Here comes a rant

Sometimes the instability of life is the only true constant. Funny that, too, coming from a guy who took a graduate course on the holocaust and learned all about the banality of evil, the dull grinding of trauma. I’ve felt the awesome oppressive power of the mundane, believed it to be king, truthfully. But life these last months—6 months I think—has been a total denial of this. Then again, I can’t say this analogous to a kind of evil, good things have happened, but at a cost, a high cost, one that has required a forward looking stance. I am beset by both fear and elation, mania, joy, relief, regret, and the demand for sacrifice. I’m being vague today. I don’t care. I’m exhausted with specificity right now.

I love Shannon and I love Mariann. Writing that is…creepy, and knowing I must now seal myself off from M is frightening. But I have to do it in order to be happy with S, so that M can heal, so that I can heal. Peace of Mind. Dunno if I’ve ever had it. Reckon it is like being fine and dandy at the same time. As Carlin once noted, he was only both fine AND dandy for an hour, but no one was around to ask him how he was doing. I live in a state far more extreme: I am great and terrible at the same time.

I am completely certain and uncertain. And let’s face it, I tend to be wholly uncertain by nature, so this certainty thing? Damn, haven’t felt that way since college, maybe high school. And for a while I was completely certain, with no signs of uncertainty. Now they both battle for dominance and I am trying desperately to embrace the certainty that I embraced, drunkenly for three months. (Forgive the ranting pace of this entry)

I am laughing one moment with S, and crying the next as I think about Mariann or recollect the life we had together. I’ve wondered to myself, half-seriously, if things would be better if the three of us were polyamorous, and formed a gloriously immoral unit of shared love and support. But even if that were true, Jesus, the shared trauma among us, the concentrated nature of our suffering, that radioactive taint of mistrust and violation, would be…atomic in explosive potential. Guess that is why fantasy is fantasy, you can dream about it, without considering the stark curving of the lines, the logic that would hold that fantasy together.

Damnit, I’m never going to get that Vegas hooker am I? I swear to god if I ever break up with S, I am jumping on a fucking plane and going right there and BUYING a damn threesome (but nooooooooooooo I had to confront my feelings about a crush and send the world off kilter, dang nabbit)

Abandonment

Since the break up I've been forced to deal with a few unsavory issues: the trauma (always the trauma), my feelings for M, and its impact on my feelings for S.

I abandoned M. There's no other way to look at it. Granted, I was wounded and scared and didn't have a fucking clue what to do, but every time she says "you left me" what she really means is I abandoned her, that's a pretty rough revelation. It has put me off kilter. I made the mistake of telling M I still loved her (It's true, but I crossed a line, that I would always love her). This was as much news to me as it was to her. I didn't even think to stop myself; I just blurted it out in the middle of a tense, tear filled argument.

She's chided me for being selfish....and so has S, for different but related reasons. I feel lost and confused, torn between the two of them. Mind you, this is several months AFTER the break up, AFTER I spent so much time pursuing S, of sending her declaration after declaration of love...and being 100% certain of it.
S hurt me twice along the way, bringing me to tears, abandoning me in my weakest moment, to return a few weeks later after reconciliation and an ultimatum.

After all that goo-goo ga-ga, I write S a flippant letter asking for space, man, is it flippant. One of those "seemed like a good idea at the time" letters. I had in effect, S pointed out, abandoned HER. And she read love letter after love letter to illustrate the point. So now I'm back with her. And..and.. I could go on and on about this. There's a lot of details I'm leaving out simply because it's so damn exhausting.

And I told M I was breaking up with S, so on top of everything else, I think I lied to M! Ack!

I've been blasted for being selfish by all sides, and they're right. I just wish I could figure out a way to behave responsibly. In a way that isn't cravenly selfish.

Did I mention I wrote the letter on the advice of my therapist?

I'm not exactly batting a thousand here.

