Ah jeez. I was feeling so “deep” in those early days of lockdown; ready for some unexpected meaning to appear; maybe a sharp turn off a steep cliff into transformation. I feel so far from the ability to make meaning out of anything. I don’t think I’m depressed. Well, I’m not saying I’m not depressed. I’m just saying I’m not just depressed, because let’s face it, this is pretty fucking depressing, but this is also something very different.

As with previous experiences with depression, I’ve been battling a lack of creative drive. In pre-pandemic times of depression it always felt like I no longer cared about my passions. Currently I have a deep desire to use my time in a creative way, but I can’t get myself to do it. Partly because everything feels difficult. Mostly because I can’t figure out what the fucking point is.  I cannot for the life of me figure out why I should do anything. Why should I write this blog? Am I just yelling at a wall? Yes, I am, but that never bothered me before. I was fine expressing my inner most feelings to the wall that is a blog with no followers. I mean who even blogs anymore? If I was previously writing only for me, what has changed? Has the heaviness of this pandemic taken my creative drive hostage? Has the fear of the unknown in a space we just can’t know caused me an existential paralysis? Has this depression adjacent feeling straight killed my vibes?

Here is what I have been feeling: Vigilance. Fatigue. I am ok some hours. I am ok some hours! I am wildly irritable at other hours. I am not sad all the time. I am completely heartbroken and devastated a lot of the time. Sounds like grief.

I want to name it. It’s its own beast. Pandemdepressionitis. That rolls off the tongue.

Pandemdepressionitis
/panˈdemdəˈpreSH(ə)nˈīdəs/
1) feelings of severe despondency and dejection in reference to a disease prevalent over the world.
2) maybe a sharp turn off of a steep cliff into transformation, but probably not.

I miss everything. I miss my family. I miss my friends. I miss playing shows. I miss the ease and joy at which I used to meander around farmers markets. I play a game with myself where I get really upset because I miss these things and then immediately shame myself for feeling saddened by my privilege. There is no winning here.

But the truth is, there is no winning in a system that has allowed a pandemic to become a politically divisive issue where people are abandoned without care. There is no winning in a system that has allowed black people to be killed without justice, in a system that has allowed women to be sexually assaulted without justice, in a system that has allowed children to be held in cages without their families. I am up against my privilege and I am up against my trauma and we are up against a system that has created both.

So I go to protests. I educate myself on being actively anti-racist. This is important work. Unlike my creative work I feel able to do this work right now. I could spend every minute of this pandemic on this work and it wouldn’t be enough. It may be the only thing I do this whole time that matters.

I walk past a stage where I used to play music. I cry. I see a post of my brother being ridiculous. I cry. My friend’s mom has covid. I cry. My roommate’s friend kills himself. I cry. My boyfriend drinks whiskey alone at night after I go to sleep. I cry. I realize I’m afraid of everything. I sing this song on the piano and he cries.

“If I was crying
In the van, with my friend
It was for freedom
From myself and from the land
I made a lot of mistakes
I made a lot of mistakes
I made a lot of mistakes
I made a lot of mistakes
You came to take us
All things go, all things go
To recreate us
All things grow, all things grow
We had our mindset
All things know, all things know
You had to find it
All things go, all things go”
-Sujan Stevens (Chicago)

We’ve made a lot of mistakes.
We’ve made a lot of mistakes.
We’ve made a lot of mistakes.
We’ve made a lot of mistakes. And all things go.

We’ve made a lot of mistakes and this pandemdepressionitis has more to say than death is imminent. It wants to talk about our systems, the greed, the racism, the sexism, the abandonment. I haven’t lost my creative drive because Im depressed or I wish life would go back to normal so a I can write for the delightful experience of pursuing music in a society that doesn’t value art. I am paralyzed because I am present. And it’s devastating. I don’t know what I can say to the world that feels like enough. I don’t know how I can move forward without change. I simply can’t. We can no longer pretend to be ok in order to feel the comfort of deep mediocre unconsciousness. We owe each other more than that. We are worth more than that.

I am no longer expecting a sharp turn off a steep cliff into transformation, but maybe, just maybe, a slow road to recovery. Maybe I’ll get to see a small piece of the shift. Maybe I’ll get to see more than I could have imagined.

