9/24/14

My social media is divided by opinions on my sex life

I have too many social media accounts.  I have too many because I have at least TWO of everything.  There are two sides to me.  And while I don't live two lives, there's the side I let my some people see and a side I let the worlds see.  Oddly enough, the WORLD side sees more of me than the some people side. 

I have a facebook account for my family and co-workers.  The ones who care about my kids and what I cook and the tame, vanilla side of my life.  The ones who I would rather not know about the dynamics in my relationship.  Then there's my ACTUAL facebook account, which is where my friends, my partners, old boyfriends etc reside. 

But there's a lot of crossover.  My BOSS for instance, is friends with me on my vanilla facebook account, except, she knows everything about me.  And I mean, EVERYTHING.  My old co-workers at my old job (10 years ago) and people I knew from my past professional life are on my regular facebook account, pretty much ensuring I will never work for them again.  Hmmmm- that was probably a bad call.

Many, but not all, of my family knows about my less traditional lifestyle.  However I keep it from them because honestly I think they just don't care to know or hear about it.  I generally stay mostly tame on FB and I do have different groups for my kinkier friends so as not to offend anyone who's kid might peruse their facebook feed.  But it's exhausting

Twitter is something different though. 

I have different twitter accounts for different things.  One for me that is pretty NSFW, one for the vanilla me (mostly unused), one for an event I host, and one for the podcast I host. 

I have an instagram account but I keep it pretty tame because my kid follows me.

I have an "about me" account that I don't use.

I don't have a tumblr.  At least not anymore.

Today I got an account with ello.  It seems nice, clean, no ads.  Nice manifesto.  Currently no worries that what I say or see will be used against me for marketing campaigns.  However when I was setting it up, I thought- what will I use this for.  Who will I be here? 

For a while I had an account on Subjot (which I think is no longer out there).  Or something.  Anyway, nobody knew me there.  I don't think I even told many friends I was on it.  It was kind of freeing.  Talking out into the void and not really caring who talked back.

Social media is practically my social LIFE most days. Some days I will be in the mood to engage with family and other days it's all about my close friends and kinksters.  There are days though, that I wish that I just had one side of me- the real side and the only side.  The problem with social media is that I'm not always the same kind of social with everyone.  I envy those who can just be who they are online, although I think most of us somewhat filter ourselves when our parents are watching.  The day my mom joined facebook was probably where things went awry for me.  The internet was a pretty safe place for me to be who I am.  Now I worry that my mother is just 6 degrees of separation away from seeing me half naked with sharp things poking into my skin.  I don't think she even knows about THIS blog, which is still a few breaths closer than I would like her to know about me.  I enjoy my relationship with my family, but because they have a tendency to be somewhat uptight and judgy, it must be done from a distance.  It sucks.  I would like to think that they would like me anyway, but chances are I would just become even more of a black sheep.  I did marry and bury the drug addict and all.  There's always one in every family.  I guess I drew the short straw along with the actually "short" card.

I'm gong to be 43 years old and I am still hiding from my family.  I think I do it more for them than I do for me.  There's a blanket rule not to scare the vanilla people.  I told one of my brothers about being poly.  He seemed unphased.  My siblings have met past partners, but didn't realize just who they were.  My mom has asked, "if that your girlfriend or something?" but her mere tone told me that even if she had been, I should just say no.  I don't want to have that conversation any more than she does.

I'd like to think that who I REALLY am is not so bad or offensive.  However I know that if members of my family were "describing" me to someone else, it would go something like this.

"Oh Julie?  She's great.  She's got 3 kids, well actually 4 if you could her late husbands daughter.  and 5 if you could her new boyfriends son.  Her and her boyfriend have been together about 3 years now.  He's 12 years younger than her- so you know.  And they are into that BDSM spanking thing... so there's THAT." 

And while all of those things are true- they tell you NOTHING about me.  NOTHING.  I'm a good person.  I think I'm kind and thoughtful.  I have made a lot of sacrifices for the people I love.  I have a good education.  I have a good job that most days I really love because it makes a difference for peoples lives.  I educate people on BDSM and safe healthy relationships.  And even THAT tells you very little about me. 

However I know that I will be reduced to how I have sex and who I have sex with.  And to be honest, I have sex the same way everyone else does.  And 95% of the time I only have sex with SR.  It's not THAT big of a deal.  I think there are more interesting things about me. 

However, it is what it is.  It's a bit frustrating though, that the ones who are supposed to love me conditionally, my family, are the ones who probably only continue to love me because there's a lot that they don't want to know. 

9/21/14

OMG this dog

So the past month has been "Operation Max."  After the tick infestation earlier this year I've been mildly obsessed with caring for this dog.  It isn't that we weren't caring for him before, but I was never really all that interested.  Like I said before, Max wasn't the dog that I wanted- but he's who is here- and he's a good boy.  He deserves my love and attention because while he is overly hyper and a total whiner, I think he loves me back. 

I've been walking him every night for the past month.  I wasn't walking him often before because he is a puller.  Even with the prong collar he would pull and I was too afraid he was too stupid not to impale himself.  However, now he seems to be receptive to the prong collar and while he still pulls- it's much less and once we get going, he settles down.

