moving] dating a man who has a wife and a six-year-old kid. Ethical non-monogamy & polyamory in general is a concept that I’m still trying to wrap my head around comfortably.

    The truth is I haven’t been comfortable in a long time even before he came along. I have been working outside my comfort zone for six months navigating what it means to be a single woman at thirty from spending more than half of her twenties in a serious relationship with a woman.

    I’ve been navigating working at a start-up for the first time ever where being ‘scrappy’ and being comfortable with ‘building the plane as we fly it’ minus well be the values rather than the wordy ones they picked for the investors.

    With all of this being said, I’m trying to find my comfort zone again. I’m scouring every part of my brain and heart to feel something familiar, but when I look around everything is new. My apartment, my body, my thoughts, my boundaries, and my relationships. There isn’t anything around me that reminds me of a ‘comfortable’ place.

    Some would say that, that is a good thing. That I am on the precipice of growth and establishing a new, hopefully better sense of ‘self’. When things get hard though; like when your parents don’t talk to you anymore because you set a boundary, like when your apartment catches fire and you are forced to grieve your old life, you’re navigating a new relational lifestyle where jealousy is something you’re actively fighting, AND you’re trying to find your new self underneath all the discomfort?

    Where’s my blankey? My nightlight? My stuffy or my cuddles? They’ve been tossed due to the smoke and simply, no one is here but me.

    That in itself is another major discomfort after living with someone for the past 4 years or so up until January. The cherry on top is she has already found another girlfriend and is bringing her to mutual friend events. Today I left my friend’s house before they could show up for the fourth of July festivities because I didn’t want to watch the live action of her moving on. Even if I was the one to break it off in the first place, I didn’t want any more discomfort than I already have.

    I think the point of all of this is that in times like these, how do people build new comfort zones from unchartered territory?

    Do we force it with hook-ups and sex? What about food, drinking, weed? Perhaps comfort in taking care of ourselves and movement. Comfort in going into the deeper past and memories; going through old photo albums and journals.

    Regardless, when I’m sitting in bed at 11:45 P.M on a Friday night watching Sex And The City on mute, I look around my apartment thinking, “this is so very different.” When I’m sitting alone on my balcony drinking my morning coffee and letting the thoughts free flow through my brain I think to myself once more, “this is so very different.”

    I’m not the same person I used to be a little over six months ago. If I went back, I wouldn’t recognize her. She was comfortable.

    Comfortably oblivious to how lacking her life truly was.

    Maybe sorting through my mind, heart and soul for a new comfort that isn’t so familiar right now isn’t a bad thing at all.

    What if comfort will now feel like:

    — Trusting myself more; that I can get through what comes next with how far I’ve come already.

    — Psychological safety from the people who were never there for me the way I asked them to be via boundaries.

    — Looking at myself in the mirror to find someone who cares about her body now.

    — The calm of walking into my empty apartment knowing its safe. It’s my home and my home only; a place to feel how I need to feel whenever I feel it.

    — Letting my body marinate in the discomfort and getting used to it so that I’m stronger going forward and don’t need to rely on temporary fixes like sex, alcohol, shopping, and food.

    Comfort will come in the way that I need it to. It will look and feel different but then become familiar once more. It will mold and shape with wherever my life takes me. I still have a long way to go before I reach it fully, but that is okay, and I will be okay.

    Who will I be in the next six months? I will look back at this post and this all will look completely different. It could be stretched, absent, abudant, confusing, chaotic, or carefree.

    Either way I got me and that’s comfort in itself.

  • A Rage Letter To My Ex (Unsent)

    Warning: This was a free write letter to let go of built-up anger living inside me for my ex. Some of the language will be highly offensive and off-putting. This is my monkey brain on its worst day, let loose.

    XXX, you fucking police my feelings one more fucking time I swear to god I will come over there and rip your perfectly spotless apartment apart, throw cat hair EVERYWHERE, and ruin your perfect little primped world. You are so selfish. Self-centered. Self-pitying. Pathetic and fucking obnoxious person. Ever fight we’ve ever had was HR coded, calculated and just fucking condescending. The worst part is you didn’t mean for it to be – you’re just like that naturally. It’s sad you feel you have to be this robot and put on a pretty show for everyone, even yourself.

    You tell me that I’m making assumptions on your situation with [insert new girlfriends name], that dating doesn’t have to be long-term then why are you telling everyone about her. Why did you make it a point to tell me about her if she wasn’t something more than a fuck. Why did you tell our friends that ‘it worked for you guys’ referring to them getting married so quickly – that is a serious reference to affection you have for this girl. An affection you took on just months after we fucking broke up. How can I NOT be offended by that? You tell me that it’s not happening on ‘my timeframe’ BITCH ARE YOU KIDDING ME. ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING TO YOURSELF?

    We were in a relationship for almost 6 FUCKING YEARS and you just go and turnaround so quick like that and then you want to bring her to a mutual friend’s party where you know I will be there?! “Assume positive intent” you say. Those are empty fucking words. If you had positive intentions, you would have immediately known that that is fucking insensitive. You say you’re grieving our breakup but how are you doing that when you’re thinking of the future with someone else already. BITCH, DO YOU THINK IM DUMB. You’re like, “Dating doesn’t always have to go serious”. UHM THAT’S LITERALLY THE POINT, if you’re not dating you’re fucking around. Why would you tell me AND ALL OUR FRIENDS about a girl you’re just fucking around with. A girl that is LIVING with you right now. BITCH. You are delusional and you’re trying to get me to drink the cool aid via fucking veering the conversation we had off topic to stupid shit that didn’t matter. That wasn’t the fucking point. Then you get angry when I show anger. You get upset when I show any kind of emotion that doesn’t replicate yours. HOLIER THAN THOU CUNT.