The fear of this unknown is really a fear that we haven’t been doing it right all along. We have to own up to that. We can only make this right through change and through love. Love of our people. Love of our women, love of our BIPOC communities, and love of our neighbors. Love of our environment. Love by owning up to our mistakes. Love by putting people above power.

I am standing in front a waterfall. The drops hit my face like rain. I place my hand under the rushing water and it’s heavy. I watch it fall and follow carved paths and cascade off of rocks. It’s so loud that it’s louder than my thoughts. Its power and its beauty can’t be explained by some meant to be moment or a hard earned reward. It just falls; despite this pandemic or that our friend is dead or that I haven’t seen my family in almost a year or that my heart is broken; so very broken and so full of love. I stand under a waterfall and I cry. I sob and I breathe and I ache at the idea of being alive. I am no longer able to stand under a waterfall and just see it. I feel it in every inch of my bones; because I understand that I am lucky to be alive, that I am lucky to feel joy and that I am lucky to have moments that my trauma and the system can not steal from me. I am lucky to have moments that my privilege has awarded me and I know that if I take them for granted the system wins again. I’d rather sob under a waterfall for freedom than bury my head in the privilege this system has used to harm us all. I feel raw. I feel opened up. I feel alive; as alive as the pain is real, as the trauma is real, as the love is real, as our humanity is real, as you matter as much as I matter and you always have.

It’s ok to miss my family and miss playing music and miss the parts of life that bring me joy. This pandemic is hard, and frankly life is harder. We shouldn’t shame ourselves for feeling the deep grief and pain of it or for wanting peace and comfort, and we certainly shouldn’t shame ourselves for having a hard time living in a system that doesn’t care if we live or die. The shocker is how long we’ve been able to white knuckle our way through it. I hope we can all start to recognize the ways this system has convinced us that we profit from someone else’s pain and loss. The actual pay off is in the walk toward freedom and the love we witness along the way.

To finding love in an apocalypse, freedom in our land, and peace within our hearts.

It’s heavy. So deeply heavy. Heavy with fear, with love and with grief.

I miss you. I miss you with a heart that aches like it’s been broken. I love you with a love that is deep, piercing and real. I love you with a need like I may never see you again. And what if that is true, my love. How will I survive without you?

How did we get here? We saw it coming. But I was too busy licking my wounds to look up before it hit. I was too busy looking at you in awe to notice it was as real as they said.

Like getting caught doing something unthinkable, like wounding something so pure; it is here to remind us what we have, what we might lose, and how we fucked up so badly at being so forgivably human that we let it happen.

It is here to remind us that we are resourceful, intelligent and able. it is here to remind us that we are full of art. It is here to remind us that we are fragile. It is here to remind us that we are guaranteed nothing. Like any tragedy, it is here to remind us that all we have is each other.

We are not capable of living without love, affection and gathering. We are not capable of living in a world without connection, rest and art. But we can live a long time pretending. We’ve had a lot of practice doing just that. We’ve been training for this. Overworked, under-loved and going at top speed is what got us here. Now we must stop; stop and feel the heavy weight of this. The heavy weight of where we have arrived; what we chose; who we allowed ourselves to become. But this is also a place where we get to discover who we want to be. As a community. As a collective. As a family.

Make art. Make love. Find bubbly water at all cost. Just kidding, don’t do that. That’s what got us in this toilet paper desert mess to begin with. But let those you love do that for you. Because in this space is where we will know how deeply loved we are. In this space is where we will learn what we had, what we no longer have, what we want to keep and what needs to leave. Take notes. Take notes. Take note. Of what needs to change. Take note of what needs to stay. Take note of what makes you feel good. Take note of what makes you feel afraid for your future. Take note of what will heal you. Take note of what will heal us all.

Grieve. Grieve the life you had and all that it took from you before you even got here. Grieve what has broken. Grieve what has been fixed. Grieve what was right in front of you when you didn’t stop long enough to hold it. Hold it. If you can. And if you can not, grieve it too.

We do not get to take back what we lost or what we took for granted. We do not get to make up for lost time. We do not get to keep what must go. But we get to keep what we make of this. We get to keep what we learn, what we create, and how we love. All we ever get to keep is how we love. So love. Love with everything you’ve got. because it’s all we’ve got.

Sending you love from Quarantine.

