nobody likes valentine's day

i hate valentine’s day. i’m pretty sure i’ve almost always hated valentine’s day, and if i ever did, even remotely, enjoy valentine’s day it was probably because of the snacks. i even hate valentine’s day more than i hate christmas, and the only reason christmas wins is because christmas always brings more finger food to the party.

the only time i really enjoyed valentine’s day was this one time in middle school when a boy i liked handmade a card for me that i may or may not still have.

but besides the times with snacks and the one time in middle school, i basically have always hated valentine’s day.

i’m not romantic. in fact, i kind of hate romance even more than i hate valentines day. it’s never felt very organic to me. the thought of someone saying something romantic in my ear makes me so uncomfortable; i’d rather go to the dentist than go on a fancy date.

for the most part, human contact makes me cringe. unless i really love someone and i want them to touch me, every second of unwanted contact makes my skin itch. my body is such a private thing that i love and take care of, that i don’t want someone touching it unless they ask permission or i invite them in.

but valentine’s day this year is really scary to me.

because it’s another new milestone for me. my first valentine’s day as a single adult.

valentine’s day was never a day full of fancy dinners and outfits and chocolate. it was a day of whispered “i love yous” in long distance conversations and a bouquet of daisies and baby’s breath with a note about how much valentine’s day sucked, but i didn’t. there might be a nice dinner, but it was clouded with sweatshirts and wellies and a weekend expiration.

it’s just a weird thought, to be alone on a day when the rest of the world is holding on to each other.

last year i was laying around my apartment when i heard my phone ping. a valentine’s day proposition i should have said no to, that i instead said yes to. i ended up reading patti smith at my favorite bar because, despite dating three to four men every few weeks for the last three months, i thought the bar tender was the most consistent and supportive man in my life at the time. he deserved my silent company and my tips.

my phone pinged again. a second proposition. i was waiting for this bicycle messenger i really liked to ping my phone and then maybe ping me, but all of my backups were calling in their backup, and my phone sounded like it was on a countdown to implode.

so i said yes to the one backup that i thought was most likely to turn into something more, the one that i had hoped might ask me to be his girlfriend if i could trick him into falling in love with me.

the night ended with free drinks and not enough of my book read. i think it says something when you’d rather read a book and pay for your own drinks then choke down awkward conversation in exchange for free whiskey.

and as scared as i am to spend this valentine’s day as a real, true, in the flesh single person, i am glad that i’m not the same scared girl i was last year. a girl who was so scared to be alone that she sacrificed her time to be with someone that made her feel less than she should.

why can’t “Good Girls” have sex and like it?

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i recently read an article on Literally, Darling, one of my favorite places to read about millennial hoopla from a millennial perspective, that upset me. It was this article, On Having Sex When You’re A “Good Girl,” that didn’t make me feel so good. i’m disappointed in the website for posting this story because, while it appears to be an interesting perspective of a girl who has been sex shamed by her family who overcame it and finally fucked her boyfriend, it is actually just a perpetuation of her family and society’s ideal that women aren’t supposed to enjoy sex.

so i’m left wondering, why can’t “good girls” have sex and like it?

“I am a good girl from a Catholic family,” the anonymous writer says. “I’m not a big drinker, I get good grades, and I’m close to my parents.”

she says that sex talk was never taboo in her family’s house, but that her mother would joke about the idea of her children having sex before marriage at the dinner table.

sex is not a taboo subject in my family. while sex is not a daily topic of my parent’s dinner table, it comes up. blowjobs, bad kissers, and dildos… we talk about it because sex is not a taboo subject in my family.

the writer says that after a year and a half of her relationship, she and her boyfriend had reached physical certain milestones that most couples reach within the first year. “everything, that is, except IT.”

so, in my mind, she’s done everything BUT vaginal (and anal, most likely, because… well, no thank you) intercourse. so there have been blowjobs, hand jobs, fingering and hopefully a little oral for her, too. but then she says something that contradicts “everything, that is, except IT.”

