Hello Coco : A diary

Tag: depression

  • 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.

  • 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

  • Why Saying Goodbye Matters: A Personal Journey

    I think we all get the make-up of a goodbye.

    It starts off with an awkward silent acknowledgement of what’s supposed to happen next. Usually that happens as you both look at each other, arms awkwardly to your sides waiting for the other person to initiate unless it gets weird and you take the action, deciding whether or not this goodbye is warranted a hug or not.

    You do the thing and you part ways, unless you’re from the Midwest of course then you will be talking all before, during and after the hug – casually lingering with one foot in front of the next on your way out.

    Either way, it’s a closure from one point to the next. Concluding your time with someone either temporarily or permanently.

    I think we all do goodbyes because obviously it would be weird if we didn’t, right? Transitioning from one frame of presence to another where you are alone or moving on to another’s presence. Other than the social norms though, the purpose you would think is because maybe us humans need a solid transition – a mini closure.

    Of course, there are the ‘Irish goodbyes’ but those usually happen at parties, and are socially acceptable since you aren’t leaving a 1:1 hangout, like a casual ‘swing by’ situation that has a natural, silent swing out.

    I only figured out as I got older that ‘Irish goodbyes’ were only socially approved as something to happen in certain settings.

    As a kid in a military family the ‘Irish’ goodbye just felt like the classic kind.

    People came in and out of your life regularly, and it was taught that goodbyes were in most cases unnecessary, or something special you awarded people very close to you, otherwise you didn’t get attached enough to need more closure than that.

    At least that is what my dad thought, taking me away from friendships I built over a 6-year span and asking me to transition to a new home in under 2 weeks. “Make it quick” he said as I scrambled out of the car to give everyone a big hug and tell them that I’d miss them.

    I still resent my dad for that.

    It ended up impacting a lot of friendships and relationships as I had gotten older and had more autonomy over my environments. I would break up with boys on a whim and with little closure to them or myself – acting on emotions and feelings I didn’t even understand. I would burn bridges with friends, uncomfortable with the guilt of saying goodbye and having the conversation around it.

    I became classified to some as a ‘cold hearted bitch’.

    It didn’t help that my immediate family, whom I spent most of my chidhood with considering we were moving so much, were emotionally detached from themselves and each other.

    The second to last move before dad retired, I started to have panic attacks. My first one being in Algebra class after I had just found out my grandma was dying of cancer and we were picking up our whole life and moving in 2 weeks, without more than a few days’ notice.

    I’d cry at the dinner table, getting worked up because I didn’t feel heard when I told her I was anxious and depressed. Out of frustration I would scream and run to my room slamming the door behind me – asking for trouble. My mom opened the door, leaned against the frame and grinned at me as if what I was feeling was a child acting out. Amusing.

    I learned that year that my feelings didn’t matter to my parents, so why share them when I’d be faced with disappointment and invalidation.

    When my favorite teacher died of cancer I went to the service and then came home, went to my room quietly and cried. My mom came in, saw me and then left without a single word.

    When a student at my high school died in a car crash on his way to school, the entire class was silent and distraught. I came home and cried because I felt so awful at what had happened, only for mom to say, ‘why, you didn’t know him?’.

    My dad was never home to really get it but I always knew he was similar to mom. Had the same ideas around emotional vulnerability. That is until his doctor accidentally prescribed him a cocktail of medication that gave him immense anxiety. He struggled for months, until he realized what it was.

    My mom came to me at one point and said, “watching what your father went through- I get it now.”

    Because the feelings of your children are not real unless an adult you know feels them first to make them valid. I felt in that moment that I wished my dad experienced that anxiety episode much sooner in life so that I didn’t feel like I missed out on having support. I would even wish anxiety and depression upon her resentfully so that she could truly feel it and give me the apology I deserved.

    Growing up through my 20s and going to lots of therapy, I took on the work of finding validation internally. I slip up a lot though still. I was in a 6 year relationship with someone who stopped hearing me, invalidating every fucking feeling I had against them with a debate. I let that relationship go for way too long because perhaps the trauma from my past felt slightly comforting – swallowing my feelings whole to prevent hurt, even though I didn’t need to do that.