A man raped me when I was 23 years old. I met him through friends. When inviting him back to my apartment, I told him I didn’t want to have sex, but expressed my desire to spend time with him. When he began to rape me I said, “I told you I didn’t want to have sex.” He didn’t stop. While raping me, he repeatedly asked me over and over again if I was ok. Every time he asked, I said “No.” He didn’t stop.

There’s no room for misinterpretation there.

But I invited him into my room. I let him lay on my bed with me. I let him kiss me and touch me. I kissed him goodbye.

I kissed him goodbye.

“Would she kiss him goodbye if he raped her?”

Yes. she would.

I didn’t want to kiss him goodbye. After he raped me, he wouldn’t leave. He lingered; asking me what was wrong; saying that he thought we had a really good connection and that I was being weird. I couldn’t form the words “You raped me”. I was so afraid he was never going to leave if I didn’t pretend like everything was ok. I don’t remember my exact words to him, but I remember the feeling of pretending; the feeling of brushing off the experience of being raped as me just being kind of weird for a moment. I told him we were fine. He kissed me goodbye. I didn’t want to kiss him. I just wanted him to leave.  

To the men, who I love, who are afraid of the #metoo movement:
There are no stories that are perfect. There are no stories in which a woman has acted in a way that will ease your confusion or fear around the topic of rape or how it applies to you as a man. There are no stories that will stand truer than the others so you can return to your previous experience of this life in which you were removed from and so didn’t feel complicit in rape culture. There are not 2 true stories and 10,000 questionable stories. There are many many many, so fucking many, true stories of women experiencing assault of all different levels.

If you are confused about how to act towards women now that we are no longer accepting this level of intrusion, then here you go: treat her like a human. Like a fucking human with a body that is not yours to touch, to make decisions about, or to coerce into decisions about touching. Most rapist don’t even end up in jail so I’m sure you’ll be fine when you so unassumingly touch that woman’s shoulders while passing by. And If you’re not because she tells you how she feels about it, just apologize, don’t do it again, and sit in the very human experience of someone telling you that they didn’t like something you did. This is not your moment to feel sorry for yourself because you are experiencing the very healthy relationship condition of boundaries. I have spent my whole life feeling afraid because there are men who rape. You might have to spend some time feeling uncomfortable because you have to learn how to respect the boundaries of women. You might have to learn that you don’t get to do whatever you want without someone having a fucking feeling about it. So get comfortable with feeling uncomfortable.

If you already respect boundaries and you still feel uncomfortable with the movement, then let me tell you this:

Rape isn’t grey. It isn’t an accident. It’s not a whoopsie. It’s not something someone does without knowing. You’re not going to slip and land your dick in something. you’re not going to masturbate in front of a woman on purpose without her consent on accident, you’re not going to slip a roofie in her drink on accident, you’re not going to come on to your subordinate employee on accident, you’re not going to touch the ass of the lady standing in front of you at the concert on accident, you’re not going to shame the girl at the party for not having sex with you on accident, you’re not going to penetrate the unconscious girl on accident…. If you do it, you do it knowingly. And that is what makes a rapist.

You have complete choice about what you do not do.

If your next argument is to point out that a woman could lie and say you raped her, then I’m going to tell you what I’ve been told my whole life: Don’t put yourself in that position.

Be a good girl. Don’t walk alone at night. Don’t let a man pick you up for a date. Don’t get too drunk. Don’t wear revealing clothing. Be smart. Don’t trust.

If you don’t want to end up in a precarious situation (and I am well aware that a few good men have) of being accused of something you didn’t do, then proceed like a woman: don’t be alone in a room with him (her) unless you’re gambling for rape.

That’s a sad answer isn’t it? I wish it wasn’t the answer.

I would never dismiss the horrible tragedy of a person falsely accused of a crime. But I will dismiss the use of this fear to diminish the actual experience of women who are actual victims of actual crimes.

This is complex. Our justice system, our human ability to lie, to rape to be horrendous to each other, is terrifying and complex. But I’m not going to carry it alone so men can feel comfortable. 

I am not comfortable. 

And further, I would give about anything to feel uncomfortable instead of totally paralyzingly afraid. Scratch that. Totally paralyzingly tired.

When I say #metoo, it is not complex. It is me saying:

A man raped me when I was 23.