    Oh did my cussing offend you? Did me calling you out for your contradictions and deflecting catch you off guard? Did I hear you stumble on the other end of the phone? Let’s just see it plain.


    You latched on to this girl on a dreamy vacation, fucked around, and then you two dreamt up this lesbian daydream of her moving here – not for the relationship oh god no, we can’t tell people that they’d think we’re crazy, but yeah we will live together for a while until we find something, or maybe we won’t move out! Who knows ladeda – You nestled so far into this relationship to escape from the reality of being alone (Hi, that’s where I’m at and it sucks but we all have to fucking do it) and you’re entranced in this notion enough to not think its fucking batshit to bring her in our mutual lives. You want to introduce her to our friends FINE. Dont bring her around me where I have to watch you ‘move on’ in live action. Fucking bitch. How dare you fucking gaslight my feelings. Fucking redirect the conversation because you can’t admit to yourself that you’re just fucking WRONG ABOUT SOMETHING. You say, “I hear what you have to say BUT’ no bitch, you don’t hear me. Youre rebuttling. What’s really sad is our mutual friends see right through you.


    It’s embarrassing watching you around our friends thinking that you are just a beam of energy, the funniest person to walk the earth and all the things. It’s a montage of what you think people want to see from you and it comes off disgenuine and frankly annoying to watch. I remember it gave me the ick that one time with Ari and our other friends. It actually grossed me out to watch you interupt everyone around you for a fucking laugh. A gay-coded joke that has been done and said over and over and over. The vulgarity of it on top of just the lack of any kind of personality outside of your queerness was so cringy. Have you ever been more than just a gay person? Have you ever showed up to a conversation with just vulnerability and realness – without a joke prepared, or a humble brag story of your travel adventures? A posturing of your fucking rich privileged upbringing.


    Oh my god dont even get me started on that one. You sit there and say, “I had cockroaches in my apartment before’ as if that is the tell-tale sign of hoofing it. Sure you have some real deep shit from your childhood that made it extremely difficult, but don’t ever fucking sit there and try to persuade anyone that you suffered monetarily. We all know. You grew up fucking horseback riding – YOU LEGIT HAD A PONY BITCH. YOUR PARENTS BOUGHT YOU A HORSE.


    Your privilege stinks all over you too. In the way you are so fucking particular about everything. There’s a speck of lint on your shirt. There’s a cat hair on the couch. There’s a smudge on a dish. God forbid your pants don’t look perfectly fitted to you and jesus everytime you’d ask me the same fucking question about the same fucking outfit over and over, “does this look good. Are you sure? Are you lying to me?” JESUS FUCK. You’re so fucking vain. No one gives a fucking shit what you wear and you ask me that fucking question just like that for 5 fucking years. Like grow some fucking confidence and just wear what you want. Oh god forbid I fucking ask you if what I’m wearing looks good and you just respond, “I don’t know how to answer that” just because it’s girls’ clothes instead of your masc attire. BITCH.


    Then there’s every time I bring up something that I want to do. Go to Vegas for my birthday, plan a trip, whatever – you stick your fucking weasly nose into it and fucking implode it for something you want to do. I remember that time you wanted to take me out to dinner as a thank you for taking care of you when you hurt your knee – but YOU picked the restaurant and every fucking dish we fucking ordered.

    Oh my god I wanted to outright XXXX XXXXXX every time you brought up your knee in every goddamn conversation. When we got that wheelchair, I was humiliated pushing you around in that thing because you were being the biggest fucking pussy and loved the attention. You soaked it the fuck up and it was honestly just embarrassing to be around you during that entire year and a half. I even caved and mentioned how I just can’t hear about it one more time and you got upset but what the fuck do you expect. My life was orbiting around your stupid fucking knee.

  • A Needy Libido

    Ever since I began taking Wellbutrin, broke up with my last partner, and set off on a ‘glow-up’ as the kids say, my libido has skyrocketed leaving my horny to an unbearable level.

    I actually make the joke to myself that, “it’s a problem” because of how often I masturbate even daily. Sometimes my clit won’t even feel the vibration anymore and I lay there disassociating for a minute. That’s when I know I need to touch some fucking grass.

    Writing that out makes me feel embarrassed, like this a red flag I should be managing. A dopamine addiction perhaps? When my ADHD brain craves dopamine, it usually latches on to food or shopping. Since experiencing sex with men this year after 7 years with women, It sparked an entire sexual revolution inside me to have more, do more, experience more.

    My fantasies have gotten deeper, more descriptive, and have become a need to explore rather than just a curiosity. I’ve dipped into possessive talk, exhibitionism, public sex, threesomes with two men, mistress/master, and bondage fantasies. The idea of being dominated and told that I’m a ‘good girl’ would have left dropped my jaw to the floor just over a year ago.

    What really sparked the flame was the books I was reading last year. Haunting Adeline and Her Soul to Take ignited kinks in me that I didn’t know laid dormant.

    It wasn’t until I found myself single, on a drug that is known to increase libido, pushed myself through losing weight and putting effort into my appearance, fucking all sorts of men to find my groove, and then finding a secure attachment in a poly lifestyle that I started to feel like, “damn, I can do anything if I just…did it.” Including all my fantasies.

