Mourning Glow Edition #4 My resistance to the 'family man'
Mourning Glow Edition #4 My resistance to the 'family man'
Welcome to the March Edition of Mourning Glow; that one time a month we take a break from the sex and dating diaries to focus on our slow roll. *sort of….
In short, the Mourning Glow is an offering of 3 practices, tips or suggestions for you to consider when you’ve run out of ideas.
This month I’ve also included an essay about my co-parent and I. You’ll notice most of it is behind a paywall. I’ve decided to keep some of my more personal and/or intimate essays there. Funny how anal bleaching and stories about porn are easier to share with the general public 🤪
PS> This post contains affiliate links. If you use these links to buy something I may earn a commission. Thanks!
Let’s get into it….
I was asking a friend of mine if she was familiar with Foria products recently when she said, I don’t really need lubricant.
I had to interject.
Even if your body naturally produces its own lubricant, using one not only helps, but enhances. Especially this line…
Aside from needing it for sexual intercourse, have you considered it as a base moisturizer? She hadn’t thought about that before.
I went on to say, we moisturize our face, legs etc. How is our pussy any different? If anything, I think that skin needs it more.
Plus it feels good! After every shower I take my time to apply some Awaken Oil and remind myself who is in charge 🍯
“The Coldest Case in Laramie” is an audio documentary by Serial Productions and hosted by veteran New York Times reporter Kim Barker. It examines the 1985 unsolved murder of Shelli Wiley, a University of Wyoming student who was stabbed to death in her apartment, which was then set on fire
Unlike a majority of people out there, I’m not all that into true crime content. Call me paranoid, but the idea of listening to terrible things that can actually happen to me makes me never want to fill my car up with gas, let alone leave my house.
Buuuut, I was on the road with my ex and he wasn’t interested in my audible book about a woman becoming a prostitute (review coming next month!) and I’m a saint so I offered this Serial series up.
Spoiler Alert. You can get away with murder and rape. Maybe you’ll get caught at like 80, but I doubt it.
📚 Home Baked: My Mom, Marijuana and the Stoning of San Francisco by Alia Volz
Reading about Alia Volzs’ life as a child who was along for her parents' ride, quite literally in a stroller toting around Sticky Fingers Brownies and at protests for the people, is much more than a look at an underground bakery, but a glimpse into the history of San Francisco and America’s movement of gay rights, the fight against AIDS and the legalization of Marijuana. I was eager to turn the page and see where her mother would stroll her next.
The way she captured what it was like to be a child of her parents, combined with getting to know who they were at the time by interviewing the people in their lives and going through their journals, you watch her process in real time as an adult the dissolution of her parents relationship, why her dad retreated and her mothers own struggles.
Alia’s openness, acceptance and love of who her parents are/were is apparent in the way she tells their story.
I remember our first date like it was last night. He invited me to see Local Natives play at Stubbs with the preface that it would be ‘a little bit of work’ for him. When I arrived, he met me outside, quickly placed a band on my wrist and ushered us through a separate entrance. He had this air to him; serious and strategic. Which felt unexpected given it was a date at Stubbs. We walked up to the bar, he ordered himself a beer and then looked to me to tell him what I would like.
A soda water with lime would be great, I shouted.
Oh yah, you don’t drink he said. Sir. Scratch that beer. I’ll have a coke.
I waved my hand at him. You don’t have to do that. It’s fine!
No, he said. I’ll be having a coke.
No, really. It doesn’t bother me if you drink. It’s not like that…
He looked at me and I’ll never forget it; the tone, his face, everything.
No. I don’t want a beer. I’m going to have a coke. You can stop.
It was the first time in my life someone chose not to drink, for me. I was 34. If you’ve never been raised by or in relation to an alcoholic, I wouldn’t expect you to understand the magnitude this gesture might have.
My experience of family, dating, relationships and friendships up until that point had been me trying to accept that I was the one who needed to lighten up and get comfortable with alcohol.
Needless to say, when you're used to people putting alcohol first, even casually and socially, whether they realize it or not, you take notice when the ones who don’t, don’t.
To this day, that moment stands out as one of the greatest individual acts anyone has ever done for me. Simply put, his selflessness translated into a kind of support I had not received up until that point. But that was only the beginning….
It would take at least a year for me to trust that this person wasn’t just doing that to impress me or waiting for me to be invested enough to pull the rug out from under me and reveal that he was actually a drinker. Ironically, it would take even longer for me to convince him that I trusted him and felt safe for him to drink around me.
This was well after we had already broken up. 9 years later this continues to be a theme when I’m around. He might sip something neat on the rare special occasion, but otherwise it’s not an option when I’m in his presence.
If you read my essay Navigating the Highs and Lows of Co-Parenting then you know that this person and I have chosen to restructure our relationship from a romantic one to a family one.
Though, in hindsight, when he came to me one day stating clearly ‘I see the man I am with you and your kids, who I can be and want to be’ I should have known it was always about family. I said yes tot his but it was a concept that I couldn't grasp and would resist while we were together.
‘I don’t want or need a father figure for my kids. I’m their parent. Besides, they’ll be moving out in 5 years… I want a best friend and lover. Someone who wants to be with me when they're gone.’
Late one night we were outside discussing how moving forward apart would play out when he said, I have just one request from you…
What would that be? I asked
I’m going to ask that you not sleep with, date or hook up with anyone I know or work with.
I believe my response was, ‘What???!! You know and work with half an industry that covers this country. Are you serious?!’
He looked at me.
That moment would go down in personal history as one of my greatest selfless acts when I agreed. It seemed like a huge ask. (as I type this I wonder what the female version of a cad is...)
Not that I’m looking for or deserve praise, but it’s a promise I have never broken.
What I’m not proud to confess is the amount of times I’ve wanted to throw this ‘selfless act’ of mine in his face as a ‘see how good I am to you for not when I could have’ during arguments.
It has taken me an embarrassing amount of time to see what I thought of as selflessness for its true nature: Selfishness.
Over the years I have witnessed his stand out actions that have caused pause and the question:
Is this guy for real?
Like the time I called him from the side of the road hysterically crying. I was questioning him for not wanting any of my furniture in his house as we merged under one roof.
I already have beds and couches. We don’t need yours.
In what I thought was a moment of, ‘you don’t like my style of decor… How can we possibly live together?!’ was really the unveiling of me panicking over the real possibility of us not working out and me being left with nothing. Again. Having to start over from scratch. Again.
Ashley. I don’t see us not working out, but if it comes to that, you have my word that I will buy you and the kids a new couch and beds.
I didn’t consider if he would follow through on his post-nup, but him hearing me out and his response was enough for me to get back in the car and finish my move.
Less than two years later when I called him to say I found the couch I wanted for my new place he expressed his dissatisfaction with me choosing one from Wildflower Organics, to which I said I just want you to be comfortable when you fall asleep on it after dinner 😬
He made one more comment and then said, that’s the last I’ll ever say about it.
Last week he drove me to NM to gather with my family for my mothers funeral. He didn’t go over 84 mph the entire way there. I watched as he and my family got to know one another. His ability to insert self-deprecating humor and wit into conversations. Him assuring my Oma that ‘all these things can be figured out’.
Words that have echoed in my life since we met.
In a flash I saw it all. Even though I pushed back in the beginning, we both got what we wanted.
A supportive family.