    I would become fearful that if I expressed a feeling, she would shoot me down and be condescending just like my mother.

    The patters of our traumas are really difficult to get out of. So, as painful as it was and how much I didn’t want to do it – I said goodbye.

    The goodbye was long, drawn out and uncomfortable as fuck. I let it all be my fault just to get it over with. She would question why and I would just say it was me because it was easier – I promised myself it would be the last time I do that for another person. That since we were living together and knee-deep in our lives together, that me succumbing to the full blame would be easiest. I was protecting myself from defending my feelings like I knew would happen.

    Since that relationship I have been casually dating a lot of different people and practicing a lot of goodbyes. Some not so good, and some really healthy. Being honest, feeling my instincts and letting myself be an entire person.

    I don’t think I’ll ever get to truly say goodbye to my past and the soul-sinking feelings of having my feelings crushed between another person’s hands…

    The betrayal and feeling of loneliness that can come so easily from another person you so depend on.

    It’s been 7 years since I moved away from home and got the distance I needed to mend those relationships and have vulnerable conversations with both my parents – ones that have felt so rewarding and fulfilling, like they are trying to grow too.

    I move back in a year – saying goodbye to Colorado. They asked me to move back sooner and I laughed out loud at them because of course they would expect that to be easy.

    The people who never could understand why goodbye was something people did. The people who didn’t believe anyone or anyplace was ever worth one.

    I told them that I plan on taking my time leaving here. Getting the full closure of this place, my home, and parting ways with a whole chapter of myself. Giving my friends a solid, whole-hearted goodbye. Taking one last walk around the park near my apartment, going to all my favorite spots one more time, embracing a Colorado summer and winter one more time.

    They went silent on the other end of the phone – unclear of what to say. I felt the twinge of sadness from not being understood, from them not putting the fucking puzzle together. I can’t help but feel like one day they will just get it.

    I think that’s what happens when it’s your parents though. You want so badly for them to get you, understand what they did wrong and apologize for it, to feel for you and with you because you love them regardless. I know they love me too, but it’s not enough and it doesn’t feel like whole love.

    Whole love for me feels like synchronous understanding of one another, who they are, and doing what they need to feel that love.

    I do not feel like they seek to understand me and seek to give me the type of love I need and ask for. And that hurts.

    I’ll never be able to say goodbye to them, but I know in my heart of hearts I have to say goodbye to the expectations I’ve always hoped they’d meet.

    A type of goodbye no one could have ever prepared me for.

  • Being Mean: A Coping Mechanism in My Relationships

    When I was young, my parents would take bets on my relationships to see how long they would last. Rude right? It was because they said I was so mean to the boys. It hurt my feelings at the time because I felt like it meant that something was wrong with me.

    I took pride for a little while that I was mean to them because it made me feel superior. My dad even egged it on, probably because he was nervous about me dating as dads are. Also boys at that age were fucking idiots and I felt like I had to be mean to get my point across.

    Over the years the meanness had persisted in different ways/degrees. I’ve gone to therapy, have talked about it and tried to understand it without it actually going anywhere. My last relationship suffered quite a bit from it, but she would call it my ‘night spicy-ness’ as at the end of every day I would get pointy. It impacted our sex life and her overall comfortability around me. In the last year of our relationship, it reached an all-time high. I still remember lying in bed hearing her say,

    “I know my girlfriend is somewhere in there, I’m just waiting for her.”

    I think that level of meanness in the last year was triggered from internal dissonance. I wasn’t doing what I felt I needed to in my soul and instead working against it to try to be more ‘comfortable’ in that relationship. This was all happening on the back end though and I wasn’t ready to face it, which I feel made it even worse.

    The meanness of when I was younger I feel was triggered from not feeling like I can be authentic because I was emotionally stunted.

    Now that I am experiencing guys all over again, ass-deep in therapy, and having mini-realizations about how guys repress their feelings and have a hard time emoting/opening up, I’ve been practicing being gentler with myself and them- look at me go!