    I mean I have the grounded-ness of being poly/ENM with a man that I adore, I am exploring what it could mean to have multiple partners which is freeing in itself, I have resources to explore kink communities and advocate for what I want to try…

    The only thing that is stopping me right now in this moment is the concern that sex has become so wanted, so needed that I’m having a hard time separating it right now. Don’t get me wrong I am also ovulating and hoo nelly watch out, but I find myself concerned.

    How much sex is too much? Is 6 months of sexual exploration too long? Is masturbating twice a day literally okay for my vagina (like girl, you good?)? When do fantasies go too far, kicking me back into 1950s sexism sub vs dom? When does it become a habit vs. a treat?

  • The Nasty Feelings of Polyamory

    Ever since ChatGPT told me I should write rage letters to all the people I was holding resentment for (and not send them), it opened up this thrilling door of writing completely and brutally honest without filter. I’m not resentful toward polyamory, but since beginning to explore it just a few short months ago I believe I have some very raw, very brutal things to say. Unfiltered. Unedited.

    Polyamory to a man who has a wife and kid can feel like being a mistress in many ways. The phone calls that aren’t made when the wife is home. The change of plans when the wife says ‘you’ve been spending too much time out of the home lately’. The selective participation in our relationship based on what’s happening over there.

    You’d say that it all makes sense. He has a family – what do you expect? How could I know what to expect? I’ve never been in this position before in my life.

    I’m used to dedicated boyfriends or girlfriends. 1:1 ratio of a couple. The first time I try this and I get an entire family. It’s weird looking in from the outside wanting more and watching someone else have it with him instead. The feelings have deepened and my monogamous tendencies are showing. The jealousy is seeping in.

    People have been telling me to find another partner to even it out. To feel like there is a leveled playing field. To have those other needs met that he can’t give me. That sounds so great, but nothing compares to him. He is a unicorn of a man. A therapist, emotionally intelligent, sexy, considerate, attentive, and showers me in any kind of love I ask for. He’s perfect, but I have to go back out there in the dating world and find another one? I didn’t even know a man like Sam existed in the first place. I want him more and I can’t have it. It’s like a tease from the universe. Of course, I can see it as a lesson that there are men out there and I shouldn’t settle, but fuck I want this one.

    Oh god the worst thing about all of this is that they are moving. Him and his family are moving either before winter or in the spring. His wife has a partner too that she’d be leaving behind. I knew this from the start when I was going through my hoe phase and stumbled on Sam. I told him I didn’t want anything serious anyways because of my recent breakup in December. At the time I was also planning on moving out of state. Low stakes I thought.

    Now I’m faced with the reality that I am going to be inevitably hurt it’s just a matter of when.

    But I’m already getting hurt just in tiny little pricks and slices. When he leaves, I will be completely flayed open with nothing to do about it.

    Weirdly the fuck enough this is the most secure attachment I’ve ever had with a partner. Where the other person is completely honest, intentional, respectful, and understands women. I told myself when I started to catch feeling that “Well, it’s worth the hurt to experience this type of relationship and learn from it.” I’m not sure that’s true anymore. I’m already hurting thinking of him leaving on top of knowing that this man will never be someone serious to me – he can’t be. We won’t ever get married, have kids, move in together…

    It’s wild to think that I’ve only actually been seeing Sam since April 14th. We’ve seen each other on a biweekly schedule, so six times. His curfew is fucking 10pm each time so about 5 hours each date. 30 hours total of being with each other physically over the course of the last 2.5 months. No overnights. But we text every day, multiple times per day.

    He tells me how much he misses me. How obsessed he is with me. But what I see is two little hearts around two calendar dates a month.

    I hate that I feel these feelings. This bubbling up jealousy and anxiety of not being a priority to someone else to the level I want them to when we have such a deep emotional and sexual relationship. It’s new for me. I signed up for all of this, and I’m kicking myself in the ass.

    It’s triggering to my avoidant attachment style I learned from my parents. I want to run away and board up every window I gave to him to see inside me. He knows how I feel. He knows that I am in deep and that feels raw and unsettling knowing that nothing more will ever happen from it. It’s like I’m giving him parts of myself I wish I could take back and protect. I let my heart deep dive into this shit and now I’m bracing for all of the pain that has and will come with it.

    Coming second.

  • Losing Everything to Find Me Again

    If you’ve been following along, there has been a fuck ton of shit happening in the last 6 months. A breakup from a long-term relationship, moving into a studio apartment, finding out my health wasn’t what I had expected, getting closure that my parents will never be what I need and now…an apartment fire started by my cat to top it all off.

    I’m looking around my place laughing at how empty it is. The couch, linens, food, and kitchenware that all had to go due to the chemical and plastic fumes. It echos in here now.

    Coming home to find what it was tore me up inside. It was one of the worst days of my life. With everything else tacked on I was pretty much crashing out and everyone around me knew – which has been highly unusual and uncomfortable. I cried for days grieving the items that I had bought mutually with my ex and how I was now forced to actually move on from them. I settled with the giving up the impulse purchases that I had held onto out of guilt. I went through every single item I owned and got rid of more than 50% of it due to the fire.

    Now that I have finally collected myself, 1 week later, I have come to terms with the fact that I really had to lose a lot these last 6 months so that I could find myself again. I have done a personal inventory on not just my apartment, but my relationships and my body.

    I have recently purged old, very gray boundaries with my parents for shiny new ones that protect me from perpetual disappointment. I have given up a lot of peace to indulge in sexual exploration with men; men that didn’t care about me but taught me valuable lessons that have raised the bar on many levels sexually and emotionally.