Usually at the start of the walk he's so excited that he jumps and traipses around like a 4 year old girl with a new tutu and tiara, but then once we around the first corner he starts to calm down and stops to pee on just about every bush he can lift a leg at.  Once he lifted his leg 20 times on one block. 

On the weekends he usually, but not always, gets 2 walks.  In the morning and then again at night.  The night walks used to happen at 9:30- it was the last thing I did before getting ready for bed.  However, now that he knows he will get a walk at night- as soon as it starts getting dark he starts the whining and the howling.  Now on the weekends, when he knows I'm home- as soon as I get up he starts the whining and howling.  Look, two walks doesn't happen EVERY WEEKEND.  Most weekends.  Who is walking who here anyway????

I do enjoy the walks, but sometimes it's like a baby shower.  Nobody wants to go- but once you get there- it's ok.  So I'm gonna put on my shoes and leash up the beast.  Take him for a quick walk and then get on with my day. 

But maybe it's nice, taking a few minutes to chill out before the bustle of Sunday happens.  Grocery shopping, laundry, cooking.  Maybe Max knows what I need. 

9/7/14

The old things

I watched this movie today called "Take This Waltz"



It's a few years old and it was brilliant in a way that I can't pinpoint. 

I sort of stumbled across it on Hulu and because I like Seth Rogen and Michelle Williams I just started watching.  It was quite mesmerizing in the way that I just didn't know how I felt about it afterwards.  I felt a weird sense of longing.  A strange sadness.  But also this sense of calm.  Like, right, that's the way life goes.

There was a movie many years ago called In the Bedroom where a father finally kills the guy who nurdered his daughter- and at the end of the movie he came back to bed with his wife and it was like, "ok it's done."  I remember thinking, "Well, ok then.  That's just how that would go."

After this movie was over, I went to the reviews and synopsis of it- to get a feel for what this movie was supposed to be about.  Perhaps I missed it.  It was a tame movie, very little drama in the way of emotional outburst and such.  The main character finds herself attracted to the brooding artist neighbor.  By all accounts it should have been a boring, this sort of thing happens all the time, sort of movie.  However there was something so incredibly likeable about all of the characters.  There was no "bad guy."  The main character, while somewhat troubled, was incredibly endearing and sweet.  She is the kind of girl who could be anyone's best friend.  She was not some sex crazed woman, not that there is anything wrong with that if she was- but she wasn't.  The husband, while not the most passionate guy, was funny and loving.  The brooding artist was kind and thoughtful, and while some of the behavior seemed stalkerish, as the "other man" he was not the kind of guy that was threatening. 

What I took away from this movie is the idea of routines.  How perhaps in life, we keep doing the same things, but sometimes in different scenery.  Long term relationships can sometimes be the very thing that kills a relationship.  It seems sometimes that as soon as the new relationship wears off, it slowly starts to settle into that "long term relationship" phase.  The one that lasts, or intends to last, forever. 

I look at my life now, and while there are a lot of things that are very different about it.  Much of it is the same.  I still have to do the same things.  What is different is the things I don't have to do anymore.  I don't have to deal with the same kind of stressors that I used to have.  I don't have to worry about the things I used to worry about.  I don't have the same sense of dread and fear when I walk in the house anymore.  However, the routine is similar. 

For a little while life shifted into a different reality that seemed like a slice out of a movie they have yet to actually make about BDSM.  However now it's back to something a bit more manageable.  BDSM is not my job, it's just the way I choose to live my life and carry out my relationship dynamic.  The rest of my life looks just like everyone elses.  I walk my dog, I do homework with the kids, I do laundry, I cook, I go to parent teacher conferences.  For as kinky as my life may be, in some ways it is just as exciting, or unexciting as anyone reading this. 

One of the lines from this movie that grabbed me was:

“New things get old, just like the old things do."

And that's true.  I think what I took away from this movie is that while the new things are exciting when they are new, eventually they become old things.  Here I am, at 42, and think I forgot that.  I find myself sometimes feeling almost resentful and robbed that I am watching TV on a Friday night, or that I go to bed alone most night.  I think, what about the excitement?  What about the eroticism that I thought that I found? Where did that go??

Yet when I think about it, it's still there.  I'm just... used to it.  I don't think it's healthy to push the bar higher and higher every time I get restless.  I think that's how people end up trying to go down Niagara Falls in a barrel to see if they can survive it.  My life is good.  Happy.  Amazing even.  However, it's also quite simple.  Sometimes very quiet and occasionally pretty boring.  Sure I engage in activities that some see as indecent or unsavory, but I know people who eat fat free mayonnaise, and well, that's just not something I would ever do. 

So what is it that keeps life exciting?  What can be done when the new gets old.  When the unheard of and seemingly impossible becomes Wednesday?  For me, I simply choose to embrace it.  I embrace the energy of my life, the people I share it with.  The frequency around me.  I choose to sink into my comfy chair and enjoy my normal.  It's the normal I want.

If I ever get to a point where I don't feel a sense of longing for something, I will probably be close to dying.  So today I will take whatever feelings I have of longing and want for more, and use it as a way to remind me that I'm still alive.  Because what I have is what I wanted.  No matter what I have, there's something else I will eventually want.  Even when I HAVE what I want, I think I will continue to walk something more.  I don't think that is live unlived or unfulfilled.

I think that is just what living is.