  

“Although I was far from completely innocent at this point in our relationship, I was still naïve. It wasn’t until my roommate casually brought up shaving that I realized, yes, you could shave down there as well. A quick trip to CVS and several lengthy minutes in the razor aisle facilitated my transformation from an 18-year-old virgin to an almost-20-year-old woman.”

there are many things that confuse me in this statement.

“Although I was far from completely innocent at this point in our relationship”

so you’re not completely innocent, but you still maintain some innocence? innocence in what? the crimes you have committed by participating in what is seemingly consensual “everything, that is, except IT”? consensual sex and “everything, that is, except IT” is not a crime.

“It wasn’t until my roommate casually brought up shaving that I realized, yes, you could shave down there as well.”

so, in doing “everything, that is, except IT,” your boyfriend has never seen or felt your vagina? your full bush vagina? and why are you grooming only in anticipation of vaginal intercourse? if he’s seen the vagina in full bush, and he still wants to have sex with you, then he probably doesn’t care whether you shave or not. 

“A quick trip to CVS and several lengthy minutes in the razor aisle facilitated my transformation from an 18-year-old virgin to an almost-20-year-old woman.”

WAIT, WHAT? since when does shaving your pubic hair make you look older? i started shaving my pubic hair when i was too young to really know what i was doing. everyone else was doing it, and i remember the look on my mom’s face when she realized what i was doing. she explained why pubic hair was natural, why it was good and healthy, and why i shouldn’t feel pressured to do something everyone else was doing.

little did i know it would come back into fashion by the time i turned 21, and i ignored her.

i could continue to dissect and complain about every aspect of this essay, hating it to its core, but the point of my complaints at all are to highlight my previously stated question: why can’t good girls have sex and like it?

i’m a good girl. i get stellar grades; i’ve always gotten really, really good grades. but i don’t really think that has anything to do with me being good. i love my parents. i have really great relationships with both of my parents. but i don’t think that has anything to do with me being good, either. i’m mostly on time, i’m a pretty good listener, i rarely lie, and i’m a modest dresser… but do all of these things mean i’m a good girl?

because i like sex. i enjoy having sex with people i love, and i enjoy having sex with people i don’t love. i like talking about sex almost as much as i like the act of having sex itself. but does this make me bad? can only bad girls enjoy sex, or can only bad girls enjoy sex and talk about it?

so, am i a bad girl or am i a good girl? or am i just a girl?

i call bullshit

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there is this, in my opinion, irrational idea about “the one.” i used to really believe in the idea of finding one person that was made for me; one person that knew me before they even met me. but now, in the wake of my singleness, i’m calling bullshit on the whole thing.

love is a choice. it takes a lot of work, and it can suck for long periods of time. i look at the relationships i am surrounded by most, and while there is a lot of love and positivity and honestly and respect and compromise, i’m sure there is a heaping pile of shit, past and present, that stinks it up every once in a while.

how do you know you are in love with someone? or, better yet, how do you know that you are going to love someone every single day for the rest of your life? how do you know that you will be able to commit to them? to choose love, even when you don’t want to?

someone once told me to find a man that makes me laugh and is good in bed. she actually said, “find someone who will fuck you hard, because it matters.”

it’s not exactly poetic, but it has justified a few less-than-noteworthy one night stands for me. he wasn’t the one because he was terrible in bed. it was easier than admitting that i failed to connect with someone on any other level, let alone a primal one.

“he isn’t ‘the one.’” i’ve justified too many times to count. or, another favorite, “he’s not ‘mr. right,’ but he is ‘mr. right now.’” seriously, i’m gagging right now.

and what happens when you think you’ve found someone you want to spend a significant amount of time with, but they don’t want that from you? what then? do you ignore what your gut tells you? i mean, if it can identify bad sushi, it can surely tell you when to swing and when to walk away, right?

