The Cuban

I see him in mid twirl and I know instantly I am in trouble.  His body moves sweetly, too sweetly.  His steps are undeniably Cuban and I am undeniably drawn.  My partner turns me and moves me skillfully thru a combination of turns and steps and I am blissed out, as always, on the dance floor.  Salsa has become my reason to live.  It is the time and place that I feel most alive, most vibrant, most passionately connected to life and my truest essence.  It is also the time and place that I am apparently the most vulnerable to men.

A man who can dance well is enough to swoon me a little, but a man who can dance really well and who is physically attractive to me is just undeniable trouble for me and seems to be practically irresistible.  This one was irresistible on all counts.  I watched him for a dance and fell in love before I even made it to his arms.  Soft hips, perfect feet moving in that way that only Cubans dance, light chocolate skin, just barely brown but so soft and sweet my hands itched to touch it.  Suave, and knowing just how to move a woman to make her look good while he was stylin himself so sweetly around her.  "Dammit," was the only word that could come to my lips.  I knew I had to have him, atleast once.

A few dances later, he found me and asked me to dance.  Joyfully we met in the groove, laughing, flirting heavily and dancing as if we'd danced together for years.  Made to be lovers.  Undoubtedly the chemistry was delightful and I should have left him right there on the dance floor, walked away, said, "Thanks but no thanks," but I didn't.  I like that edge.  I apparently like to flirt with danger, and so after a few more dances throughout the nite, he went home with my phone number in his phone and before I even got home there were messages.

The next night we met again, perfectly choreographed between three other men who are in hot pursuit that were probably a lot more deserving and would probably be much better to me.  I spent the evening exploring the options in the dance, dancing in turn with the best dancers there, letting myself surrender to the magic of man adoring and cherishing woman in the dance.  I let them pull me close and hold me tight and tonite I didn't resist any of that intimacy.  I am strong, my feet move perfectly and I feel grace and total control with all of them.  

Except him. When I dance with him,  I get nearly clumsy.  I feel intoxicated by his smell and the way that i feel when he pulls me close.  I want to claw and rip and grab at him.  It's animalistic.  My body burns with desire.  He speaks to me in my ear in moments when he must feel me getting weak:  "Are you OK?"  I laugh and say yes but we both know I am weakened by his magnetism on me.  I am in trouble with this one.  He is so naughty, bad boy just emanates from his pores and I drink it in big gulps loving the anticipation of the knowingness that we both have. 

I have options of really good men who would be kind and available to me, who would treat me with tenderness and respect.  I choose him, hands down.  He's the sexiest, the hottest and will most likely be the cruelest to me and my tender heart.  We make an agreement before we leave the dance that night that no matter what, we won't let it affect the dance.  No matter what, we will be friends and not stop dancing together.  I know I can't resist him, I know he is coming to my bed with me, and he knows it too.

We dance a last dance, and I can't wait any longer.  It's time to kiss this man, and find out what else is there beyond the dance.  We leave and he walks me to my car and gets in it and kisses me.  It's not the most incredible kiss I've ever had, but the passion in it is enough in my already heightened state of arousal from the dance and the story I've created in my mind about how hot this one is, this Cuban God.  He follows me home, and sitting on my porch beneath the moon, the intoxication continues.  I am just a little high from smoking some ganga but not so high that I have no resistance.  His fingers on my nipples, then his lips melt away what little resistance I had and I bring him to my bed, knowing I am setting myself up for failure. 

In my room, he asks me if he can take his pants off and if he should take his shirt off.  I look at him and grab the bottom of his white t-shirt and pull it up revealing the most incredibly perfect torso and say, "Um, yeah, let's take that off.  That's so nice."  He is a tae kwan do teacher and master.  His body is incredible, I'm screwed and I know it.  Damn.  I should have left this one at the bar.  I am now praying maybe I can keep him under control and also hoping I can keep myself under control.