    I threw away the me that wore sweats every day and was consistently high, for a sparkly version that admires her body and all I put it through – enough to go to the doctor, exercise, eat healthy, and feel whole again inside of it.

    And now here I am literally throwing shit away. Items that I couldn’t quite part with on my own because I felt I had to keep them, maybe because I actually needed them – sure – but also because it was the only things left in my life that was from my old one. An anchor into something comfortably sad and an ugly shade of velvet gray.

    That couch was one of the last things that needed to go so that I could just move on already from my old self, life, and relationship. I mean I didn’t need the fire to do that, but it forced me to emergency eject out of the fog and into reality.

    So, as I look at my empty apartment, there’s no one here but the echo of my own voice talking back to me saying, “you’re alone now”. My initial reaction is to cry, tuck myself into bed and let myself drown in loud music that will fill the unknown parts of my brain that are too scary to hear right now. The ones that say:

    “What now?”

    “What if something happened? You don’t even have an emergency contact.”

    “What do you want to do with your life now?”

    I can choose to feel sorry for myself, which don’t get me wrong I lived on that train for a moment, but I started to take stops in “No one is expecting me – that’s nice” land and “I don’t have to stress out about making sure the dishwasher is loaded correctly for fear of getting snapped at” land. I jumped off that train altogether when this fire happened and I realized that if my life was like it was 6 months ago, this would have been ten times worse.

    She would have made it worse. The person I was then would have let her drag me down into a shame hole on how I’m not responsible enough, reminding me of how this inconveniences her through pouting and passive digs, that this fuck-up (though not my fault) is just another example of me letting her down and not having my shit together.

    She made me feel less than her all the time and I put my blinders on for what – an emergency contact? ‘Stability’? A family that was way better than my own and invited me in wholly? Safety? I would say comfortability, but it wasn’t comfort. It was people would say, ‘delulu’ and not the good kind.

    So, I’ll sit here eating my chicken pot pie in peace knowing that no matter what comes my way, I got me. I will never let myself down the way I did then. That no matter what the fuck happens, no matter how much I ‘lose’, I still have me to fall back on and she’s pretty fucking awesome.

  • May 25th, 2025

    This pocket of life is looking very different from the last.

    In the last month I have confronted my parents on their emotional avoidance, stopped entertaining multiple casual sexual partners, started getting into Latin dancing, tried and stopped Vyvanse, increased my Wellbutrin, reached a whole other level of sexual intimacy with the one partner that I do have and have decided to not move out of Denver.


    A month of big decisions which have resulted in big emotional hurdles and mindset shifts. I’ve felt a lot of things I’ve never felt before and walked away from a few situations learning lessons.


    Getting into dancing has taught me that it doesn’t matter what you do alone (going to classes alone/stepping out of your comfort zone) as long as you love it – the community will come.


    Having only one sexual partner that I’m genuinely interested in instead of many that I’m not, fills my cup more than I had expected even with my high sex drive.


    I learned that telling people no from the very beginning is better than waiting for feelings to hopefully change and that when it comes to your heart intuition really is true north.


    I got closure with my parents that they won’t change, but at least my inner child tried and that was the best she could do. What needs to change now is the boundaries I have with them so that I don’t keep accidentally expecting more.


    With all of this being said, I had experienced emotional & physical burnout. I got sick from it and it put me out for 3 entire days. I was giving my emotional energy to my parents, my best friends, strangers that I would meet out and about, dancing multiple times per week, hosting multiple baby showers, not eating and sleeping enough and binge scrolling my phone on my downtime.


    I was chronically overstimulated and recovering from that was difficult because I had to remove myself from everyone and be inaccessible for the first time in 6 months. I was monitoring my head space and my ability to stay present – eat, sleep, read, sit in the sun, repeat.

    So this new pocket that I’m sitting in is one that I’m actively trying to be more intentional about – how do I sit still for longer moments without change? How do I spend more time doing the things that fill my cup and don’t leave me emotionally haggard by the end of it? Prioritizing friendships that don’t suck the life out of me, the obligations that do the same, and maintaining balance at work; not saying yes to fucking everything.

    What got me into this predicament in the first place was a breakup 6 months ago that led me to living alone for the first time in 6 years. Loneliness.

    You know in the movies where the nerd in high school undergoes a massive makeover and they become obsessed with themselves and so does everyone around them for a hot minute? Think Mean Girls, Princess Diaries, and House Bunny.

    They become so addicted to the new ‘me’ and the attention and acceptance that comes from it because they’ve been living in their shadow for such a long while. Having those new feelings create this craving for more until it turns into a dopamine frenzy.


    This was me back in February when I started to talk to boys again. I changed my hair, my clothes, and with my new meds and appearance my confidence sky rocketed. That snowballed further and further until I essentially flew too close to the sun.


    I found myself feeling too shallow about my clothes and how I didn’t feel comfortable leaving the apartment without a layer of mascara on anymore. I was going on dates every week because guys wanted to ask me out. I was flirting at Swing dance classes because I knew some of the guys had crushes on me.


    Things began to down shift with my mental health and I was starting to hurt people’s feelings. I started to just really assess who I was making myself out to be every day and the choices I was making. Then I met the guy I’ve been seeing for the last month and a half. He moves in a year and has a wife & kid (Poly/ENM), so I only see him every other week and for one overnight a month. Not only has he been a very secure attachment for me (not like anything I’ve experienced before), but he slowed my life down tremendously. It was uncomfortable at first – taking those dopamine hits away, but now that the withdrawals have worn off, I feel I’ve hit a sustainable balance.