    With that gentleness, I’ve been filtering my thoughts through an extra layer of ‘how would they interpret what I am about to say?’ or ‘how would I feel if they said this to me?’ 8 times out of 10, I rework the words in my mind or forego it altogether. It makes me feel bad when I realize how many times, I actually do that and how long I’ve been going without the filter. Getting out of that negative mindset is a new obstacle for me. I should be celebrating the self-awareness, but it’s making me nervous at how far I’ve come without it and how I’ve been perceived.

    So, I’ve been doing this work and then in comes fucking Carter.

    The first time we met we had drinks, talked about our sexual preferences and hooked up in the same night. The second time he just came over and we fucked. This time, he came to pick me up to go out to a few bars in the area. The plan was that we would go out, he would use my panty vibrator and then we’d fool around in his car until we got back to my place. It was a solid, well-thought-out plan in my books. We are so sexually in-sync that I didn’t see any flaw to it.

    I jumped into his car, and he immediately made a comment about my swaying the car, cracking a joke about his suspension. I asked what these lights were on his car, and he gave me a passive, dick-ish answer. The rest of the next hour went just like that – being poked and prodded by every question and answer I’d give until he started making comments about girl friend groups and how there is always a ‘D.U.F.F’ and then proceeded to ask if I was one. I slapped him with my purse and told him if he planned on getting laid he should shut his fucking mouth.

    What happened next was the most interesting part. He shut up, started playing around on his phone, and sat on the opposite side of the booth. He made me work to turn the night back around as I persuaded him to come join me on my side. He apologized for being so mean, but I knew there was something else going on behind the scenes I wasn’t seeing. I asked him about it and he said he genuinely feels like this was his personality and I felt that. I felt that unsettling feeling of permanence as I’ve felt it thinking about how I’ve always struggled with it.

    Although the night went exactly as planned sexually & logistically, I began to realize that I couldn’t quite get comfortable, and he picked up on it. I couldn’t quite relax enough to truly just enjoy the sex and the foreplay beforehand. I became self-conscious of my razor-burn, how I looked on top, my facial expressions…everything because I knew how mean he could be that perhaps he had internal thoughts about them.

    Then it clicked this morning when I woke up, Carter is a lesson for me. Perhaps a little Karma too.

    What I am beginning to learn:

    1. Other people struggle with keeping ‘nice-ness’ in the forefront of their brain when interacting with partners of any degree (I just hadn’t met anyone else like this until Carter).
    2. Whether it’s a personality trait is actually a mystery, but I feel mine are from triggers, communication struggles and learned patterns that I believe can be helped. Maybe it’s time I dig into it further.
    3. Even if you are emotionally detached from the person you are sleeping with, what they do/say will impact the quality of sex. That is perhaps a reason why my sex life with my prior person was such shit.

  • Navigating Life Changes: Unpacking Layers of Identity

    There have been some stark moments lately where I’m realizing there are even more layers to who I am and that’s scary. I thought I knew every angle and crevice of my personality and desires. Now there’s this hunger to unveil more and more, ripping up each layer like floorboards of an old house. It’s overwhelming and electrifying, and I can’t slow down.

    It all began when I ended a very safe and healing 5-year relationship with a woman (we’ll call her Erin). She taught me what a healthy relationship should look like and how to comfortably live with another person while still holding independence. I owe so much of my growth to that experience and her. It just couldn’t work out – we weren’t right for each other for a lot of reasons.

    I don’t think it’s talked about enough how intense it is to just change you’re entire lifestyle after a long relationship like this one. You’re removing an entire person from your life, from your bed every night, from your current and future plans. It rewired my brain and now all I can think about is – ‘What now?’

    I began to take stock of my life; the first thing being how I was taking care of myself -how I looked. I asked myself: “How do I want to feel about the way that I look?” The answers always drilled down to confidence. I wanted to look and feel confident.

    So, I got Lasik; my biggest insecurity being my glasses. I updated my wardrobe, where for the last few years I almost always wore sweats. I started experimenting with my hair and makeup, where I would usually throw on a hat and didn’t want the work of taking off the makeup so I would forego it altogether out of laziness.

