Feelings.
Grappling with the aftermath of saying "adieu." Plus, a visit to a doctor who says I have a "long vagina."
My name is not Naomi. It’s a nom de plume to protect my identity. Though names and identifying details have been changed, all the stories in Gen XXX are true. My anonymity means that I rely on word of mouth to grow my reader base, so if you’re intrigued by what you’re reading, please do share with friends and consider becoming a paid subscriber.
I miss Nico. I miss Antoine, too, but I talk to Antoine every day. He’s available. And interested. And doesn’t make me cry. As of two weeks ago, however, Nico is no more.
I’m having thoughts about all this, of course. Every day I wonder what Nico is doing, and whether he’s thinking about me as much as I think about him. A million things remind me of him, some of which I’m too ashamed to admit to out loud.
I still can’t get over the timing of my untethering from Nico, which occurs on the one year anniversary of my meeting him, five days after Antoine has departed, and four days before Nico was supposed to go to northern California and (maybe) meet me.
The problem with thoughts is that they lead to feelings — like grief, desire, embarrassment, self-loathing, regret and doubt — and it’s these feelings that make me uncomfortable and somewhat agitated and anxious.
Grief: I miss him.
Desire: I want him.
Embarrassment: I can’t believe I engaged with him.
Self-loathing: I’m pathetic to have indulged him.
Regret: I wish I hadn’t met him.
Doubt: I wonder if I shouldn’t have rejected him.
The anxiety and doubt are what feel most central right now. Maybe I was being overdramatic in how I called it off, as Nico accused me of being. Maybe I should have seen how and if things between us changed.
I realize that’s a big “if.”
I also realize that all this is a big “what” but not a “why?”
“Sex is a metaphor,” as Max points out. “It’s all about limits and power and trust and vulnerability and that’s all so interesting.”
She’s right, of course, but it’s hard for me to articulate how these elements are reflected in my own experiences. I liked it when Nico pushed my limits but sometimes I wondered if he was not so much playing with me but playing me for a fool.
Though I also ceded power to him — both at his request and of my own volition — this, too, sometimes filled me with discomfort and unease. Ceding too much power to a man went against my concept of sex, which, as a third wave feminist, was supposed to be empowering. But where did I get that idea from in the first place? There was no rulebook for what sex was or wasn’t supposed to be back in the 1990s. Or was there?
The issue of trust is the one with which I’m grappling the most. Not just because of what it says about Nico, but what it says about me. And what it says is not very flattering, suggesting that I have a certain comfort level or tolerance for others’ dishonesty if it’s in the service of boosting my own ego.
As for vulnerability? I’m more mixed on this, because the way Nico and I “played” together brought an element of intimacy to our relationship that seemed to strip away at his impenetrable exterior, if even for a moment. Actually, in some ways, Nico made himself more vulnerable to me than I made myself vulnerable to him, because he had more to lose in the event that we were found out. Like a family, for starters.
It’s a lot to chew on, and I know that one solution to dealing with difficult feelings is to sit with the feelings, and let them wash over me.
Emotions move like clouds, says my therapist. They’re always changing.
This may be true, but they’re always returning, too. And it’s taking everything in my power to not re-download the app that Nico and I talked on and re-engage.
After reading last week’s post about cutting it off with Nico, my friend Lauren writes me a note:
“When I had my final goodbye to my ex it was gut wrenching… but also deeply healing, it turns out, as the days and months and years passed and my heart healed over and recentered where it belonged, I was able to know in my deepest of bones I had released my ex to nourish a new relationship that has since become his forever one, and I recommitted myself to the family I had worked so hard to forge.
I think of him time to time with little electric jolts of pain like a wee shock but then it subsides and I say aloud, Thank You, to him. For when we released each other, life got infinitely more clear and directioned and focused. Gone was the fog of unrequited lust and ache of old love we were attempting to resurrect, distracting us both to nearly walking into traffic on the daily. Returned to me at least, was purpose and gratitude for all I had built before, and during and would continue to build.
I realize your Ghost man was not at this level of history and risk, but he was nevertheless a roadblock to your heart’s purpose. Releasing him, and allowing him to release you, is the most tender gift you can give one another. It honors the journey you embarked on with him. Catch and release. I’m proud of you! Now, space is made for something truly real and tangible.”
Lauren appends her note with three emojis: A set of praying hands, a heart, and a butterfly. A few days later, I go to my friend Margaret’s house to have dinner and sit on her porch steps with her chihuahua, Linus. Margaret points to something under the railing: a chrysalis for a monarch butterfly. It’s a greenish-blue, like the color of the ceiling in Grand Central Station, and it has a gold filigree on its exterior, like a precious jewel. From the outside of the chrysalis I can make out the faint pattern of the butterfly’s wings. It’s almost ready to be (re)born.
