52 Weeks of Acknowledging Me

Sexuality & Me

When I decided to write MM romance I had to have a good look at myself, a look that was more about a wonder of what it’s like to think about your own sexuality and I mean really think about it.

I was a late bloomer, and even when sex became a part of my knowledge I was more fascinated with it then having it – still am. And its these facts that hasn’t made my life hard, it’s actually simplified it, especially growing up. Sorta. Not really.

I’m only just turning 30. I was 14-16 when lesbian’s became mainstream but as it was there were two types of sexualities heterosexual or homosexual, you were either or, and anything else landed you into one of those two parts.

I was 23 when I became happy with myself, body and soul. I would have changed things if I could but I didn’t seem to know why I needed to, where the “could” would come in. I’d had 2 kids by then and it just started really getting into the mind set of writing romance, mm romance.

Now to me I had learnt everything I could about the body, about the physical aspect that all there was left was to go into the mental. What I was getting at when I first started. As a mother of two in love with some dude I never really thought about my sexuality. I didn’t need to, because well, why would I, as far as I’m concerned I’m set until something happens and he’s no longer my partner. As far as I was concerned I was straight, though I never truly thought those words in association to myself.

Anyway, so I thought and I’d come to the conclusion that I’m bisexual. I love the look, feel of woman, however what did I really know, I’ve never been physical with a woman but man girl on girl action turns me on faster than heterosexual porn (male male too, honestly het porn bore me to tears).

However, the years past and I learnt more and I watched a documentary (the only type I watch other than animals) about sex therapy. They did test to figure out why woman had orgasms, what the reason behind it is, anyway, I digress if I let myself. This one therapist hooked up males and females and put them in front of photos to see what got them excited and how they looked at things. This was much more to do with sexuality than anything else. Her findings where that unlike ‘straight’ men who will look at other males to size them up, they are very solid on finding one type of things turns them on. Whereas woman are much more fluid in what turns them on, being mostly anything sexual.

It took a long time, thinking and reading new things to allow me to realise that I’m actually not bisexual, I’m not 100% sure on this, and I often wonder who I’d have ended up with if my partner hadn’t knocked me up and my life went in a completely different direction, but I don’t believe I’m simply bi. I don’t believe my head works that way.

I can’t be sure, because I do love the guy I’m with and I tend to not see attraction of other people, which causes a problem when you are trying to figure out your sexuality.

On long thought I’m not even sure I’m truly female though I asked my mother what I was like as a child and I was VERY girly. It’s not until later in life, and not even the last 5 years or so, but much earlier where I tended to become more fluid, probably more when puberty hit. I became resentful of being female, all the while hating that I wasn’t ‘female’ enough.

And sorry if that made no sense.

Anyway, there were questions; there were parts of me I wanted different, in different times. embarrassing to admit, but I have a memory of when I was about…10 or 11 I think, as I was still in a room with my sister, where I fell asleep with a teddy up my shirt for a baby, a sock down my pants as a penis. I experimented with quite a lot of different sexualities up until I was about 15-16 when I settled into my femaleness.

I believe  my sex is fluid and I’m never really sure when it switches, I’m not sure it’s ever mattered to me enough, as I’m not going to stop myself from being the way I am. I’m old enough to realise I can’t and well, why would I want to. It’s not hurting anyone and my partner has been with me for long enough that if he had a problem with who I am we wouldn’t still be together.

Sexuality wise I believe I’m more a pansexual because again I don’t believe it’s mattered to me who a person is when I fall in love. It’s just a matter of falling in love. Honestly, I know for a fact that I could happily love an asexual for the rest of my life and never have a problem with it. I don’t believe sex is actually an essential part of being in a relationship.

But on the other hand I will always probably defer to being bisexual, because that’s the time period I came from, though it didn’t exist anymore today than it did back then it was something floating around the edges, something people would use when experimenting I support, but it was there, alive and well. And because no one ever really thought it was real, though I had the idea in my head it wasn’t something I every truly thought I could possibly be until I became older and met more people.