    Now, with everything in my social life collapsing my health for a few days that felt scary, I’m beginning to realize that I need to do the same here.

    With that I’ve decided I’m not moving back to Ohio come April of next year. I’m going to sit still a moment and experience my life as a single person living alone with where I’ve called home these last 8 years. I’ve decided that I can’t fix my parents or my best friend who has been going through it for years now. I’ve decided that I only deserve the best when it comes to having any man in my life. I’ve decided that I’m only human and as such I should look like one.

  • My Avoidant Parents: A Series of Texts

    To Mom: Monday, May 13th 7:21 A.M

    “Hey,

    I’ve been thinking just talking in therapy over the last few years, that our relationship doesn’t go a deep emotionally as I’d prefer. You, me and dad.

    I feel like other than check ins, my cry fits/panic attacks when I call or unless I initiate, we don’t connect deeper past proof of life.

    With my Leep Procedure, when I told you about it in the beginning you responded about tampons instead of acknowledging how it could be making me feel and emotionally supporting me in that way, and you never followed up or asked how I was feeling.

    I feel like you two are always there to problem solve and talk logistics, which is so helpful, but you don’t ask deeper questions or offer to talk about feelings except for when I explicitly initiate it like when we had the breakup conversations last year and I initiate out of desperation with where my head was at.

    I hate always having to initiate anything deeper, it makes me feel like you don’t care (even though I know that’s not true).

    I know this is out of the blue for you but it’s been a common thought since moving around when we were younger with all the moves and my mental health went south, and my feelings were met with a yoga membership and medication.

    I feel if I move out there and change my whole life, I want to start having these conversations.

    Do you agree or how do you feel about that?

    I’m dropping this bomb right before I have to run to work but happy to talk on the phone later.”

    From Mom: Tuesday, May 14th 8:12 A.M

    “Not ignoring, just surprised, hurt angry with your text”

    From Dad: Friday, May 16th 9:05 A.M

    “Call me when you can.”

    Me: “I can’t today with work and plans, how’s tomorrow morning?”

    “When you can. Curious why drama is being drummed up? If you are afraid to tell us you changed your mind on moving back don’t be. Your call we love and support you always.”

    Me: “Drama? My feelings are drama.”

    Dad: “No they are not but texting your mom and not waiting to have a conversation face-to-face or on the phone is.”

    Me: “I’m sorry that the way I shared my feelings wasn’t up to par with your preferences. I did offer a phone call same-day to talk about it more and I didn’t hear a word back until the next morning. I’m happy to talk on the phone, was waiting for you two to process and initiate.

    My feelings aren’t stemmed from changing my mind, the text message explicitly said the feelings were long overdue being said. It’ not a response to being nervous to share a decision. “

    Dad: “Don’t call me tomorrow. Your feelings are your feelings. I have nothing more to say.”

    Me: “I’m asking for more love and support from you two on a deeper level and you can’t even have a conversation about it. You critique how I shared them without even acknowledging the whole point of me sharing them in the first place. That hurts.”

  • Polyamory & The Polycule: My Complications

    I went on a date this morning with a man that asked me, “So, how long have you been in the lifestyle?”


    I felt a little embarrassment for sharing that I was quite new to it, I think for fear of being perceived as inexperienced and thus maybe too much work – too complicated.


    That probably stems a little from a guy earlier this year who vetoed our friends with benefits set-up due to the fact I haven’t had much sex with men for 7 years considering I was in a relationship with a woman for a long while. It got too ‘complicated’. In fact, the observations of most men when I tell them this is generally hesitation.


    I can understand that in a certain lens of him knowing exactly he wanted. He wanted a girl that could deep-throat his dick (mind you, it is large) and I wasn’t up for the job, at least not at that time. I was just re-learning how to give a blow job again – hello.


    I understand Polyamory is a whole other beast than learning how to move past your gag reflex and learning sex with men again, but the common theme for me these past 5 months has been ‘inexperience’, so admitting to another one gave me the cringe as I told him the truth.


    We had spent hours talking; casually looping in details of our current partners, sexual needs, and other tidbits of ‘lifestyle’ information that would help determine our compatibility.


    It occurred to me as we were talking that finding another partner to join this ‘Polycule’ I stumbled into wouldn’t be easy business. Not only do I need to find them attractive, communicative, and emotionally aware but they needed to be vetted by basically everyone in my current polycule based on STI results, status, and at a frequency that is relative to any additional sexual partners that come into play.


    This guy told me he has his wife, one woman that travels into town once a month, and could seek an additional partner outside of me if we moved forward. His wife is also seeking partners. That is 3+ people I would be adding in, just to hook up with this one guy regularly.


    On top of that he shared his wife has herpes flare ups (tested positive). Which means that I would of course need to relay that to the entire team – yes, that’s what I’m calling them now- and get their stamp of approval first.

    This is nothing like what I was doing in the beginning of the year meeting guys on Tinder and just hooking up with them. It was a very dangerous and I’m lucky I came out of it clean, but I did very minimal work compared to this. I also had very limited emotional connection, communication, and genuine intimacy with those men.


    I would never go back there, but I’m really just starting to process through exactly what I got myself into.


    When the date ended I walked away feeling more overwhelmed and confused. He checked the boxes of attractiveness, communicative, and emotionally aware however the multiple partners, FWB attitude, and his wife’s results made me think, “oh my god, is this too complicated?”