The subject of butterflies comes up again the next day. Olivia and I and some of our friends, including Margot, have gathered on the beach in front of the Annenberg Pool House to spend the day talking and snacking on food while reclining on blankets and beach chairs. I’ve brought a book to read, The Menopause Brain, and Olivia has brought a deck of tarot cards — a “Wild Unknown” deck — and is generously doing readings for those assembled.
I choose a “clarity” spread consisting of four cards. The first, and most “central” card, is the Five of Cups, depicting a horse dropping its head. It’s a grief and disappointment card. Despair. Loneliness. Beneath it are three clarifier cards, beginning with the Ace of Cups, the Seven of Swords, and the Six of Wands. The last card depicts a butterfly rising from the depths of dark thicket of branches and wands. The butterfly is a blueish-green color, sort of like the shade of the chrysalis Margaret pointed out to me the day before.
Because we are in mixed company, Olivia doesn’t want to “out” me about a disappointing work thing or Nico. She tries to speak in code about the Five of Cups card. Disappointment, she says, is about the work thing. Grief is about Nico. At the core of the Nico thing, she thinks, is the Seven of Swords card, which is positioned below the Five of Cups card and depicts a fox hiding a sword in its tail. Secrecy and deceit. Question is: Was that secrecy and deceit mine? Or his?
The Ace of Cups and the Six of Wands are “better” cards. To me, at least. The former suggests an embrace of emotions, friendship and love. The latter suggests a triumph, whether internal or external.
A few days before Olivia does the tarot reading I am traveling around Northern California in order see my father, sister, and friends from high school. My father and sister and I eat takeout and watch British procedurals on TV and stare too much at our phones. My friends and I take walks and drink coffee and talk about our lives.
It’s much easier to spend time with my friends than my family. I hate to say this, but my dad and sister are low-functioning, prone to depression and inertia. They sleep too much, and they eat too much, and the house they live in is dark and depressing, except for a few plants by the back door and some artwork on the wall.
There’s a shrine to my mother inside the house that my sister put together. It includes a box of my mom’s ashes, a series of framed photographs, dried flowers and incense. It’s difficult for me to look at, just like it’s difficult for me to look at the way my sister and father are living, surrounded by boxes that they either need to unpack or put into storage. There are stains on the living room carpet and pistachio shells on the floor under the couch.
I’m tempted to get down on my hands and knees to clean everything up but then I remember that it’s not my job to save everybody.
After four days spent in my hometown, I head to the Bay Area to stay with Max for a couple of nights. She wants to hear about my latest adventures on the sex app but to be honest, I’m not sure if I’m even looking anymore. My time with Antoine has made me somewhat disinterested in the attentions of other men. I wonder if Viv would say I’m in love.
The day after I arrive in Oakland, I head to San Francisco to see my OB-GYN for a yearly checkup. I love her: She’s energetic, present, intuitive, emotionally intelligent, and great at her job. (So great, in fact, that she lent her expertise to Miranda July when the latter was writing All Fours.)
After a breast exam, pap smear and some reassurance that a small bump on my butt is nothing to worry about, I’m informed that I have a “long vagina.” (Lol.) She is also going to order a blood test to check my testosterone levels. Perhaps, she says, I’ll need to get more hormone therapy to help with the night sweats.
“You look so beautifully healthy and radiated a positive energy I had not yet experienced,” my OB-GYN emails me later, after I ask her for her thoughts on the reputed connection between night sweats and dementia. “So glad you came in for a routine checkup!”
The night of my OB-GYN appointment I head to a hip Oakland bar with Max to see a friend of ours who is visiting from New York. I tell the friend — anyone who will listen, really — about the discovery of my “long vagina.” Maybe I should put this in my sex and dating profiles, I joke. People laugh. I consider texting Antoine to ask him for his experience but think better of it.
In pictures taken of me and my New York friend I notice that there’s a lightness to my expression and glow to my face. Maybe it’s the absence of Nico. Or maybe it’s just that I’ve been spending a lot of time outside in the sun.
Alison says she’s proud of me for cutting it off with Nico. So does Olivia, and, though she doesn’t want to talk specifics, she later forwards me an email about a 14-part course on “Cutting Cords to Reclaim Your Power.”
Later, after I tell Olivia about the bump on my butt, she tells me about a negotiation she’s having with her boyfriend about taking it in the ass. She’s been avoiding anal sex but Matt, her boyfriend, won’t stop (lovingly) pestering her.
“The jig is up,” she says. “I think I have to say ‘yes’ to anal.”
We burst out laughing.
I miss Nico, but I also miss Antoine.