i interviewed a young married couple for an article i wrote in one of my classes last spring. what they said has really stuck with me. they don’t believe in soul mates either. in fact, they both made pretty good points as to why the ideal of soul mates is a heaping load. what happens if your soul mate lives in another country? or worse, what if they live in your neighborhood, but you never cross paths? imagine that you both frequent the same tea or coffee shop, but at different times of day. THIS PERSON IS YOUR SOULMATE, and you miss them by five minutes every day…

so you end up marrying the person behind the tea counter, because you see them every day and they make you laugh. they may not be your soul mate, but they have a nice smile and you like to talk to them. you marry them because you know them. they may not be your soul mate, but they are present. and you choose to love them, despite the fact that they are not your soul mate. do you know this? or do you regard them as such because you chose them?

do we ever really know?

i guess charlotte had it right when she swore off the idea of having romantic soul mates.

my GIRLS reality

i’ve been trying to write a blog post about this topic for a really long time, but nothing really came to me very organically. i wouldn’t consider myself a “friends” type of person. i allow very few people into the safe and trusting parts of my life. i see a distinct difference between friends and acquaintances and an even larger one between people i consider to be friends and best friends.

this all seems very elementary when i write it out, but, for my life, it is very true. some not so great things happened to me at a very young age that quickly taught me who to trust and what to trust them with.

i would never have considered myself a “girl’s girl.” girlfriends rarely appealed to me in high school. as long as i had a boyfriend and my mom, i was set with the people i needed in my life to support me.

so, considering that, after reading this article about 5 things we “get wrong” about GIRLS retaliating to this article that talks about why GIRLS is bad for women, i decided to put all (and save just two) of my sense in about how and why i love GIRLS so much. and why i think i am (now) a GIRLS girl’s girl.

probably about a year ago, i was talking about GIRLS with a few coworkers. the other girls who had seen the show liked it, and one guy who had seen it didn’t like it. like many who dislike the show, he wasn’t crazy about lena dunham being naked.

like most (if not all) women, i have always battled with my weight and my perception of the number on the scale. i always thought i was the fat kid growing up, and a lot of that negative body perception has followed me into my adult life.

like many, i battled eating disorders. after an ex-boyfriend told me his mom said she was surprised he was dating “a normal sized girl instead of a thin girl” (at 17, i was a size 2) i lost about ten pounds in four weeks on what i told myself was an “apple diet.” i didn’t eat breakfast, had an apple (sometimes peanut butter) for lunch, and ate half of whatever ended up on my plate for dinner.

this is fucked up, and it makes me sad to know that i am not the only one who went through something like this.

seeing lena dunham naked on tv made me feel better about myself. if she can be confident in her body, so can i. seeing the weird things about her nakedness helped me accept the weird things about my nakedness.

i think it’s especially interesting when emma woolf, the author of the anti-GIRLS article, talks about when two women share a bathtub. while it is true that i haven’t shared a bathtub in a long time, i do a lot of weird shit with my girlfriends.

on top of painfully relaying, dissecting and analyzing our love lives constantly, we talk about gruesome, dirty and embarrassing things about being women. we can talk about good sex, bad sex and the lack of sex in our lives. we can talk about the messed up relationships we have with our parents. sometimes these conversations happen glamorously at a bar over $1 beer, but most of the time they happen sprawled out in the hallway between our classes or in the middle of a three mile run.

and i think it’s interesting that people feel the need to criticize the relationships they see on GIRLS. just because you don’t spend your time with your friends in bathtubs doesn’t mean a relationship that finds itself in a bathtub is more or less realistic than yours. there is no such thing as a realistic or normal relationship.

the criticism of GIRLS’ sex is also something that really gets to me. the more i learn about sex (about 90% of it NOT being from experience), the more i’ve realized that it is weird. different people like different things, and, from what i’ve gathered, there is little rhyme or reason. lena dunham’s sex is more realistic than most of the other sex i’ve seen in other shows and movies.

while there are some valid criticisms to be made about GIRLS, very few of them can be made from seeing only two episodes of the show.

as a writer and a confused 20-something, i find myself relating to hannah horvath constantly. while the situations we find ourselves in are generally unalike (i’ve never wore neon mesh without a bra), the feelings we find ourselves having are often very similar. hannah horvath somehow validates how fucked up my life seems at times. as in, someone wrote an entire HBO series about how shitty and great it is to be me, and now i get to watch it unfold on tv.