    I’m sitting here reflecting on this inexperience complex thinking sad about how I might be too complicated for others while also considering the same for him being too much. I realize in this moment that it really isn’t about me – other people’s version of ‘complicated’. It’s their emotional and physical bandwidth. How much are we willing to give? Is it worth it? What is the fucking ROI here?


    Perhaps the deep-throat guy was like, “if this is too much for her, maybe my other needs won’t be met.” If someone was to not want to move forward with me because my inexperience of polyamory it could be that they don’t have the mental space to walk through it, perhaps they just got out of a similar situation and it was draining. Perhaps they have an insecurity of committing for someone to realize the lifestyle isn’t for them?


    I’m sitting here thinking about my date in a similar, but opposite way, “This is a big commit for me when I’m already going through so much and I just got into this other relationship a month ago. It might be too soon to consider complicating things further.”


    My date texted me just a moment ago saying he had such a nice time and how he was hoping to kiss me, but couldn’t read it. Why do I feel guilty? As If I’m letting down the world by sharing my feelings.


    I’ve been asked on many dates in the last few months and have exercised all sorts of no’s like, “I’m seeing someone”, “I’m not dating right now”, “I’m moving in a year” – I’ve had clear and easy outs that would make anyone say – “yeah that makes sense”.


    Not to say my reason, that I can’t handle something like this right now, doesn’t make sense, but that it’s a new one for me and giving that reason when I’ve heard it a few times this last few months makes me nervous to make the other person feel the way I did. Complicated.

  • Post Break-Up Cause and Effect: Where Do I Go Next?

    There’s a lot we experience when getting out of a long-term relationship. We have the lifestyle shift; not saying good morning and goodnight to the same person everyday, the silence of moving into your own place, the withdrawals from your own language and inside jokes that are no longer relevant, and the change of emergency contact information digesting that they won’t be that person for you anymore.

    You start waking up alone and feeling a sadness in your heart because things are strange and different. You haven’t gotten excited about the ‘new adventure’ yet. Eventually after nights out with friends, drinking, smoking, and all other vices, you start to enjoy coming home to yourself and living inside your own head again. You notice the milk is always in the same place in the fridge and you don’t have to load the dishwasher a specific way to avoid a debate on why the forks should be separated based on their size. You come and go as you please without needing an itinerary and being on-time. You feel relief knowing you don’t need to emotionally regulate another person when your cup is empty. You begin to feel freedom and radical acceptance to your own preferences than expecting push back.

    Then you chop off all your hair, get Lasik and throw out all your glasses that always made you self-conscious. You stop wearing sweatpants altogether, and spend some money on something you’ve always wanted or that vacation you’ve been meaning to take.

    You begin to attend dance classes because you’ve always wanted to try it and you watch and smile as it flourishes into an unexpected ritual of self-care. You begin to develop beautifully platonic connections and start to feel the light come back into your body a little more.

    After some time making these leaps you find yourself asking, ‘Why haven’t I done this sooner?’. The answers to that question causes an internal rift. How scary of you to let yourself coast for so long in discomfort and without regard to your truest wants. You must have really been struggling with your internal compass. You heal some and forgive your family as you also forgive whomever made them feel like they couldn’t exist wholly for what they are – human.

    You begin to exercise and that motivates you to eat healthier, and with all the release of happy chemicals your libido kicks up. You start to fit into your old clothes and you’re feeling more confident and fulfilled on a normal day-to-day basis. You start thinking of other avenues of health to explore like perhaps your fertility, or taking blood tests to learn more about where you can improve. You lean further into therapy, start taking the medications you need, and begin to see yourself in a different frame of mind.

    With the increase in confidence you begin to assert yourself more at work in conversations and projects that stimulate you. You start to develop more of a connection to your coworkers and build on the energy to form relationships even outside of work. Your boss is telling you that they’ve noticed your hard work and your coworker is saying, “you’re a completely different person than when we first met.”

    You pick up that writing project and remember how much you love it. With your newfound confidence, you begin a blog again (after deleting several In the past for fear of judgment). With that leap you are beaming with energy from the self expression and anonymous and honest connections.

    You start to ask yourself, “What’s next?”. Your therapist says, “Make sure you enjoy it as you go instead of leaping too quickly onward. The snowball can roll slower if you want it to.” So you did just that – you slowed it down a bit, took breaks from stimulation, and made sure you touched grass every chance you could to really process and feel it.

    You begin to reflect on the decisions you made in the past and start to question if they were the right ones. Was committing to moving back home to Ohio next year really the right decision or was I acting out of fear because I was about to terminate that long-term relationship? Was I attempting to seek comfort or acceptance from my family so that we would feel bonded in a way that perhaps I needed in that moment? They’ve always wanted you to move back and leaning in perhaps provided a dopamine hit to a bond that has always been known to be distinguished quickly – that much more addicting to receive.

    Will Ohio even provide me with a good quality of life either to the same degree or more than what you have right now? Will moving back home truly bring your avoidant family closer together or are you hoping for patterns and trends to just change now that you’ve been in therapy for so long and feel you can tackle it the challenge? Why does that fall on you again?

    Most importantly, would you really survive on only 90 days of sunshine instead of the 300 you get now? What if you compromised on visiting three times a year instead of two? Will your family and friends in Ohio understand or will they be disappointed and lash out? How could you make decisions like that in such a vulnerable space? It’s okay, you were doing the best you could. Life is messy.

