Check In Number One: Am I Making Progress?

On the 29th I wrote a blog about starting over with my after school routine. I wrote about wanting to exercise, write, and spend more time with Garrett. I wrote about trying to shake myself out of this awful rut I seem to have fallen into.

Well, today is Wednesday. I have done three workouts. This is an improvement.

I do not feel better overall though. I am just as exhausted and drained as before. I am not napping though. I have been able to avoid passing out by keeping myself busy right up until bed time. My schedule looks like this:
School 6:30-3
Writing 3-4
Workout 4-5
Shower 5-6
Dinner 6-7
Time reading and/or with Garrett 7-10

Then I fall asleep immediately and very soundly. I feel like not napping all day long is also an improvement. It is a step in the right direction in terms of having a life outside of my job.

I have only cried once since Sunday. And I am not sure if those tears count because I hit my hand on the coffee table and sobbed. Only some of the sobbing was because of physical pain. This is better than it has been.

I am still waking up nauseous every morning. This morning I gagged and thought I was going to puke. I didn't. This is about the same as it has been.

This is my second blog post for the week. This is an improvement. I haven't done any reading this week. This has stayed the same.

My conclusion is that I haven't been doing this long enough to know for sure if it is helping me feel better. I need to continue and see how I am feeling at the end of the week.

I have received many, many messages of love and support from friends, family, and coworkers. These messages are very much appreciated. I love you all very much.

Starting Over

 September of 2015 all the way through February of 2016 has been very difficult for me.

I am a teacher and I started at a new school in September. So far this school year has been the most challenging ever. Most people say that their first year as a teacher is the most challenging. This year is even more difficult than that.

I have come home and cried more often than not. I leave work every day more exhausted than the last.

I have met many wonderful people and had many wonderful experiences in the past 6 months but overall I find that I am worn out, run down, exhausted, frustrated, fed up, heartsick, and overall, plain old unhappy.

I have found that during the school week I have entered a lethargic state. I wake up, get ready or work, work, come home, sleep, eat, watch tv, sleep, and then repeat it all the next day. On the weekends I clean the apartment and cry. I call my mom a few times a week and cry. I talk to Garrett about my feelings and I cry.

Last night I decided that I was done. Enough is enough. Yes, this year has been tough. And yes, my job has gotten increasingly difficult as the school year has gone on. But guess what? I have a lot of other wonderful things going for me. I have an amazing husband who has listened to me whine, bitch, complain, and cry for months now. I have a wonderful family that just wants me to be happy and would literally do anything for me at this point to put a smile on my face even if it was just for a little while. I make good money and am able to pay my bills. I am getting a tattoo. I am seeing the Red Sox play the Yankees. I went to Boston and spent an epic day there over February vacation. Garrett and I are planning a trip to Disney this summer. I have an apartment that I enjoy. I am getting published for the very first time.

I need to stop crying. I need to stop feeling sorry for myself. Yes, this job is hard. And yeah it isn't going well right now. But the job should no longer be my entire life. Garrett and I want to start a family some day. I need to start to have a life outside of my work if that is ever going to happen and now is the perfect time to get my shit in order.

And so I am done crying. I am done bitching and moaning.

I am starting over. Monday-Friday I will work 6:30 am to 3 pm. Then I will write from 3-4. Then I am going to exercise, take a shower, and start dinner. After dinner I am going to read. Then I am going to snuggle with my husband on the couch and watch our favorite tv shows together. There will be no complaints. There will be no excuses.

I have never needed to have a life outside of my job more than I do now. I have never needed to take care of my physical and emotional well-being as much as I do now.

So I am going to start. Right now. Today. No more excuses.

Writer's Block

I am trying to come up with an idea for a novel. I am so stuck. I have a few ideas but they aren't fully fleshed out. I can't think them through to their conclusion. Or I have characters but I am not sure what their conflict is. Or I have an opening scene in my head but I am not sure where the scene leads to. I have too many missing pieces. I try to outline the story but then it feels ... not like me. Not true to me. Or too juvenile. Like I don't have a theme.

This is incredibly frustrating for me.

I have only once written a story through to the end. And that story was partly autobiographical. I had something I needed to get out of my head. Something I needed to work out on the page.

The things I need to work out these days are more difficult. I am not sure how to write them down. Or where to start.

Maybe if I could write those things down I would have an easier time?

Things To Look Forward To

Since Thanksgiving I have been in a funk. I have been depressed and negative about the world. I spend most of my time sleeping. That is when I am not working.In order to break myself out of this I am trying to focus on the things that I am looking forward to. 

First, I was looking forward to Christmas vacation an seeing my family. Then I was looking forward to February vacation.I had an AWESOME February vacation. That first Saturday I went out dancing with some ladies that I work with. Then the next day was Valentine's Day so Garrett and I had a wonderful date night. I saw dad and my brothers on Monday. Then I cleaned Tuesday. Wednesday I saw mom. Thursday I went out to lunch with Mel, Chad, and Jaylynn. Then Friday I cleaned up the apartment some more and hung out with Louis that night. The next day we went to Boston!