I...live...again

I'm back. And I just read the last entry. My god. How the status quo has changed. I am a creature of emotional extremes. Here is the long and short of it:

1. I broke up with G, who will now be called M.
2. I have entered into a relationship with S.
Who is S? S=the blackbelt, the Muy Thai striker.
3. I have acquired my blue belt in Judo
4. I have, finally, and with much effort, gained my blue belt in BJJ

It seems unfair, narratively speaking. For two years life was in a holding pattern of sorts. This blog represented the diary of an emotionally scarred white-belt, struggling to figure out where he stood with his girlfriend. Then when I return, everything has changed....well, I'm still emotionally scarred. I seem to be stuck with that. It's been an exhausting 6 months, and it would have made for great blog fodder! Alas, the record of that is hidden from the world, a flurry of epistolaries, texts, and posts, that is still going on today.

At one point I considered terminating this blog, ending it once and for all. I wasn't updating, and let's face it, I'm not exactly on google's top ten. But I didn't, the epistalaries represent a shared space, but this blog represents an exclusively private one, and I still need that, still want that. And with that in mind, I've come back.

I'm in an odd position, forging a new love as I mourn the loss of another. Yes, I see now that I did love M, but I FEARED not loving her, I feared lying to myself, I never lied to her the way I thought I might. How do I know I love/d her? The tears man, the tears. All the while S fills me with joy and exhiliaration. It's not a bipolar existence, but hot damn, I'm some kinda crazed pin ball machine looking for a little...equilibrium, balance. Damnit, I've got practice in an hour, and I'm fighting a headache, blech. Fear not, this represents a return to regularly scheduled blogging. (I think this helps me stay on task in respect to writing as a whole)

In JKD...

I'd have written about this much sooner but the tournament happened...then I got caught up in writing a poem about the crush, even though the event I wanted to relay is about her. What can I say? My need to express myself through the poem took over.

I was paired with her in JKD 1. We were practicing responses to the lead Now-Tek (hooking kick). Our legs touched. She scratched me with her big toe. It may have drawn blood. She didn't know it happened. I told her. She apologized. I didn't want her apology, I just wanted her acknowledgment that this moment happened, even if her understanding of it was drastically different than mine. I kept thinking this is the most physical contact we would ever have, and I savored it quietly. She's amiable and likes to laugh. I did not have to hide my smiles, just that goofy glazed over twinkle that effects both drunks and the lovestruck.

The sexual symbolism of her drawing my blood was immediate (to me). Here she is with a chastity ring (I still haven't pressed her if this is a promise ring or a purity right for the wedding) and I'm the one cut open. If I was the virgin in this situation, what was lost/gained? Certainly nothing so practical as my first time working with a girl in a martial context. I didn't reveal anything of import, nor did she. It is more primal than that; she pierced me, and I delight in the wound. I'm supposed to be bound to another and she cut through that carelessly, unknowingly. She barely broke skin, but the force caries on to the center. Hmph, none of that translates into a smooth lost/gained binary opposition. I've certainly lost, but what have I gained here? I do not know.

I'm reaching that point where sincerity turns saccharine. Sincerity, the genuine, is the hardest thing in the world to express, especially when it's connected to love and suffering.

And all the while I am a failure and traitor, try as I may, I have not served G well.

A curse

It's 2 am. In the middle of july, her air conditioner is broken. She's stripped to nothing and the bed cover sticks to her skin. At that moment, when she is alone with her chastity ring, I want her to think of me and thirst....

Starting with the tourney

I did okay. 2nd place finishes. In my "secret identity" I offered up regular updates, so I don't feel the need to really talk about it here. I was unable to pass the guard when I needed to, and I've got to work on half-guard defense and get more "live" take down practice

Measure for improvement

When BJJ is the simplest thing in your life, you ain't doin' something right! That being said, a new phenomena is taking place in my training which indicates that ever elusive and vaguely quantifiable rubric known as progress: I'm catching newbies in triangles. Yes, me with the stocky, muscular legs of a full-back fused to the body of a disney-fied fairy is catching dudes in triangles. I'm not hitting them on experienced guys--I never seem to hit much of anything on them--but it's a start.

Also, the brown belt taught me how to do a flying armbar, but more importantly, he showed me a way to SET-UP the flying armbar with the awesome power of deception.

So yeah, my personal life is a mess, and my professional life looks like the innards of a jelly fish, but my BJJ is goin' places.

Now if I could just clone myself and alter time I'd be set!