    If you did stay where you are that would mean that you can feel comfortable feeling at home again – not moving into this new place & lifestyle only to leave it a year later. You can stop selling your furniture and worrying about how much to save by next March. You can be open to long-term partnerships when the feeling is right. You can stick with the same dance classes and community that you’ve spent these past four months investing in. You can watch your best friends kids grow older and give them all of your love. You can stay at the job (or not!) that is reliable and pays you enough to live in a safe neighborhood by myself – something you’d potentially giving up moving home.

    What if the biggest roll of this snowball is staying put. What if you use this time to advocate for yourself at your job to move in a different direction that feels more aligned with your long-term goals. What if you start to take these HR projects even more seriously and connect with the right people on them for the right exposure and receive mentorship. If the transition does occur, you’d want to stay longer as to hold it on your resume right?

    What if you let yourself exist as single person here and then eventually, when you’re ready, open yourself up to having a truly connected relationship with a man. A man that doesn’t come from Ohio values, politics and single-lens perspectives. Imagine you find the right person here that is emotionally grounded. A person that breaks your relationship patterns and your inner child feels safe and protected with. You are happy and fulfilled completely and then intentionally start a family like you want. A family that speaks up and forgives quickly, one that allows for physical touch and sweetness, radical acceptance and candor. And warmth.

    Lastly, you’d have to ask If your future self would be excited and proud of your decisions that you’re making now as you are of your younger self taking the big risk of coming to Colorado in the first place.

    We will never know if the decision is going to be 100% correct one until we try it. Leaning into our intuition is our best bet and staying in-tune to my intuition will be the ultimate key in determining what my next choice will look like. That intuition will change the trajectory and momentum as I keep experiecing new things around me, so I can’t truly expect to know for sure.

    And the reality is, is that the snowball never actually stops. It also didn’t just start after this breakup- it has been ongoing and constantly being reshaped into what I need in that moment and time. Last year, it was moving incredibly slow because it was so small from letting myself be small. I let time ride by high on my couch because the relationship I was in sucked everything out of me. I didn’t feel like I had autonomy and a the right words to communicate it, so I held back in fear.

    Luckily the new lease term that came up sparked enough panic attacks to give me the momentum I needed to really push everything down the hill.

    Choosing where and how it moves next in terms of where home is for me and if where I am 40 hours a week will be possibly the biggest decisions I can make after the breakup. Everything in between has been highly influential and exactly what I needed to get to this point. The community I’ve joined, the passions I’ve explored, the liberation I have with my sexuality, the reflections and immense shift in my mental health via taking the time to add value into my day-to-day – add purpose, have been the stars guiding me to regaining my sparkle once again.

    Regardless of wherever I go, whatever I do and the new things I learn, I can depend on myself now to keep myself moving forward and I can’t wait to see what I choose next.

    Home. – Where will it be?
    Denver, Ohio, or someplace new? When?

    Family. – Values and boundaries.
    Kids? Commitment?
    How much time do I need for myself first?

    Lifestyle – Day-to-day purpose & self-care
    Building attunement and trust that I’ve got me
    Weight training, nutrition, mental health accountability

    Work. – Regulated and mentally sustainable
    Recruiting or HR?

    Passions. – Continuous Self-Expression
    Blog, stories & journaling lifestyle rituals- where do I want to take these?

    Experiences. – Living outside my comfort zone
    Experiencing new dance, traveling solo & learning other cultures

  • Rewiring Past Decisions: My 40-hour+ Work Week

    I’ve noticed as of late that my job holds little in my brain for debate considering it gives me stability in the world we live in today. I have a mountain of debt as well that keeps me tied to it in a way that feels a little repressive. With that, very slight sour feelings arise when I think of my job and the pressures they entail. I’ve noticed when I ask myself about it, I want to clam up a bit because I don’t feel like I have an option to debate right now.

    I’m making big decisions in my life right now regarding the possibility of moving out of state, my sexuality, and lots of other personal life choices, but this is something I find myself avoiding more often than not. I’ve let myself do it too and in this moment I feel the courage to see it head on even if just for this post at first.

    Being in Recruiting, my value is held by metrics of how quickly I can close jobs and how happy I can make my hiring managers in the process. Being that recruiting is a people business – candidates are half the equation – it can be unreliable, yet we still feel the brunt of the deadline regardless of that variability.

    I’ve been doing my line of work since I moved here in 2017, though in various settings and angles. It was the first job that offered enough money to eat more than Rice-a-Roni and PBJ sandwhiches. I clung to it and put every effort I could into making those numbers and deadlines my mission for survival. I eventually worked my way up and now am senior in my profession making over six figures. Since I was bad with money in my twenties though and moved to another state on a whim with no money in my savings, I accrued a fuck ton of debt that has my salary wrapped up, so I still come from a state of scarcity and lack.

    I feel shame around my debt and my financial decisions that I had made, but with everything going on in my life I’ve been able to compartmentalize and have fun in the present with everything else I’m up to. Reaching into my truest desires elsewhere has allowed me to take a breathe from over thinking my finances and live in moments that don’t cost a thing. It’s been helping me have a more healthy look at my relationship with money and even so my debt.

    This entry isn’t about my debt though. It’s about the job I choose to have for 40 hours+ a week. With me initially getting into this field out of fear, lack, and need for stability (rightfully so), I look back and ask myself that if none of those feelings were present what profession would I have chosen for myself. If I had came to Colorado with a safety net and could take my time, what would I have explored? Would I have used my Professional Writing degree?