Not a chance.  Instantly, his passion rages through me and consumes me.  I could say no, but I'm not even sure he would hear it.  I don't want to say no.  I should say no, I know that I am heading into yet another disappointment and heartbreak.  I actually like the guy already.  Just from the dance I have fallen in love with his personality.  I try to say no, I try to push his hands from exploring me too quickly, but I am naked in no time, his lips and face buried in my Yoni, sucking and slurping me up.  He speaks to me half in spanish, half in english, and has me speaking back the same.  I am so turned on I am like a gushing stream and he is wide eyed and loving every minute of me.

His big chocolate eyes are child like, innocent in their naughtiness and we are laughing and enjoying each other fully.  He thrusts his fingers into every place he can and brings me to climax with intensity 3 times, and is relentlessly moving towards the fourth.  The orgasms are a mix of pain and pleasure.  He slaps my ass and it excites me.   There is nothing very gentle or tender with this one.  It is raw, primal, intensely passionate and incredibly mind altering.  I am high on him, riding with him matching his intensity and doing eveything I can to push him farther into it.   He is so hard.  I haven't been with a man with a rock hard staff like this one in years.  I am almost scared but too turned on to care anymore and I let him enter me and pull him in as deep as I can.

He is so incredibly sexy.  The joy and bliss on his face are so welcomed and I want only to bring more to him.  For a moment I get the awareness that he will not respect me tomorrow, but I give it up and surrender to the moment and fuck him harder.  Together we release into stillness and sleep.

He wakes me in the morning with strong caresses and even though I am sore from the night before, I want him again.  The door has been opened, he knows I can not close it now.  He pulls me to the edge of the bed and we make love in front of the mirror.  Our bodies are incredibly beautiful together.  Two very fine nearly 40 year old specimens.  He keeps saying how hot I am and I can not deny I feel the same.  His body is the perfect body for me.  Strong, tall, fit, brown, Cuban, and it looks so good pumping into me that I am laughing with him blissfully.

Then he leaves.  My heart sinks a bit.  I know that might be it and I am pissed at myself for letting that go so fast that I probably have no chance now of being anything more than just another notch on the belt.  Part of me doesn't care.  I wanted him, he knew it, he wanted me.  We wasted no time.  We were real and true with what we felt.  It was sex, primal and passionately delightful with no strings attached.  Maybe I want a string or two.

The next day my African lover comes to see me.  I feel crazed by it all, but I blew him off the previous night to settle a score with him and because the Cuban had come to see me.   He just wants to touch me, and I am grateful.  He is so appreciative and gentle with my body.  He truly loves woman and is so enamored with my form.  It feels so completely different and so completely needed to cool the insanity of the night before somehow.    He spends an hour just caressing my legs and ass with soft gentle strokes.  This is the way I really love to be loved, so sweet, so gentle, so nurturing.  He is totally OK without entering me and leaves me satisfied, nurtured and feeling so tenderly appreciated.  

Now my work is to stay neutral, to not freak out, to not trip on the Cuban.  I don't do so well, I send him a few texts that are just enough on the snippy side to probably turn him off, but it gets a response and he calls me to tell me he is my friend and he's not going anywhere.  He also tells me that it scared him to get those texts.  We can see each other sometimes, we are both adults and we shared something sweet that we both wanted and we need to act like adults about it.  He is right and I know he is, but when I see him dancing that night I want only him.  I snagged him at the door for his first dance of the night, but I could tell his energy was elsewhere and my heart sunk.  I let him go and affirm that I will not go to him, that I will let him come to me, that I will leave without saying a word to him and that I will not let this man play his game with my heart at stake.  Strike one, he's out.

I dance with everyone else but him all night, purposefully avoiding him, watching him watch me when I'm dancing and stealthily watching him through my hair.  I can't show weakness.  I can't show my true feelings, he will run.  I have to play this so cool.  I dance as sassy and sensually as I can with as many men as I can as close to my Cuban lover as possible.  I want to make him want me like he's never wanted a woman, and now I am unavailable to him anywhere but perhaps a dance or two here. My mind is set on finding some way in to his shell beyond sex, yet I can't wait to take him to my bed again and ride the primal pulse of desire with him into the dawn.