I remembering when I was starting to masturbate that I had moments of thinking of women, not anyone I knew, not anything that specific just parts and feeling and I was harshly pushing them aside and make myself think of penis’. This didn’t happen as often as you would think, I’m not lesbian, I know this fact because in those years I would have been happy to become one, that way I would have had solid footing (and at our school there was actually a great support system for lesbians – I was friends with them too, I envied them.). Instead I was in this part of not quite knowing what was up and what was down.

It’s actually a confusing period of time when you having realised you’re allowed to be bisexual. And I’m talking about the private thoughts inside your head. Those moments when the outside world still breaks into, still tells you that you need to be this or that, however your mind is going but wait, “this week I’m lesbian” only to turn around and go “huh, oh nah you misunderstood, this week we are straight”.  It’s makes trying to understand yourself a wee bit difficult. Especially, like I say above, I never really had an ability to put the bisexual thought on it.

As I got older bisexual became much more commonplace. Or at least something that wasn’t so sneered upon. I honestly never had a huge problem, but then I never payed enough attention to what others thought; honestly it’s something I learnt coming out of high school and realising things weren’t the same way as I thought they were at the time. So I got away with it much easier, plus sex wasn’t something I tended to really lean towards while I wanted to know as much about it as I could.

So on the point I started this out. Since I was in my late teens, I’ve always thought of myself as bisexual. When I wanted to learn what sexuality I was I went back and forth, concluded that I was straight and then spent the next few months, maybe 6 unsettled in my own skin. Honestly I’d never felt like that before. Never. I may not have thought hard about what sexuality I was before. Not really, not deeply, but I was also okay with that. However when I went back to being bisexual that sigh in my head had my whole body settled, and with that true thought I became whole and settled as a person.

Note: this is a post that was going to be posted when I was still doing my weekly ME thing. I decided to post it this week because of the debates going on in the community. I haven’t read the debate; don’t even know what it’s truly about, or what started it. however I’m being brave

52 Weeks of Acknowledging Me

This is another one of those stories that I’ve spoken about before. So feel free to skip this weeks if you’ve heard about this.

Twilight, Why I’ll Always Love It

Is started reading, like really reading, late in my life, and I say that as I’m quite young, and I didn’t start until my daughter was about to be born. I believe it was late 2007 or 2008. I was around 22. I started with Harry Potter and read a few things before hitting Twilight.

I want to say that the idea of writing came in once I started writing, the thought, the characters, the plot went in and out of my head, however I never thought it was something I’d be able to do, that I could do it.

Then I started Twilight. And …. Bang. It wasn’t great writing, it was a little “I want to be seen as smart” but the fact that I had to pick up a fucking dictionary to understand a huge chunks of what was being said, it made me think that.

I remember the moment I thought to myself “I could do this” I believe I hadn’t even gotten to chapter 2 yet, and the books gave me the push.

It was also a huge flavour of my first series. One that was never published. I re-read it a few months back and shook my head at myself because you can’t read it and not see twilight. Which is okay and also show that if I want to use the idea, the plot I’d have to start from scratch. But here’s the thing most people won’t tell you. You start your writing career by writing other people’s books. But copying your favourite authors and then you start to shift, start to stand on your own feet and become you. You get your own style or writing and you forget that you use to write like these other authors.

My first series is awesome and might get re-written on of these days, but honestly it’s not the point. That series isn’t the point. The point is that reading Twilight, in all it’s over drama and I was able to pick up and pen and paper (which is what I had to use back then) and started writing my first story. This story was torn apart and written in two different ways and I love both of them, I think they are great ideas, only until recently I’ve never quite gone back to full YA. I’m looking forward to it.

I’m proud of how far I came from starting out, that day I read Twilight, which I swear was my 3rd of 4th series I started reading. And started writing it out. Started becoming what I am today.

Not a long one this week but full of meaning in my life. I am grateful I read it in a time I was already contemplating writing and that it pushed me into it. Allowed me to see that I could do it, which is great because I can.  

52 weeks of Acknowledging Me

Last weekend I was sick. A head cold, horrible thing that’s has lasted since the 20th of January. It’s one of those out of your hands things that make it doesn’t allow you to see the better side because you’re wallowing in your sickness.

