Birthday

I turned 23 on Saturday, and I think it was my first birthday that felt truly emotionally significant. Usually the day goes by and there's food and a few gifts and there might be some legal rights I gain but that's about it. You know, life just continues.

This was different. It was a really lovely birthday, actually, just emotional. I went to the beach with Conrad and then we played at his hotel room before he headed off to more travels. It was a strange and beautiful sort of day. Being near the ocean and then in a fresh hotel room made it feel like we were away from New York and away from daily life. I don't think we stopped touching each other for more than 15 minutes in a row throughout the whole day. It's easy to get high on that kind of touch.

He massaged my shoulders all day, saying he liked that he could hurt me and heal me at the same time. I've got really bad knots in my upper back and shoulders (right in the heart chakra, yes) and at a few points my knees actually gave out because he was working on them so hard. He was holding me up, from behind, and using his chin to dig into the knots. It was a whole different kind of pain. Penetrating.

Later, at the hotel, he whipped me and I cried.

It was the first time I'd ever cried during a scene. I was feeling so much from the total picture of the day: his work on my shoulders and his opening of that physical manifestation of my knotted emotions, the slight menstrual bleeding and heavy hormones I was still experiencing, the way being so close to him all day had made me feel, and the sense that this so-difficult year was passing away. Something about the whip made it coalesce and let the water flow. It was a different kind of crying than I usually do. It wasn't tortured, and I wasn't trying to fight it with every muscle in my abdomen. He was just hitting me and the tears started coming out. And I felt surprisingly okay with it. The whip even started to feel better after the tears began. I wasn't embarrassed or afraid to be crying. I just was.

I'm really, strangely glad not to be 22 anymore. I suppose in the full shake of things it wasn't a particularly good year for me. Or rather, it was a really hard year. I left home to live all on my own for the first time, clear across the country to New York and far from my family and friends. I worked as a canvasser for eight months, which is just a brutal job. I was depressed to varying degrees for all of that. The gaps in blogging here were rough periods, and there are lots of gaps. It was a year of struggle.

That also means, though, that it was a year of huge growth, which is why it's not really accurate to call it a bad year. I made that cross-country move and found an apartment and I've paid my rent every month. I found a job that covered my bills and then found a different job that I love. I bit the bullet and finally started anti-depressants. I forced myself out of the house and finally made friends and found lovers. I embraced BDSM and have started exploring and finding new, deeper parts of myself. I created a home for myself in this craziest of U.S. cities. Essentially, I became an adult.

And boy, am I glad that year is over. And to have released some of what it meant for me in that clean, quiet hotel room.

1 comments:

Unknown said...

I have to say that this post is so beautifully written. It's so hard to come across people who write about sex that isn't raunchy like RAUNCHY. I know the feeling you had there though. I've cried during sex before. Not for any reason, just a feeling of release, I think. A sense of the guard coming down and being aware of it. I think it's startling at times but in the end, it's okay and I feel better.

On living, loving, learning, and fucking with the materials I've got at hand.

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