    —It’s a little funny now when I look back to see how depressed I actually was in that relationship. Getting out of it and on the *right* SSRI changed my fucking life. I was in such a funk and completely blind to it because of all the weed I smoked – chalking it up to just resting, just relaxing, just taking it easy, just me being me. —

    After all that, I began to exercise regularly – wanting the feeling of being refreshed, feeling strong and again, confident. For the last two years I had been insecure of how much weight I had gained which resulted in high cholesterol. I was consuming so much sugar out of comfort, and she was too – we were enabling each other constantly. Add in weed and well, you can see how it can get out of hand.

    Almost three months out of the relationship and I’ve dropped a considerable amount of weight out of eating healthy, exercising, and regulating my emotions exclusively. Taking myself out of the disgingenuine relationship began saving my health.

    The snowball kept snowballing and I didn’t want it to stop. It became addicting – still is. I told my therapist, “I don’t want it to stop! What else can I do?”

    I decided my next exploration would be my sexuality. For the last 7 years, I’ve only been with women. The last guy I had been with I was just 23 years old. I was very unsure about everything in life then – though I still am in a lot of ways – I was in a completely different place filled with insecurity and unhealed trauma. I had no tools.

    I’m 30 now and I’ve gone to years and years of therapy and with all the healthy moves I have been making, my libido had picked up which made me think more…creatively. What sounded good. Like food, what could I go for? Between all the smut books I had been reading and my curiosity to what men were like now, I knew I had to move in that direction.

    I was so scared at first because 1. what if Erin found out and so soon after our breakup? She would be heartbroken. 2. what if it is awful? What if it brings up triggers?

    The very last thing I had wanted was to put myself in a situation where I would come out of it feeling the same ways I had felt when I was young: used, unheard, and transactional. I decided that whatever happened with these men that I would tell them exactly what I wanted and make sure it happened. I wouldn’t settle for an experience my younger self cried over countless times. I started coming up with a plan to do just that, and doing it discreetly so that Erin or anyone would never find out without my control. This was mine.

    Something amazing happened from that. I’ll call him Drake. He was the first guy I met on Tinder who made an effort. He made me a little scared with how forward he was, triggering me on a small level, but I summoned the courage to tell him to chill the fuck out and if he wanted it to move forward it would be on my terms. Luckily, he took it very well and the mutual respect only grew from there as he texted me every day for a week until we met up, hopping on the phone once for two hours just so I’d be more comfortable first.

    He came over on Valentines Day of all days – by accident. He swept me up in a kiss in the first moment, ripping the bandage off in an instant. It quickly escalated but it lasted forever, in the best way. It happened a few times with sweet moments tucked in the middle. He made it feel comfortable and safe. He made me feel desired. He asked questions and leaned into my answers. He helped me grasp in that moment that sex with men didn’t need to feel the way I only knew it to be.

    Don’t get me wrong, the guy has his flags and I would never consider a relationship with him, but I’m so grateful for the experience and the mutual intentions for connection. I walked away (barely) with a new outlook and giddiness to an entire side of my sexuality that I can now feel confident can be pleasurable and accessible.

    It made me emotional for a few days, just processing the experience. How my body felt and at what times, what things he did that I enjoyed and perhaps what I wanted to try next.

    Tinder came through again with another guy, we’ll call him Jesse. He was more subtle, actually barely forward except for his pet names for me – “Queen” and “Baby” that I guiltily throbbed for. I began to notice his insecurities, lack of communication and time management, and worst of all – his drinking problem. Things escalated anyways and I let him grab me in big bear hugs that would melt me to the core. I would let him grab my hand and kiss the back of it as he looked in my eyes and said something sweet. Two weeks of talking and it appeared he craved the ‘girlfriend’ connection more than the physical, and I was kind of okay with that.

    We eventually had sex and I was pretty curious to see how it would feel compared to Drake. Would he also know what to do and how to do it? Would I feel just as safe and comfortable? I couldn’t help a little nervousness as we didn’t have as direct conversations like Drake and I about what we liked and didn’t like. Jesse didn’t get my spiel on ‘I won’t accept anything but quality’ as I told Drake from the start – but that was because Jesse didn’t come off as threatening as Drake did in the beginning with his fuck-boy talk. Jesse was also more shy.