I want only him.

Begin Again

What's most important is that I start writing again. Every day, twice a day. There needs to be some conversation from myself to myself and writing is one of the best ways I can have that conversation. I've gotten lost again. I was standing in the brilliance of myself 8 months ago. Flying high on wings of self reliance and self love. I was, I thought, over the hump. I had left self sabotage and doubt behind. I had conquered the fear of solitude, lonlieness and I was the master of my reality. And then I fell into the arms of yet another man child. A man so incredibly physically alluring to me that I put all of my wisdom and intelligence on the line. He drew me in with sweetness and his constant availability. He took care of me when I had surgery, creating a bond that made me feel cherished for just long enough for me to get sucked in. He worked through every situation with me, stayed with me through all my reactions and hurts, and there were plenty of hurts that surfaced quickly with him. He verbally abused me when I didn't act or speak in the "right" ways. He let me know first and foremost that he wasn't "that" into me to be only with me and that he wasn't willing to give up other women. There were lots of other women. Women he was sex texting, women online, porn, women I walked in and saw him making out with on the same night that we were on a date, a woman he started sleeping with as soon as I left the state to go travel. I could see the pattern repeating and it triggered all my old trauma from my past. It was an 8 month "open" relationship that relived my 8 years with my ex on a much more intense level. I was the one who wanted it open at first, because the sexual addiction, both his and mine, have been so clear. The abuse was so clear. The willingness I had to "deal" and "endure" was so clear. My hurts and my feelings of betrayal were so clear. My "settling" for something so much less than what I really want is so clear. I dated other guys the whole time, but barely. I let my heart become his. Now I am left with the work of detaching and giving my heart back to myself. A few things have been different: he has been honest for the most part about his own not wanting to commit and I have respected that. He has worked through his anger and abusive tendencies once I put my foot down. I hit a place where I really realized how much he was like my father, throwing anger around like it was OK and I drew a line. I told him if he wanted me in his life as any kind of friend or connection that it had to stop and never happen again. Since then everything changed. He left his lover he picked up while I was travelling to come back to me, and we took another short round, just like my ex and I. This time, however, I was the one who said, "I'm done now" after he expressed to me that he didn't value me enough to commit to me sexually. I realized how much this pattern has affected my self esteem and I said, "Thank you, but no thank you. I've had enough." That was just a week and a half ago. We still communicate most days. He truly has become an incredible friend and while I know there has been much unhealthy in the dynamic, something about the way we are transitioning is healing for me. I don't want to lose another friend because I can't accept that I'm not "the one" for him. I don't want to hate someone because I'm not "the one" for him, nor do I want to be angry at him for not being "the one" for me. I knew from the first date with him that he wasn't a good choice for me. I allowed it because I was lonely, he was so sexy and I just wanted some love and companionship. Now the work is to return again to the altar of my heart and desires. To return again to self. To take solace in my solitude rather than wanting to fill it up and waste time and energy on a man who can not give me what I want so deeply. The journey back to self seems to be a continuous cycle. Now I am summoning soul.