and although i’m happy that hannah has found some love from adam, i hope they break up. there. i said it.

do not let them break you

usually when someone asks me what i’m thankful for i say, “my legs.” this generally happens in a classroom or some other ice-breaking experience. a lot of people say their family or their health. don’t get me wrong, i am so thankful for both of those things…

but i am thankful for my legs, because, although they are not long and lean or tan and toned, they work. my legs let me run miles at a time every day (i recently broke my 3 mile record for a 9 minute mile). my legs help me to walk to the train or class when i’m running late. my legs wear cute pants or high waist shorts or neon skirts. 

i am also generally thankful for my soft bits. sure, i would love to be a size 0. but i also love pizza and being warm all of the time. i like some of the squishy parts of my body. being a size 0 would be nice, but i'm okay with being a size 4, sometimes a size 6 and always a size 10 or 12 at h&m.

wednesday, i found myself standing about ten feet away from a wall of mirrors (actually a room of mirrors) hating my legs. i’d been desperate for some heat in this (literally) bipolar weather, so i decided to go to my first bikram yoga class. there is a studio really close to my apartment, and i thought i would have tried it out much sooner, but sometimes life has a way of getting in front of your practice, and you lose sight of what is really important: your breath, and your body, and the love you have for both.

so there i was, sweating in tadasana 5 minutes into a 90 minute class. i closed my eyes because i was so distracted by the fact that my thighs were the only ones in the class that were touching.

“KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN,” the teacher said. she wasn’t actually screaming, but her tone does not deserve little letters, so i’m going all owen meany on her ass.

i was annoyed. the short baby hairs around on the crown of my head were sticking to the sweat on my face. i felt claustrophobic in my own skin.

“WE DON’T TAKE A WATER BREAK UNTIL AFTER EAGLE, AND AFTER THAT, IF YOU NEED WATER, ONLY DRINK BETWEEN SETS.”

rules to drinking water?

“IF YOU NEED TO REST, REST BETWEEN SETS. FINISH THE FIRST SET BEFORE YOU REST.”

rules to taking a break?

i was already feeling distressed about my thighs and the soft inside parts of my arms that were smushed against the side of my body. i couldn’t concentrate on my practice staring at myself in the mirror. i closed my eyes.

“KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN.”

i got through the practice to eagle without drinking. 105 degrees is much hotter than the 95 degrees i’m used to.

i tried shaking all of the negative thoughts out of my mind, but every time i looked up to concentrate i saw myself in the mirror.

somewhere in a ridiculous set of one sit up plus modified cobra plus one more sit up plus a random savasana, i started crying.

this definitely wasn’t the first time i’ve ever cried in a yoga class. at home, practicing with my mom at funky buddha, we would hold hands during savasana. it felt so good to be connected to another person. listening to whoever was teaching the class reflect on the practice is always my favorite part.

in lotus i had a chance to catch myself in the mirror. i was red for the heat and red from holding back the tears. i was instantly reminded of my freshman year at msu. there was a person at school that made me feel the same way i felt in class. to deal with her, i added a bunch of quotes to the sticky notes on my computer.

“other people’s opinions of you do not have to become your reality.” les brown

“if i am not for myself, who will be?” pirke avoth

“it aint what they call you, it’s what you answer to.” wc fields

i kept telling myself, “do not let this break you.” but defeat had taken over.

this is not what yoga is. this is not what yoga is about. yoga is about love, spirituality, and strength. i felt none of those things. yoga is not about staring at yourself in a mirror. it’s about listening to your body; letting it tell you what it needs. savasana lasted less than one minute at the end of the practice. the teacher walked out the door before we were even finished. i could not participate in namaste because i did not authentically feel it for the first time ever in my practice.

about a month ago i decided to sign up for a teacher training class. in april, i will start my 200 hour teacher training. i vowed to myself on wednesday that i will never make anyone feel the way i felt during that practice.

so here’s to friday. here’s to feeling tall, lean, and strong. here’s to thighs that touch and arms that smush and crying in public.

here's to that teacher. i hope that someone makes her feel loved every day.

and here’s to my momma for always holding my hand.