My friend’s boyfriend waited outside the door while I was showering so I would catch him masturbating when I was 21.

My brother’s friend attempted to rape me when I was 16.

A man standing behind me at a concert stuck his hand up my crotch when I was 31.

A man offered me a ride home and then pulled his dick out and tried to force my hand to touch him when I was 33.

I had GHB slipped into my drink when I was 27 and when I was 32.

A man slapped my ass so hard it froze the room – so loud, awkward and painful – when I was 18 and when I was 23.

A man blocked my ability to leave a hiking trail while trying to convince me to leave to have sex when I was 31.

A man offer to help me tie my dress in the back when it came loose at a party and he took it as an opportunity to touch my breasts when I was 26.

An Uber driver asked me to “touch myself” when I was 34.  

I have been told these things are my fault, not a big deal, not worthy of a voice. So when you say you are confused or afraid of my voice, I am shattered. Because you are the men I love. You are the men I trust. You are the men that I feel so deeply safe with. But your words make me feel alone. They make me feel invisible. They make me feel like a liar. They make me feel like what happened to me doesn’t deserve space in your world if it isn’t easy for you. Please be willing to be uncomfortable. Please sit in this with me so I am not alone. Please echo my voice without questioning it or diminishing it.

#metoo hasn’t changed how women perceive their assaults. It hasn’t created some system in which women are in cahoots to make rapists out of good men. All that has changed is your awareness of the prevalence of violence against women. I encourage you to let yourself feel how deeply painful it is that the women in your life have been living this way without your knowledge and sometimes with your complicity. I encourage you to be the voice for how good men choose to behave. I encourage you to listen more and talk less. I encourage you to believe the women who are telling their stories.

We need to be believed. We need to be seen. We need you to be brave enough to stand with us. We need you to be brave enough to be present in how very fucked this is. And we need you to be willing to give up the part of your privilege that has allowed you to feel comfortable despite how very fucked this is.

You are the men we love. You are the men we trust. We need you to believe us. 

I’ve been trying to walk a tightrope between hiding from the world and opening up to relationships, but I just keep landing between the sheets.

When I was growing up I was as equally as apprehensive of sex as I was intrigued by it. I think it’s safe to say that I was afraid of love and intimacy and I just didn’t have a lot of information about sex. I remember being locked in a room with my elementary school crush while my brothers snickered and teased that I was giving him this thing called a “blow job”. I didn’t know what it was, but I knew it must be bad. I stood there, arms crossed, scowl on my face. I had been pretending to hate this boy up until this moment and that was not about to change. Vulnerable was not going to be the way. I had learned to be tough – emotions locked away – I didn’t need love if it was gonna cost this much.

I didn’t kiss a boy until I was 16. He was 19. He kissed me and immediately asked me if I wanted to give him a blow job. I gracefully declined. It wasn’t sweet to say the least. Staying at a friend’s house one night, I ended up sharing a bed with that same boy and he aggressively pushed himself on me until I managed to pushed him off. He kicked me out of the room saying “Put out or get out”, and so I slept on the living room couch with no pillows or blankets. I felt almost more humiliated than traumatized in the moment. I did not recognize the trauma until years later. I didn’t know to define what happened to me as a sexual assault. I used the word attempted a lot. Attempted sexual assault. As if somehow him trying to rape me didn’t make it rape. I didn’t open myself up to another boy until I met eyes with the beautiful blue eyed surfer who would become my very first boyfriend. He was romantic and kind. His first attempt at intimacy with me was intensely denied. I had my first PTSD trigger response. I was terrified. He never tried again and that was a wonderful gift. He left it in my hands for when I was ready. he showed me that I have a choice.

I lost my virginity at 20 years old to one of my still now best friends, who ended up coming out of the closet 6 months after we broke up. I will always stand by the fact that even though he couldn’t love me the way he wanted to, that he was the best person to have my very first sexual experience with. He was sweet and loving and he made me feel safe.

I ventured into the dating world, now a woman who had had sex. Before this it was easy to say no because it hadn’t happened. It needed to be special (the pressures around virginity are real). But now? What did it require to have sex again? Did it require a relationship? Did it still require “special”? These were the questions I wasn’t sure how to answer for myself. So I took it one dude at a time, from boyfriends to boys I met at bars. Well, actually, only one boy I met at a bar and I can’t remember his name, and I never saw him again. A true one-night-stand. I could not tell you a thing about that night; so unmemorable. Truthfully, I was young and not having great sex overall at that point in my life. I was shy, insecure, didn’t know my body, and didn’t know what was actually pleasurable to me. I didn’t know I was traumatized or how that affected my sex life. And further more, it wasn’t about the sex for me – I was looking for love.