Unfinished Business

Here I am again, running stories and regrets through my mind. Plagued and disturbed by my own inadequacies and lack of ability to let go of something that isn't good for me. Thinking that if I can just love enough, be open enough, give enough, try hard enough, accept enough responsibility that I can get the love I seem to need so badly from someone who doesn't even know how to love himself. I guess it's unfinished business. When I met Tomas I was desperate for some where to direct my love. My body wanted sex and comfort so badly that I really thought I could have a meaningless fling and not get attached. I knew the first night we hung out that he was toxic, but I didn't think he'd stick around long enough for it to become what it has. I was getting through things and starting to really shine and love myself again, and I gave that all up somehow in trade for Tomas somehow. I never thought Tomas and I would still be hanging out 8 months later, but I seem to have a really hard time letting go. I care about him, want to help him, and more than anything there's some incredibly strong cord, attachment, yes I will say, "need" to be with him that hurts the same way it did with Jessee when I tried to disconnect. I know it's partially that I never got fully OK with myself, though I was well on my way when I met Tomas. I thought maybe I was ready for a relationship even, and perhaps I was for a healthy one, but instead I got sucked into something that has been much more unhealthy than Jessee ever was in the worst of moments. Now, I'm attached and the sickness in me has clung to him as it's lifeline. He's a million degrees sicker than Jessee was around sexual addiction. He's aggressive and hurtful often and somehow that lost, scared little girl in me has fallen in love with him, and keeps trying to please him and do the right thing to try to hold onto something that really offers me nothing but sometimes some sexual pleasure and release and occassionally some enjoyable companionship. Most of the time, he's impossible and not that fun. He's unhappy, grumpy and easily irritated and rarely can be part of any other aspect of my life except sleeping together. The question I keep asking myself over and over is what is it that draws me to men with such serious sexual addiction and emotional unavailability? It's not what I want, yet I fall so hard for it and try so hard to make myself loved and accepted by men who don't even love themselves and who are so in denial of their sickness that they can't be present to it's impacts. Here I go again. Another round. I want it to be the last. I want to learn to attach to healthy relationships and functional available men. I don't know how, but I want to learn. I can't go through another round like this ever again.

Fields of Spring

It's a beautiful spring morning in the Rocky Mountains, and my heart is cracked open in a million ways. I feel vulnerable, tender, aching and deeply mournful. Depressed again? I don't know, it has sort of a different quality than depression, a sort of melancholy acceptance of what is mixed with a bliss that I can almost taste in it's sweetness but that holds only the promise of reality in it's soft curling tendrils.

What is this life really for? When love is gone, when one is alone in this big world without a hand to hold, without much in the way of family, what is there of substance? Only the self really. Only the meaning that that individual gives to life holds them present here.

I look back on this journey and am mixed with such bittersweet thoughts. So much of it I have loved so much, and so many moments like now, more and more so, filled with a sort of tender acceptance of the impermanence of life, of the fleeting nature of passion and romance, of the illusion that most of it is, and I realize that I'm OK if it's all over tomorrow. I will go in peace and be grateful for what I had not bitter for wanting more. I'm complete if spirit wants to take me home, I will go gratefully.

When I look towards the future, it's hard not to see just more struggle and pointless efforts towards trying to achieve some illusion of "security" and "financial" success. I'm barely interested in the game anymore. I just want to walk through the fields of spring and let the rest go.

The Next Great Challenge

The journey never ends. It cycles, just as the earth on it's axis around the sun. The phases we go through and endure are tests, challenges, and reminders when they return in the next turn in the wheel of life.

This past 24 months or so has been the most seasoning times of my life so far. I can see the potential for huge leaps and shifts really settling in on deeper and deeper levels as the cycles continue and I get to look through a broader lens of experience, wisdom and maturity.

Once you've visited the brink of insanity and the edge of losing your self entirely, it seems there is a different relationship with all of it. A relationship of patience and perseverance and a certain knowingness that frieking out or reacting is not the path of least resistance, nor does it do any good.

My current lover sent me a text the other day that said, "Worry is like praying for something you don't want." I loved it, and feel it's resonance so deeply.

If ever there was a time when I could, or maybe even should worry, it might be now. The next great challenge of my life looms in the pot of possibilities in a more real way today even than it did yesterday, yet I feel totally non-reactive to it, nor am I concerned regardless of what the outcome may be.

I guess most people in my generation must be aware of the very present reality that cancer is in our lives. The statistics are one out of two, which is probably low but it's hard to say one out of every 1.5 people or one out of every half person which is probably more of a realistic ratio.

I got the news today that I have an adnexal ovarian cyst, which apparnetly from what I learned today, differs from a regular old ovarian cyst which wouldn't have gotten much attention from the Dr. today because it apparently doesn't typically just disappear without treatment. That's about all I know so far, except for what I read on line which is far from positive or even worth writing about.