Okay, so maybe while I was writing this I was still in the side effects of being sick.

It’s been weird actually, my sickness’ ever since I got out of the hospital with the side effects of Swine Flu I tend to have a week of being sleepy and then the weekend hits and I get the full on fever, aches, sickness. This last 3 days and then I’m better.

I find that its weird.

Guess I should talk about that, it’s a long drawn out explanation, I guess, though from the moment it started to when I got completely off the meds was only about 6 months.

The long story, below:

In 2009 (believe, July too) I got swine flu. It was nasty and ended up with me losing 10 kilos in a week, and looking like a druggo without the track marks. I was grey and smelt like sickness. I lost my kids once as I fell asleep or passed out and they ended up learning how to open the front door. That was a scary moment as I ran around the house call their name, only to collapse on the front lawn, nearly passing out.

Lucky for me and my children a lady down the road saw them and knew where they came from and brought them back as I’d have probably been hospitalised just from the panic (my son was 3.5 and my daughter not quite 2).

I ended up at the doctors when my parents came home (they’d been on holidays) and took one look at me and I ended up at the doctors who shipped me to the hospital who had me on fluid’s man I felt a hell of a lot better.

I got a specialist and my kidneys collapsed and was transferred to bigger hospital who treated me like I had fluid in my lungs, when in fact I didn’t. I guess I should say my at the first hospital they knew I had a lung full of fluid and a splash in the other.

However it wasn’t IN my lung but outside which took them nearly a week to learn which by that time the lung surgeon was on holiday so I was transferred to another hospital to get my lung cavity scrapped.  

That done and a few days later I was home with some nice tube hanging out my chest.

A week after that I was back at the doctors in agony and after he had a listen I was shipped back up to the first hospital who X-rayed my chest and started feeding me morphine.

I think I need to add that from the first time I went into hospital my heartbeat didn’t drop below 110 and every time it spiked to 120 I had an ECG, but everything was fine. I was also already on 2 of the biggest drugs they can give you without it being morphine plus normal painkillers. And I was take this lovely handful every 3 hours and still ended up in agony before the hour mark came.

The X-ray was put up to my left and it shows nearly 2 perfectly white lung shapes … so I had a lady sand at the end of my bed as I was shipped back down to the bigger hospital where I spend another week or so having my lungs drained again.

The first time I went to the pain clinic and they told me they wouldn’t even think about weeding me off the drugs I was on for 5 years. The time after (2 weeks later) I was in a bra again, and having my last visit. April the following year I had stopped taking the highest over the counter drug. I still get pain when I think about it, like now, and when it gets to cold, or the temp drops too suddenly, but just adding another layer helps.

And honestly it’s just adding to the pain I get from when I hurt myself at work (when I use to actually work). Which happens to be very common among teenage boys, and check out personnel, which is what I was. but the humour helped me when I was 18 and not able to lift my arm over my head, or to elbow height).

And that’s was a quick flash over the only time I was in a hospital other than to have my children.

52 weeks of Acknowledging Me

Not a long post this time because I just don’t have the mental power to actually think of something interesting to write about myself.

I’m lost and not in a bad way.

Many if not all author can probably relate to this. My head is so full of the story it’s hard to step away from it to do…anything. Eat, clean, shower, sleep. Every time I’m away from the story I’m thinking of the story. Everything I do is a nuisance because I want to get back to the story. I’m just consumed.

This is a bit of the obsessionness I talk about myself having, and loving. I love getting completely obsessed with a story, it makes it easy to write and easy to get it out quickly because every moment all you want to do is write, which means you do. it’s much harder to find distracted, though they are around.

The best or better part of what I re-writing, as that’s what I’m doing. It’s allowing, yet again, to see just how far I’ve come in my writing and that makes everything a little more easier to deal with.

I’m in a pretty good place right now, hoping it will stay.

On another note, rather than just doing a daily walk for myself I’ve decided to do it with my children. So this week starts our family walks. It’s been fun.