When I was 23 years old a man raped me. A man I met at a friend’s birthday party. It played out like so many scenarios I had been in before. I met a guy I liked. I wanted to continue hanging out. We left the party and went back to my place. I had made it clear that even though we were going to my place that I wasn’t going to have sex with him. The plan was to get to know him. Kiss, cuddle, talk all night; the things romantic movies are made of. The hope was that he’d eventually love me.

He raped me.

This experience changed the foundation of relationships and sex for me completely.

I met my next boyfriend a month after I was raped. It was a relationship that never had a chance. He became someone to turn to; someone who I could be completely broken with and he would still be there. We broke up very quickly and I turned to late-night run and starving myself.

Nearly a year later I tried dating again. I was dating a guy I really liked and after we had sex for the very first time he said, “glad we got that out of the way”. I was completely shocked and mortified. Got what out of the way? Sex? Intimate connection? It was not an easy or small decision for me to have sex. Truly it never was, but especially after being sexually assaulted. I walked away from that relationship realizing I wanted more. I didn’t want to get sex out of the way. I wanted to enjoy sex. I wanted love and intimacy and vulnerability. I wanted the sweetness and safety and kindness I had with my first boyfriend, and with my gay boyfriend, but I wanted that with a person that I really wanted to have sex with; someone I could really be vulnerable with, but more so enjoy with. I wanted to be locked in a room with my elementary school crush and kiss him (preferably without my brothers yelling about blow jobs on the other side of the door).

Funny thing is, the night I left from “get it out of the way” guy’s apartment, I ended up meeting a man I was to love. He was kind and romantic. He was the first person to really love me. We were together for four years. We moved into together. We got engaged. We were all in. I fell out of love. But it was safe and it was sweet and it was in this relationship that I started to learn to really enjoy sex. It was in this relationship that I started to make my pleasure (my orgasm) as much a priority as the person I was with.

My next love I wasn’t expecting at all, but it was like a song. Falling in love with him was physically painful (a good kind of painful). He was beautiful. The way he looked at me…. We played. We fought. We had amazing sex. We made love. I had never made love before. Forget learning how to enjoy sex physically. Forget the orgasm! (jk, jk, don’t forget that, that’s good stuff). Opening your heart, so wide open it’s bursting; making love so intensely that you’re barely moving, but you feel like you’re crashing into each other, that’s the goods. Completely indescribable, almost spiritual, it was in this relationship that I learned to love during sex. It was in this relationship that I realized the importance of the marriage between love and sex. It was in this relationship that I realized that when sex is love, it is in its greatest form.

At the time, I believed with all my heart that I would spend the rest of my life with this man. I wanted to marry him. I wanted to make babies. I had never cared about babies before. I loved him more and more each day. We were together four years. We lived together. We worked together. We were partners. We lost each other. Losing this man, losing our future, felt like it nearly broke me. For the first 9 months after we split, the idea of having sex with another person made me physically ill. I ended up in weird non-sexual, juvenile-like, but sweet relationships with men who I just kissed and giggled with. Probably what I would have been doing in my youth had I been open to it.

It’s been a year and a half now since he and I separated. I’m (finally) feeling more and more ready to date and have sex. But I also I find myself feeling like that 20-something year old girl who couldn’t answer any of these questions: What does it require to have sex again? Does it require a relationship? Does it require love (special)?  And once again I find myself taking it one dude at a time. It’s different this time around for a few reasons: 1) Re-entering the dating world is terrifying-  if a man raped me once, it could happen again. Trust doesn’t come easily when you’re not disconnected from your trauma 2) Connecting to people who I’m not in love with or know on a deep level, after basically 8 years of committed love and sex, is a little weird at first but 3) I’m no longer that shy insecure girl who isn’t really enjoying sex. I really enjoy sex. And I know what I like and know what I want, and most importantly I’m not looking for sex to be a place-filler for love. I feel like I’m in a place where I can appreciate sex outside of love.