Since I got the news several hours ago I've just been sitting with all the possible possibilities which range from nothing needing to be done to the possibility of cancer and surgery. The beautiful part about something like this is it really makes you look at your life and consider how you've been living. The beautiful part for me is that I realized I am not afraid of any outcome. I'm not afraid of cancer, and not really even afraid of dying.

It's been a good life. I have no complaints. I've lived an incredible existence, touched many lives, been a pretty good person, had a lot of fun, and I know I have an incredibly strong will that can work amazing miracles.

The Next Great Challenge is possibly looming large on the horizon. I don't really know yet. What I do know, is that no matter what this challenge presents, I am OK with the outcome.

I'd rather live a short life that has been full and real than a long life of disappointments and misery.

The Turning In: The Final Chapter

After almost a whole year of deep self work, maddening depths of grief and anger, travel and playful digging into the wild side of myself, I am enjoying the journey of coming inward again as winter sets in and the Rocky Mountains turn to a crispy white. It's the time of year where I am content to stay home and write or read rather than go out on the town, and of course also the time of year when I start to think about getting to a warmer climate.

This year though, I'm not in a hurry. I am truly enjoying the turning of the seasons as I am feeling the turning in of myself. I feel seasoned, matured and ready to reflect on the journey I've been going through with an appreciative, happy heart and a curious mind. What else is possible? What other jewels are lying around on pages of journals I wrote in those times or within my own evolving heart and mind? What other little nuggets are coming forth to be shined into shimmering gold?

In 3 months it will be two full years since I left my relationship, and close to a year since the real "grand finale" actually played itself out. It feels like much longer. It feels like a small lifetime within a lifetime. It's almost impossiable to even remember what my life was like back then, it's like a vauge distant dream that almost doesn't seem like it ever even happened. I can't remember his touch, or how he smelled. I can't even remember having fun with him. I don't have any bad feelings or any good ones. I'm detached and I'm OK with that. I have no desire or need to talk to him, or see him and if I did see him I don't think I'd bother to stop and chat. It's really done within me and I'm perfectly content with it at last.

When I see the path that is unfolding, I am so grateful for every moment of it and I can see that every little piece of it was necessary in order for me to be here now.

I feel like a much different person than I was when this journey back to self began. I feel seasoned, clear and more grown up. I feel settled into my skin and safe in my own intuitive abilities to choose what is good for me and reject that which doesn't serve. I trust the people around me and know that I am now really in a flow that is bringing me into the woman I have always known that I truly am: wild, wise, free and blissed!

I have found peace as a solitary, soveriegn woman living in this world. I trust my wild primal intuitive abilities to listen with devoted attention to the wisdom that my years has brought me. The book doesn't end with me meeting my life partner and going happily ever after into another relationship: I don't need to find a man to make me complete or to fulfill me. The book ends with this woman looking in the mirror and smiling to herself and saying, "Good work! Life is so sweet. My joy and happiness are up to me and I'm choosing to be live in bliss because love wants to live me!"

The book ends with this woman looking at what is and loving every bit of it right down to the thread dangling off the corner of the pillow on the bed!

The Awakening is ON and the journey back to self continues in every moment, every breath and every day!

If and when a king arrives, the queen will be chillin out sipping wine in gratitude for the sun setting over the lake! If he doesn't, she will still be smiling from ear to ear and dancing to every groove life brings!

Awaiting Peace

11:45 PM
I lay down to sleep sinking into the voice of positive affirmations reminding me to remember the truths that sometimes I begin to doubt. Somehow, unbelievably, almost 5 months from the last time we made love and well over a year since we officially separated, he still haunts me. Somehow, in the moments before I go to sleep and in those pre-dawn moments, my heart still aches for him and I am so sick of it! There is no way in hell I could even consider going back to him or taking him back so why does my mind not accept that as reality?

