Gemini: explorer.writer.muse

Some time ago I posted a blog/poem/creative (which, I just realized, was not migrated to this site. I’ll fix it, I promise.)  inspired by an xkcd.com comic related to LEGO bricks. The short version is that we are, all of us, built of a series of existential LEGOs and we add, change and remove pieces as needed to fit the game of our life in that moment.

The arrangement, as the comic says, goes away, but the pieces can be used to do something else, build more, build differently. Sometimes you need the swinging door on your house and sometimes you need a thicker, higher wall with a moat. I was always partial to windows and jet engines. And flowers. Lots of those primary colored little flower discs everywhere. The point is, whatever you need, you have the ability to modularly adapt and grow as a human being (sans the pop-off hair, unless that’s your style savvy).

A short time after that, I posted a lamentation and said that some of the pieces fell off. No body of text. Just a title. Some of the Pieces Broke Off.

For all the amazing parts of my life, I am there again.

I haven’t spent nearly enough time with my best friends. I haven’t seen my Sir Deviant but socially (and briefly) for months. We (friends, Deviant and I, etc.) talk fairly regularly, but nothing of too great importance. I haven’t had a BDSM session, assignment, meeting, play date, what-have-you since October and that was, well, let’s just say it wasn’t what we planned. (My physical craving for this is so great that I recently posted I wanted a beating my grandchildren will remember. Yeah, that.)

“We’re busy,” we all say. We have plans. We have to work. In some cases there are kids and wives and boyfriends involved. In other situational hindrances, we are hampered by a night in jail on a traffic warrant (not them, you can deduce the rest) or a nasty cold. “Life happens,” we say. I am not discounting these necessary, valuable, fair statements… I get it. But I kind of don’t.

I’m afraid that some times you’ll play lonely games too.
Games you can’t win ’cause you’ll play against you.
All Alone!
Whether you like it or not,
Alone will be something you’ll be quite a lot.

- Excerpt, Oh The Places You’ll Go! – Dr. Seuss

This is where I feel broken. I feel like I lost or am losing some really important pieces. I feel alone. I am not writing nearly the way or as often as I used to. I don’t have the same inspirational connections I once had. There is a line in the movie Elizabethtown in which the Claire character tells the Drew character that they have a special talent… they are the “substitute people.” They aren’t the ones that people seek or with whom people fall in love. They are not the coveted, mysterious coworker down the hall or the bright and bubbly cheerleader that people seem to adore. They fit in the middle, and only in the moment, because they are not a primary focus.

To be fair, it doesn’t make them any less of an amazing person… and to this bend I can say that I know this doesn’t make me any less of an amazing person. But I know my place. I am the one who waits, hopes, and fills a need. I am a dynamic, fun, exciting and, usually, fleeting spark in some peoples’ lives. One of my girlfriends calls me Gasoline Ass because I have a very busy social life, I am invited to a lot of things. I have a lot of friends.

Wait, what?

Let’s be clear… this isn’t about being a hermit and sitting alone in the dark in my parents’ basement. I have a full, busy, and fun life. I have some amazing connections, I experience more than most, and I am always adding to this sphere of existence and making the most of my life and opportunities.

However, in the moment I am allowed and, to a degree, required, to acknowledge that the depth of some of my most important connections is not shared, at least not of late. Surprisingly, it’s not woe-is-me self-deprecation, it’s simply awareness. The fact that it breaks my heart is the woeful part… but it’s awareness, all the same.

I once said to Sir that I was aware I wasn’t the primary. He debated with me (I dare not say W/we argued!) and said that I was. What He meant was in my role as His submissive, His girl. But, I clarified, I am not His primary focus nor should I be (that would be his wife and their life together, for those not in the know). That means I am not, in fact, the primary.

All but one of my best friends live in another state, have children and jobs and family obligations and – gasp! – other friends. Again, Gemini is not the primary. My family… yeah, we’ll leave them out of this. Suffice to say that when my father died I may as well have been orphaned. That’s the easiest explanation.

The men currently in my life have all filled a need or three of mine (I can be fair and not remove myself from this oratory overflow of angst), but I am also keenly aware that I am the friend-girl, not the girl-friend. Whether the relationship is sexual or not – and not to negate inherent intimacy and connection therein – I am a friend, the friend, some friend. Always established clearly and succintly. I am fun, I am pretty, I am great in the sack, I can cook… whatever it is that sounds good (although I tend to agree, I am all these things!). But I am not HER. I am the wingman-friend. The work friend. The gym friend. The drinking buddy. The movie buddy. The let’s-fuck-each-other-senseless friend that, in the end, goes home, goes away. Is sent away.

(To be fair, I don’t want a relationship. Or so I keep saying. I keep justifying. Wait! It’s a defense mechanism?! Yeah, I figured that much out. That way I can’t be hurt, right? RIGHT?!)

You’ll come down from the Lurch with an unpleasant bump.
And the chances are, then, that you’ll be in a slump.
And when you’re in a slump, you’re not in for much fun.
Un-slumping yourself is not easily done.

- Excerpt, Oh The Places You’ll Go! – Dr. Seuss

So, yeah. My life doesn’t suck. But even happy, fun, shiny, busy people have their issues. Mine is now laid bare. I do want relationships (and I don’t mean specifically a boyfriend or girlfriend) but more than that I want – nay, NEED - my relationships to again feel more whole, less shelved for storage and more cultivated. I need my outlets back, my kindred souls, my empathic spirits. I need to be told and I need to be shown and I need to know that I am important and valuable and I, too, am an important LEGO. Without these things I feel unwanted, unneeded, unable to fulfill the various roles I have come to cherish and within which have flourished; His girl, His sub, your muse, your writer, your sister, your lover, your partner in crime, your daughter, your teacher, your student, your friend. I feel like these pieces are missing or, at a minimum, cracked and ready to break in some places.

I am not needed as a substitute in the moment; I am secondary to most, tertiary most often.

But I am fantastic and upbeat and creative and loved and lauded.

Except, as Dr. Seuss says, when I’m not.