    I approached everything with Jesse differently and it showed. It showed in Jesse’s comfort to be a little too drunk, it showed in me letting myself be drunk along with him. It showed in Jesse’s lack of focus on me in that moment…his inability to take direction and make consistent effort to ensure I was having as good as a time. The sex certainty wasn’t bad, but it was nothing compared to Drake and I felt that in my heart. My younger self felt it a little, she was a little disappointed in me.

    I’ve let her down a lot these last seven years. Not calling it quits when I should have with Erin. Not taking care of my physical and mental health. Staying in a job that was chiseling away at my peace.

    I owe it to her to make up for it, so I told Jesse that I needed to move on. Even though I loved the sweet platonic things he would do, I knew I couldn’t let myself feel less on the physical end. I knew his drinking problem wouldn’t let up for me to do that. It was surprisingly difficult. I had grown attached to the sweetness and because of that, i strung him on a little bit more than I should have.

    There was a lesson there that I needed to learn. A reminder that sometimes I have to override my feelings even when it sucks, that I have to parent my younger self from making choices that would hurt me in the long run even though it felt good. It also brought to light a feeling of lack – a deep desire for hugs, comfort and general connection. Something I’m actively trying to fill with my friendships, a dependable love.

    So, after all this glorious snowballing and lesson-learning and sexual awakenings, I’ve let myself reap the benefits in other parts of my life. The confidence leaked into work – which resulted in taking on new projects and receiving accolades for my work. It leaked into my friendships – opening up for more vulnerable conversations. I have been becoming more myself – getting my sparkle back as they say – and leaning into my truest thoughts and desires. People have been noticing and telling me how excited they are for my changes, which snowballed me even more.

    I will say, I’m still adjusting to this side of myself. Learning who she is, how much is too much. When to fold and when to press forward.

    I’ve now redirected to my job. If this HR career is something I actually want for the rest of my life or something I have kept with out of comfort and my long-lasting depression.

    I know that I would write full-time if I could. But the confidence hasn’t leaked in that direction just yet and I know that full-time writing isn’t common. Not only are the odds against me, but I feel that my ADHD brain sends me on unorganized tangents. That I miss important details, themes or connections that would strenghten my writing. That I lack outline and general structure.

    I joined a creative writing group to help with this, which is such a huge step out of my comfort zone, but it’s once a month. This blog is anonymous, and I’m scared for anyone I know to see it; critique it. My best friend reading my diary when I was younger still triggers me today. I have a lot of fears around my writing still.

    I know that if I want that to change that I need to make big uncomfortable changes as I’ve done so far in other areas of my life. So, what would big uncomfortable changes look like? How can I melt the confidence into this?

    The snowball must continue – I won’t let it stop, at least not yet. If I let it, this could perhaps be the biggest roll.

  • From Silence to Confidence: Reclaiming My Story

    It’s been sometime since I last wrote here. Truthfully, life has completely taken over and I’m glad it did. I’m sitting in a corner of my new apartment, looking out to everything I built for myself just in the last month.

    A magical thing happened when I started to write. I began to dream about what different experiences could feel like and subconsciously, experiences that I wanted for myself. I read somewhere that you should ‘write what you want to read’ and I had been craving something with meat to it – something that will have me second guessing who I’ve become these last 30 years and who I actually want to be for the next 30.

    Since the beginning of December I ended a 5-year relationship, moved into a studio apartment, dreamed up another idea for a story, went to a swing dancing class by myself, signed up for a creative writing group, dyed my hair and even got Lasik. And it all happened because I really wanted it to. If my characters could have adventures and happiness, so could I.

    With all of these changes a new sense of self-confidence has emerged, both on my own and interacting with other people. Confidence that I’ve got this and I can have what I want, if I just fucking go for it. It’s snowballed into the most essential thing I’ve always needed from the very start, the sole reason I began to start writing again, and that was to be heard.