We text every day. He is not my boyfriend, but something is going on. We text when he wakes up, and when I wake up. When he goes to sleep, and when I go to sleep.
We text about missing one another. I tell him about our days. Our work. The fun we have with friends.
“I’m happy that you share me your daily routine and problems,” he writes me.
“I like that you do the same,” I respond. “It makes me feel closer to you and understand your life better.”
“Yes, exactly,” he says.
Another nice thing about Antoine is that he doesn’t treat me like a sex object. We’ll engage in heightened conversations about the erotic, but his behavior does not suggest that my greatest benefit to him is what I provide to him sexually.
Somehow, we get on the subject of contemporary pornography and how it sets unrealistic standards for so much of the sexual experience, including the grooming of body hair.
“I love a hairy pussy,” Antoine tells me.
I think about how I got most of my pubic hair ripped out of my vulva two days before his early May arrival.
What a waste!
I don’t really watch much porn, though sometimes I’ll peek at a video on PornHub in an effort to make myself come more quickly if I’m in a hurry. I feel ambivalent about looking at it, though. I can’t tell if this is because of some latent prudishness about sex or because of second wave gender politics or because porn is often objectively distasteful. Maybe it’s all three.
I’m reminded of something that Susan Brownmiller, who just passed away, wrote in her bestselling 1975 book Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape. She said that:
“…the gut distaste that a majority of women feel when we look at pornography, a distaste that, incredibly, it is no longer fashionable to admit, comes, I think, from the gut knowledge that we and our bodies are being stripped, exposed and contorted for the purpose of ridicule to bolster that ‘masculine esteem’ which gets its kick and sense of power from viewing females as anonymous, panting playthings, adult toys, dehumanized objects to be used, abuse, broken and discarded.”
Olivia doesn’t watch porn at all. She is adamant that porn is harmful to her: The images sear into her brain and she can’t get them out. Sometimes they’re hot, but mostly they feel like a cheap high. They “hijack her imagination,” she explains, and she feels like she’s being trained into becoming some sort of sex doll, which then makes it difficult to get at the root of her own erotic desire.
It’s a compelling argument, though Olivia doesn’t use it as an argument against porn but as a personal preference for a life lived without it. Even so, I relate to what she’s saying. I can often recall images from sex scenes in porn more easily than sex scenes I’ve participated in. This realization makes me uneasy.
Margot tells me that it’s a New Moon in Gemini, and my astrology app says the same. So does Lisa Rosman. It’s a time of renewal and transition and change, but the stubborn part of me doesn’t want transition and change because that means not just stepping away from Nico but staying away, even though most everything that has occurred in the wake of our “breakup” has been positive. New and different energy; different professional opportunities. A deeper connection with Antoine.
Margot also says that Saturn is currently in Aries. I don’t know what this means but I am informed via an Instagram post that this particular astrological phenomenon is akin to a “wake-up call” and an opportunity to start over. It’s “a cosmic clean slate,” “a time to become obsessed with the reinvention of yourself,” a moment in which “the energy has shifted, the lessons have landed and you’ve outgrown who you used to be.”
If all that sounds a little woo-woo, I agree. But I reserve the right to indulge in a little pseudoscience now and then.
The Director turned up a few days ago, telling me that he’s going to be in LA soon and would love to meet up.
“I had a good time with you that night,” he writes. “I am in London and Lisbon. Back in a week. Perhaps we should have a little fun.”
I wait a few days before responding. I’m not all that intrigued by The Director, and I’m not all that hot for him either, though I remember how beautiful his cock was, and how well he moved when he fucked.
We make a plan for a midday rendezvous on Thursday. I feel guilty.
But why? I wonder sometimes what Antoine would think if he knew I was writing about him. The thought fills me with dread. I haven’t worried about this with any other man I’ve ever written about, including Nico, but those men are either ephemeral or, in the case of Nico, not even really there, and I don’t feel I “owe” them more discretion than I’m already giving them. Antoine, on the other hand, is neither transitory nor unavailable, which he demonstrates day after day.
I wonder how it’ll all end with Antoine. Maybe he’ll meet a lovely younger woman who wants to have kids and get married.
I also wonder what, exactly, I’m doing. Am I avoiding finding deep intimacy by getting emotionally involved with a man I met on a sex app who lives halfway across the world?
Can I forgive myself for what I did with Nico? Do I need to?
Is this what it means to turn over a new leaf? To start over? To reinvent myself? To grow outside the confines of where I used to be?
Maybe I should tell The Director to forget it, that I’m not free for “lunch” after all.
Did you know that the “hero” images in each newsletter are based on colors of MAC lipsticks from the 1990s? No? Now you do. My designer feels they’re a delightful nod to the cohort known as Gen X. I agree.