Boston was so much fun! We went to Dave and Busters. Then we walked around Quincy Market before getting dinner. After dinner we went to a dueling piano bar. Then we saw an improv comedy show before driving back. Sunday Garrett and I had lunch with dad, Michelle, Cory, Kennedy, and Dan. We were sore and tired but it was worth it. 

Now that February vacation is over I am looking forward to the next exciting things in my life. I have been asked to go out dancing with my work friends again on March 12th. Louis is trying to get together with Garrett and Chad to play games so Mel and I might have a girls day. Then there is April vacation. That is when mom and I are going to get our tattoos. Then in May Garrett and I will be returning to Boston for our Red Sox vs Yankees game. 

The most exciting thing is going to happen after the school year is over. Garrett and I are going to DISNEY in FLORIDA!! I will be going out of New England for the first time. I will be riding a plane for the first time. I will be going to Disney for the first time. We will be celebrating both my birthday and our first wedding anniversary while we are there. 

I am trying really hard to keep my focus on these things. If I don't then I know that I will be sucked back into the vortex of being depressed. I have a lot of great things happening in my life. I shouldn't be so .... down. Yes, I am constantly exhausted by my job. And yes, I have a lot of bad days at work lately. But I also have a wonderful life outside of there. It needs to take up more of my focus and attention. 

7 Things No One Ever Taught Me About Sex

In the media these days there is a lot of talk about sex education in schools. Obama recently ended all government funding for abstinence based education. This news has made me think about my own experience with sex education. At the time I thought that I knew everything I would ever want to know about sex but now that I have actually had sex I realized that I was dead wrong. Sure, my school taught me about every disease and STI you can get when you have unprotected sex. And yeah, I learned what the consequences of an unplanned pregnancy can be. But there is  A LOT more to it than that. Below is a list of 10 things I have learned since I became sexually active.

1. How to actually have sex.

Yeah, I learned that sex happened when a man put his penis in a girl’s vagina. And oral sex is when a person puts their mouth on someone’s genitalia. I specifically remember my mom asking me if I knew how to have sex. I said no even though they had already taught me this in school because until I had sex for the first time I couldn’t fathom how you were supposed to put the penis in the vagina. I had no idea how to make those body parts fit together. And I was disappointed when my mom gave me the same information the school had. My first sexual partner and I were both virgins for my first sexual encounter. It literally took us nine tries to figure out that in the missionary position I should put my legs up. I couldn’t walk for two days!

2. Women can have these things called orgasms and they feel AMAZING!

Why do schools leave this out? What would be so wrong about telling girls that their bodies can achieve orgasm? I had been masturbating since before I could remember and still didn’t know that I could have an orgasm until my first serious boyfriend made it point to try to give me one.

3. How to put a condom on a penis.

I remember the first time I opened a condom. My thoughts? “Why is this thing wet? Why is it rolled up like that? Which way does it go? Does the wet side go on the penis or the drier side?” I answered the last question with trial and error.

4. Butt sex is a thing people enjoy. And not just gay men.

It took me a long time to figure out that men had anal sex. I figured that gay men enjoyed a lot of touching and oral sex. After I learned that there was anal sex I at first assumed that it was enjoyed only by gay men. Nope! People of all sexualities can enjoy anal sex and many do.

5. If you are a woman you will be rejected for sex.

When you are in middle school and then again in high school and college girls are told that we need to dress modestly in order to not “give boys the wrong idea.” If we wear a short skirt or show our bra straps boys might think we are open to having sex. And when you “tease” a boy and then say no bad things happen. The truth is that boys have complete control of themselves. They are not constantly horny. They can and do occasionally say no to sex.

6. If you are a woman then your first time doesn’t have to hurt.

It is true that for many women their first time hurts. It is true that it is possible that it will hurt. My first time didn’t hurt. I actually enjoyed my first time more than the boy I was with enjoyed it!

7. Boys don’t always orgasm during sex either.

If you have been having sex for two hours and nothing is happening for him then it is time to call it quits.

I am sure that the above list doesn’t cover everything my school left out about sex but these are the 7 biggest things I have learned on my own. I am also sure that other people had different experiences than mine. The thing I am hoping you take away from this list is that there is a lot of room for improvement in all types of sex education in schools, particularly around non-heterosexual sex. Hopefully, now that schools can no longer receive government funds for abstinence only education these improvements can begin in earnest.

Men Can And Do Say No To Sex So Why Don’t Women?

My husband and I were cuddling in bed when he made a comment about how my hair smelled like smoke after spending the day at my mother’s. I asked,

“Is that why you don’t want to have sex with me?”