    I ended my last relationship thinking to myself that my ex was perfect just the way she was and I just wasn’t feeling it. After some time to myself, I started to take note of my feelings in the closure process. I realized that I was dating someone that inherently prioritized her own voice above mine. It’s funny (sort of), I look back and think of all the times she’s blatantly interrupted me both one-on-one and in social settings, sometimes completely changing the subject as if whatever I was saying was unimportant. I look back and remember all the moments when she would ask me how my day was and completely check out. I remember asking for something and her twisting it so it would benefit her too.

    Not many people know that I grew up in an emotionless and uncommunicative household. I’ve come to realize that I was allowing myself to perpetuate my past. I allowed myself to be unheard because that’s what I have known.

    My younger self used to dream of my comments being posted on websites when dial-up was still a thing and I had only 30 minutes of computer time. I told myself after seeing “How to lose a guy in 10 days” for the first time that I would be Andy Anderson someday. I loved Harriet the Spy, observing and writing everything she saw. My journals had receipts, little drink umbrellas, movie stubs, and flowers and leaves. From a young age all I wanted to do was to be heard and connect.

    So, here I am starting over at 30 and doing my best to reconnect to the little girl that felt so free and open to share everything with the world as it came, no filter and no fear.

  • Therapy & Character Development: Writing my first book

    I have had this story in my head for years. Whenever I had felt a subtly glimmer of inspiration, I would build it in my mind little by little but never actually putting it into words.

    Over the course of the last year and a half, I went through some of the worst bouts of depression. I wrestled with the thought of feeling meaningless, like I had nothing really to live for. I didn’t have drive or motivation in my career. I smoked weed to get through a lot of the long days and nights. I had been growing apart from the person I had been dating and with all these things combined I was severely under stimulated.

    I would scroll through TikTok, searching for keywords like ‘passion’ and ‘quarter-life crisis’ just to figure out what other people were saying. I was looking for guidance on what to do with my life.

    I don’t know what exact moment sparked this next chapter, but all I know is that it took 3 and a half weeks of isolation and a tiny spark of inspiration to just open up my laptop and begin writing an outline for the story I had always wanted, but was never brave enough, to write.

    The issue was that I knew the story would be personal, regardless of whatever fiction I sewed into it, there was going to be raw and real feelings -my heart- knitted into most of everything I wrote. Not because I meant to do it, but because it’s all I knew. It wasn’t till later did I realize that I needed it to be that way.

    I put it off for so long because I thought that if I had decided to actually publish it, that people in my life would actually read it. The people who are not actively addressed, would know who they were in the story.

    Even if I didn’t publish it though, there was fear someone would find it and read it. Like my best friend read my diary in my sophomore year of high school, causing a rift between us for two years. The summers after that, I would burn my journals on solo camping trips after finishing them for exactly that reason. Fear. Fear that someone would read something they didn’t like and that I would lose them.

    You’re probably thinking, “Damn, what the fuck are you writing in those journals?”

    Everything. You know those thoughts that you know are not healthy, not politically correct, not censored – your ‘monkey brain’ thoughts that you are conditioned to think from your environment, your background and your own personal experiences and traumas. Those.

    What she read that day was directly about her and how I felt about the decisions she was making with her life. Thoughts that were harsh and unguarded, but needed to be picked out from my brain and laid out on paper where they could rest and I could let it go.

    Writing has always been my therapy. With this new book that I continued to write, pushing through the fear, I have digested my most difficult feelings. I have gotten closure from my parents, went after what I truly desired, and worked through things that I never knew lived deep beneath my skin.

    I kept asking myself when writing it, ‘Is this too much of me – should I make it more fiction?” I laughed to myself because a lot of it was/is fiction, just things that I actually wanted to happen in my life. I was writing for the person I was, am and wanted to be without realizing it.

    So, as I was developing this character, I began to develop the person I really want to be. She’s still in progress by a large sum, but I’m starting to get to know her more, what she really wants and how she’s going to get there.

    Fast forward a few months later and I’m sitting in an almost empty apartment, the person I just broke up with going solo on their family trip as I count down the few days I have before I move into my new studio apartment. Alone. Well, with two very cute cats, but alone.

    I started this book thinking it would be a gutsy project, only to find that it has opened my eyes to an entirely different world that I want to be actively apart of and build from the studs.