I start to drift off, fitfully, still hearing those wonderful affirmations trying to convince my broken heart and twisted mind that everything really is going to be better than I can ever imagine. For a moment I sleep, then the thought of him with the woman he replaced me with in less than 12 hours crosses my mind, and as if on cue, I hear the voice in my earphones say, "I do not look back into the past and put my mind only on the manifestation of those things which I want to be coming into my life now. The universal mind knows no past and by the law of attraction, everything I need is awaiting me now." Yet I still don't sleep. The entire audio track plays thru and now it is 2 AM and I am still wide awake, frustrated, cold and aching all the way to my core.

I walk into the house as if it was my own, maybe it once was. My mother is with me as well as 2 other friends. His new woman is in the kitchen, I walk in and say about 5 words to her, in essence something like, "I'm here to get my stuff," and think to myself "You stupid ignorant pathetic woman, you're so clueless to the truth." The house is big, he is upstairs, sleeping as usual probably and while part of me wants to rage up stairs and shake him senseless, another part of me is so sickened I know that even to see him would make me do and say things that would create far more suffering than I need to be responsible for. My elderly mother is needing the bathroom, and I'm feeling strangely empowered and out of place at the same time in this house that once was mine with his new, younger, fatter and not nearly as attractive as I am partner hiding in the kitchen in some kind of stupor and fear, maybe of having to face the truth of the rebound that she is for him.

I go to the altar and grab my tarot cards, and crystals and a few other things and head for the door. My mother is having some trouble in the bathroom, and in the meantime, she walks upstairs, going to bed with my ex, leaving us in the living room and I am terrified at what I am feeling capable of.

I wake up alarmed and disturbed, my heart aching with full intensity wondering if he's with her now in the "real" world. Is he awake thinking of me too somewhere, is he happy? Are they getting married, having a child? "Geez girl, go back to sleep and GET OVER IT already. How long are you going to let this take power from you?" But I don't sleep. I lay there wanting to cry and trying as hard as I can not to until dawn comes: another nite stolen by this heartbreak.

I start my day in a dreary mood, feeling at the edge of tears in spite of the sun shining gloriously on the mountains. I am incapable of doing anything more than just laying in the grass listening to the creek and feeling the sun on my body, and writing a few poems.

On my mind and not helping much with my self esteem is the fact that a few nites ago I went out dancing and went home with a very young famous snowboarder. I knew there would be passion and I guess some part of me was ready for it, for some distraction, some release and I think I was hoping an opportunity to nurture and be nurtured. This one was more animal than man though, and was so physically perfect I was blinded. Every inch of him, pure muscle from hours of training and perfecting his work on the slopes. His skin was smooth, brown and so soft next to mine and I let him more or less ravage me. At some point I realized I might be in a dangerous situation and also couldn't help but see that my heart hurt so much that even the possibility of him forcing himself into me wasn't enough to make me leave. Despair leading to total lack of self care and self respect? Really? Me? Well, he was exceptionally hot and his sexy voice speaking in German, then English, and his hands literally ripping at my flesh somehow were stimulating me in ways I'd never really experienced and so I let myself stay even when I felt his hand starting to close around my throat for a second and a warning sign flashed into my mind that I needed to be really on guard, that this man might very likely be capable of raping me.

He wasn't tender, nor was he sensitive, he was rough, hard, and like an animal and left me feeling ravaged, nearly raped and a cross between repulsed and delicious. It wasn't all bad, there were moments of tenderness and sweet soft kisses, but this one was just intense and very strong and willful. I let him into me for a very short moment, I'm not sure whether it was that I really wanted him or that I was afraid if I didn't let him in he'd force himself in and I wanted to have control of that. I flipped him over and held his hands down and rode him hard until I came and then told him he had to stop, he'd hurt me with his intensity and strength, which was true.

Am I the monster or him now? Of course I haven't heard from him, nor do I really expect to. We were really just two people who used each other for a nite of passion play, and I am now left feeling cheapened by the repercussions of my own heartbreak and it's effect on so many parts of my life. I am here now just awaiting peace.