1 YEAR POST

Wow!  Today marks one year post-My Year Without Sex.  I have to say, it hasn’t been too much different. *wink* Well, that’s not entirely true, it has been incredibly different in many ways and the growth that has occurred is astounding. 

After my year ended, I was eager to get back in the saddle and see if I still remembered how. *wink* I was rushing again.  I wanted to break the sabbatical.  Alas, I still had far to go.  It has only been recently (within the past couple weeks) that I have come to realize that I have spent my entire life chasing love.  Looking for someone to love me.  Looking for validation from a partner.  Even after my year, even a year after my year, I wanted a partner to protect me and tell me everything was going to be alright.  I didn’t fully realize the extent to which the search for a soulmate penetrated my life until I started attempting to answer the questions that have been stalking me for the past year: what do you want? What are you looking for?

The truth is I have been looking for a guardian.  A person to shelter me from the big bad world. Someone who would pick me up when I fall, brush me off and encourage me to keep going.  Well, it turns out, I need to be that for myself. Gah! This became most apparent when I tried to figure out why I don’t write even though I have been saying I want to be a writer for over a decade now.  I start and then stop.  It dawned on me that I usually stop the moment it starts to go well – weird, I know.  But that’s also not fully the truth.  I stop when I get rejected, as well.  I really stop whenever anyone takes any notice at all.  I write, but I’m afraid to show it to anyone.  That’s the real truth of the matter.  I’m afraid to be exposed.

It wasn’t until January of this year that I shared the link to this blog with the majority of people I know – crazy, huh?!  Six months AFTER my year is over, I share the link to the blog.  Why?  Because, what if it sucked and people laughed at me?!  Yup.  I was scared of being vulnerable.  Scared to show my scars to the world.  Scared that people would think I was silly.  Scared that maybe they wouldn’t.  Scared that maybe they would expect some sort of greatness that I couldn’t provide. Scared that they wouldn’t like the honest me. But, who cares?!  I spent my life worrying about pleasing other people and still I am alone, but the more I open, the more people open themselves to me.  Connections are made. 

So, now my challenge is to be open.  Be vulnerable.  Ironically, that was also my greatest challenge in theatre school.  Well, 10 years later, I’m finally figuring out how to address it. Yeesh! Yet up to now, I didn’t know how to start.  So, I’m writing.  And I’m sharing.  And I’m vomiting.  But mostly writing and sharing.  I guess it is just like anything in life, you need to practice to become good at it.

Finally, I would like to state that even though I set out to write an update about boys, it quickly turned into a post about my personal development.  This continues to be a nice change from two years ago, where my entire focus was on getting the man, analyzing the man and obsessing over the man.  Now, even typing those words, I could feel the tension collecting in my shoulders, my breathing getting tighter and the stress level rising.  Our bodies are such good registers of what is right and wrong in our lives.  I am so thankful that I have taken the time to train myself to listen to it.  I am still a novice, but I am becoming better and better at grounding myself when I feel I’m starting to get caught up in nervous energy that is not my own.  Life is so much more peaceful these days.