Let Me Introduce Myself

Ima start by saying, "IT'S JUST HARD!"

This is an anthem that a close friend and I adopted while she was reviewing student scholarship applications for her sorority. In the section of the application that requested that the parent explain the family's situation that leads to the need for scholarship funds, the stretched, stressed mom stated simply in three exact, brief terms, "It's just hard."

As a mom (and apparently, female dad) of two, I could take our anthem and travel many places here. But I am going to choose another pressed path paved by gravel and joy.


So I have made a life decision to be abstinent until I get married!

Crazy, right?!

I KNOW!!!!

At the tender age of 15, I stepped into the place of emptying out who I am, via the openings of my body. I have tried to prove my sensual self to an extent that I trusted would surely convey the fact that I have the capacity to love well and for forever. I was given a passport to find pleasure in pain and simultaneously manufacture relationships doused with ill-intent and fantasy. I have enjoyed the rise and tension of absolute attraction, along with the seduction that mutually and heavily ensued. I welcomed and awaited the sensation of feeling short of breath. I loved saying , "No." and meaning, "YES, YES, YES!!!!"
I think it all made me feel like an adult of sorts; doin' what I wanted, when and how I wanted it. I reveled in discovering that I am bold enough to be nasty and naughty and tireless in my pursuit. It was there that I found freedom and my first meaningful self.

While remembrance of the passion of perfect sex makes me weak in all places imaginable, there lurking in the backdrop of sweat and climax is the inevitable descent toward broken connection and the disappointment of monotonous copulation.

I found myself spending too many nights staring up at a window on my right, numbed, as the moonlight pulled me away from what felt more like my sexual opponent, laying to my left, whom I had let win and sleep with the reward. After each cigarette, I was alone and the same person was there; a feeling of isolation, confusion, and truth wrestled me goodnight. Before I knew it, I was fuckin' and walkin' away and it was fun! I was changing, becoming unlike myself, but a part of a club whose initiation had taken me under long before. For me, every sexual relationship had left me only thinking. And eventhough not one has brought me what I ultimately desired, they all brought me here - to myself - to uncover what I had been yearning the whole time.

I discovered that there is something down deep, beneath the sexes; a truth that there is a vast distance that lays beyond the libido. I needed to step into that abyss, albeit alone, to find that this space is far more savory than the juices that ever ran down my thighs, far more aromatic than his essence that I was able to breathe into my being.

There is a precious peace within me that is awaiting its time to birth, so that my husband may one day enter me relentlessly under a sunlight and moonlight that has already approved.

Meanwhile: It's just hard.

I invite you to take this journey with me.