He was silent. After a while he answered,

“I am silent because I want to say it is because I have work in the morning but I know that answer will make me a hypocrite because we stay up late all the time to have sex when you have work in the morning.”

My husband and I have talked about this before. When he wants sex we have sex. It doesn’t matter if I am sick or tired or stressed or not really into it. It doesn’t matter if I have work in the morning and would rather go to sleep early. It doesn’t matter how I am feeling I never turn him down.

However, there are times when he says no to me. And he is not the first man to say no to

me.

The biggest lie our society tells us is that men want sex all the time. It is because men are sex crazed animals who can’t control themselves that women are raped. Wrong.

Men can control themselves. Their sex drives are not greater than ours.

My first sexual relationship was with a boy I had met in college. I remember that for the first year or so after we started having sex we had sex quite often. After a while though it became more and more clear to me that he was not as interested in sex as I was. He was happy “doing the deed” once a week while I wanted it every day. I thought for sure that we could find some happy medium if only I was more assertive about my wants and needs.

I thought that maybe my kissing, touching, and sexy outfits were too subtle. It wasn’t until one evening where I was literally on top of him attempting to undress us both while kissing him that I realized the truth. I was not too subtle. I was making myself perfectly clear. He was turning me down.

It was then that I started keeping track of all the times he turned me down. Every time I initiated sex he turned me down. The only time we had sex was when he wanted it. When he initiated it.

And what’s more was I had become so used to the idea that the only time we would ever be having sex was when he wanted it that I never turned him down. If I was sick, if I was tired, if I had to work the next day, if I didn’t feel like it, I still said yes. I wasn’t sure when the next opportunity would arise. I wasn’t sure how long it would be before he wanted it again and if I turned him down now then I would only be even hornier later.

Eventually I pointed this all out to him. And that was when our relationship began to unravel. My sex drive was higher than his and that “made him feel like he wasn’t enough of a man” for me. He felt inadequate. You see, our society doesn’t just lie to women about a man’s sex drive. It lies to men too. A man who doesn’t want sex isn’t a man at all.

This boyfriend dumped me. At this point in time I entered into a friends with benefits situation. For a while this worked. He and I both greatly enjoyed sex. But after a while I realized that yet again he did all of the initiating. If I invited him over for a booty call he declined. If I made the plans for when we would meet up he would cancel. The only time he and I had sex was when he wanted to have sex. Apparently only men can make booty calls and only women can answer them.

Now I am married and I feel lucky that my husband doesn’t always turn me down for sex. He likes when I initiate. He likes when I crawl into his lap and start taking my clothes off. He says that it makes him feel wanted and that when I do that it is very clear to him what it is I want.

But I still find that when he rejects me it hurts. I still find that every rejection brings up old wounds. I lay in bed at night and wonder, “Why doesn’t he want me? Is there something wrong with me? Am I not attractive to him anymore?”

Tonight though I thought about something else. Why don’t I feel I can say no to my husband? Do I like sex more than him? Do I simply feel guilty when I rejected him? Or is it something more than that? Do I subconsciously believe that a good wife should never say no? And why do I always assume that there must be something wrong with me when my husband says no? I am a feminist!

Tonight I have realized that my experience with being rejected and my experiences of never turning sex down have much more to do with our society and its expectations than it does with me. Our society has always perpetrated this idea that men are the initiators of sex because they are always looking for the next opportunity to get laid. So by taking control of my own sexual urges and asking men to satisfy them I have inverted this idea. And this made two former lovers feel inadequate.

At the same time that our society teaches us that men are always on the hunt, it teaches us that women that sometimes we must sacrifice our own wants and needs for others. Currently this is the part that I am trapped in. I am still sacrificing my own wants and needs for my husband’s. Every time I say yes to him when I want to say no I am putting his desires before my own.

I am not saying that women need to stop putting their loved ones first. I am saying that we need to stop doing it all the time. Our partners will live if we say no to them every now and then.

Holding My Tongue

I have been sick. I have had a bad cold and I have felt completely and totally drained of all energy for the past few days. I have come home, laid down on the couch every evening and slept until I had to wake up to eat, and do whatever else I needed to do to survive. I have not felt like moving my limbs to get up off the couch.

And so this is my first blog post this week. I am sorry. I feel like I have some pretty bad writer's block because I didn't write at all this week. Now I want to write but I can't seem to get started. I haven't got any topics to write about. I suppose it is because this cold and my job are on the forefront of my mind every day. I can't write about my job.

I spend most of my days and many of my evenings thinking about my job but I can't write about it. It is utterly frustrating. There is a lot I would like to say but not a lot that I can say.

It is a form of holding my tongue. And when you are a writer who works things out by writing them down that can be hard to do.

Maybe I should write it down somewhere less public, just for me? Maybe I should keep a paper and pencil journal. Maybe I should say nothing at all.