So, I’ve been having sex. I was hiking with a friend recently and I said, “I don’t even think I can call what I’m doing dating, I think it’s really just fucking.” That’s probably not a totally fair statement. I have gone out on some dates – to dinners and even the beach! (beach dates for the romantic win!) But mostly, I’ve just had some really good sex.

So I say, why can’t I be a lady who gets laid? Why can’t I have enjoyable unattached (from love, not chemistry) sex? Just like feminism isn’t just for babes, liberation ain’t just for dudes.

But then I met a guy that I like. And when I say “like”, it’s not that I didn’t like the other dudes – sex without chemistry is not a game I engage in – but with this guy it felt different. The first night we met we just talked all night. We didn’t even kiss. I knew even then that my attraction to him was different. He looked at me like he was attracted to my heart and my brain and I felt the same. We didn’t end up seeing each other for two months after that night. A plan was never established since our connection was built upon his platonic offer to let me and my friend crash in his guest room. I was actually surprised he didn’t try anything, because that sounded like a line. After that night I kept thinking about him. Wondering if he felt a connection too. So I texted him one night that my friend and I were at the bar by his house. He was excited to join us. We hung out all night. He likes me. He told me so. He even claimed it was obvious. No, no it wasn’t obvious, since I didn’t hear from him for two months. But I gave him a pass on that one because just like me he had recently exited a decade of back to back serious relationships. Just like me, he’s a little (heart) broken. So it was good that we didn’t act on anything right away. It’s probably better we gave ourselves two whole extra months to heal (Probably definitely didn’t make a difference). That night we did had sex. I left feeling a little giddy, but as hours and days went by without hearing from him, suddenly the good sex I had didn’t feel so good. I was left feeling rejected and disappointed. I was not feeling liberated. Turned out that wanting something more made liberation a little trickier. Would I have had sex with this man if I knew I would never see him again? Probably not. Definitely not. Not this one. Not this time.

This moment of rejection had information for me though. Since my ex and I split I haven’t wanted something more. I haven’t wanted more than a physical connection. I suddenly did. This experience showed me that I was open to love again, eventually. So how do I remain open to love and open to sex without love? Is it possible?

Maybe the obvious answer to some people is just not sleeping with someone unless I’m in a relationship, but that’s not what I want right now. I don’t know when I will be in a relationship again, but I really enjoy sex. I’m really enjoying having sex.

So the better question might be, how do I take care of myself emotionally while navigating sex outside of relationships when there’s a chance I might feel something more? How do I not shame myself or allow an unfulfilled expectation to say something about me? (because society already does enough of that for me)

And for me it goes something like this:

I’ve had sex with men that I thought were awesome people, that I had great chemistry with, yet still, it was clear to both of us that it was never going to be more than that. I don’t think less of these men, and they don’t think less of me. I don’t think less of our experience together. I have liked and lusted after a lot of people, but I’ve been in love twice. A true loving connection, the kind that results in wanting to build a relationship is the rarity. So all of the experiences that I have the privilege to enjoy in the in-between are just as important. And some can be disappointing. Some will be disappointing. Others will be fun and flirty and pleasurable and joyful. And I’m here for it. I’m here for it all.

I do feel it’s important to say that safety is a non-negotiable. There were times after I was assaulted that I had sex as a way to process the trauma. I understand where I was at emotionally and I wrap that girl in compassion because PTSD is a beast. I also do believe sex is more than a physical connection. I don’t think it should be undervalued. The hallmarks of good sex for me are pleasure, connection and consent.

I was raised in a world that puts my joy and pleasure second. A world that told me from a very young age that I’m not enough unless I’m sexuality desired by men and certainly not enough if I act on it. There is no way to win under those rules. So, what is liberation? It is following my own joy, knowing that my pleasure matters and that having consensual joyful sex is my birth right. Knowing that a disappointing experience is not a confirmation from the universe that I should have known my place.

This is easier said than felt on some days. So I write this note to remember. I write this note to say to the world: I’m on to you and I do not accept these terms. I will have a life filled with joy. I will have a life filled with experiences. I will not be small. I will not put myself second. I will not know my place.

Liberation is defined as the act of setting someone free from oppression. Sex is not an act of liberation, it has always belonged to me, but knowing that it belongs to me is what sets me free.