    There’s always been a part of me that has considered writing as a job whether it be professional writing like technical, editing, proposals, etc; or fiction writing like the stories that I’m verrrry slowwwly working through right now.

    Impostor syndrome creeps up when I think about how I haven’t had the motivation to work on my fantasy story in over a month, how I am taking a very long break from my psychological thriller novel, and how I over-critique myself which sucks the joy out of projects/this blog sometimes. This blog is something I just started up a little over a month ago and I’m addicted to it. It’s a season of writing that I’ve really leaned into unexpectedly.

    This type of writing though really requires me to dig into my internal monologue, personal psychological analysis, internal conflict, and traumas. It can be too much sometimes, or I harp on the same things over and over again as I’m processing through it. I can run through loops, get lost, distract myself and end up looking back trying to reverse outline because of my ADHD. Even with all of that though, it’s been keeping me very present in my life and letting repressed feelings bubble up to the surface so that I can see them for what they are.

    All of this said, my writing fluctuates. It’s inconsistent, doesn’t have a clear theme or direction for a career path, and I’ve always told myself I’m not a good editor and technical writing would be too stiff for me to do daily. Additionally, what if I do it as a career and the pressure and critique of it ruin my love for it?

    So, then I sit with myself on other ideas.

    When I was young I wanted to be like Nancy Drew – a Detective! My dad told me to choose something more realistic so I landed on a Veterinarian for a while, but I quickly found out that I couldn’t handle that emotionally and another factor is they aren’t paid well. Also vet school is so expensive. I took a web development boot camp a few years back to see if my brain could handle something like that, but absolutely not. I was always creative and liberal arts focused in high school and college – math & arithmetic were never even an average skill set of mine.

    I’ve taken career quizzes, personality tests, legitimately Googled jobs and just peeked around for ideas. It’s ironic that I’m a recruiter and doing so much as if I haven’t seen every job (in corporate land) out there already.

    I’ve considered being a career coach/government career assistant because I love helping people find their potential and getting them on the right path – teaching them about interviewing and resume development. I’ve considered getting into the operations side of Human Resources like being a business partner, and I even completed my PHR last year before switching companies. I just don’t know if I will be able to transition into that department being that I’m at a start-up and everything is quite small. The job market is trash right now, so the chances of a company taking an opportunity on someone without direct experience is unlikely considering they are probably getting people who do have the skill sets already.

    Out of everything I explored, leaning into HR will be the best match for me. Keeping writing as a hobby I think will be the healthiest option, and if I want to publish something down the road – if the stars align – then fabulous.

    Considering my initial point, my job holds my heart in a binder of sorts. It’s more difficult for me to be risky with my job than it is with anything else in my life. It makes me feel too dependent, and weak thinking that if I lost my job I will be in ruin due to my financial situation. This means that taking leaps feels like an immense effort. Advocating for my growth at my current company, asking for more and leaning in feels scary. On top of that, because HR isn’t a ‘passion’ of mine – it’s a paycheck that offers more stability than recruiting – it’s not necessarily something I’m like “Oh, I want to do this!” it’s a means to an end where I’m thinking, “I should do this because it will make my life simpler, but I need to start making the decisions.”

    Perhaps changing my mindset around going after an HR job will help motivate me into making the risk feel even more worth it. If I put a deeper ‘why’ behind it, it could leverage me to take the risks. I think one thing too that I forget often is what I ‘deserve’.

    One day, a few years back, I was visiting my therapist and she prescribed me a higher dose of antidepressants. My internal monologue found its way out as I was debating when I would start the new dose based on logistics of my schedule and picking up the prescription. None of the logistical factors were all that daunting- it was more coming from a place of laziness when she asked me why I couldn’t just pick them up that day. She followed my rant by saying, “Don’t you think you deserve it?”

    It stuck with me because I do find that I talk myself out of what I deserve based solely on the weakness in my mind tied to lack of motivation and laziness. That was the depression and anxiety talking to a certain extent. Though I’m medicated completely now and happy, I still run into that internal conflict from time to time – including right now.

    You want to change fields so that you can be more stimulated and seen as more of a business partner than transactional- Don’t you deserve that?

    You want to keep working on your writing projects because it fuels your heart and creative spirit – don’t you deserve that?

    What all do I deserve? And when it comes to a job, what do people deserve from me but my best self? I can only give my best self when I feel like I’m stimulated, challenged, and living up to my own potential. Do I feel like I have all those things now in recruiting at my current job? I’m definitely challenged, but stimulated is another thing. Recruiting is something I’ve always done therefor I know all the ins and outs of it – every job I may work on might be vastly different from the last, but the way you go about it is truly the same. If you experience obstacles there are similar ways out of them as you’ve done prior. But I could say that same thing with every job out there.

    I think I just want to feel valued in my role as a partner rather than someone that needs to hit specified numbers, metrics and cater to the needs of a stakeholder as if they are my client. I have ideas and a voice that I want to use. Recruiting can almost feel so transactional and I want more depth and challenge in my day-to-day. I want projects on enablement and process improvements. I want to uncover gaps and think logically about things that could have a high impact. I believe I can meet in the middle and do that within a HR based position – I just need the opportunity to get there. I deserve that opportunity.

    So, if Mel Robbins says that each decision I make can change my entire life then what decisions should I make at this point regarding my job? What risks can I make to get me out of ‘stuck’ and stimulate my day-to-day life?

    Instead of living in the state of scarcity – how can I go after what I deserve?