Days Twenty-Two and Twenty-Three: Being Honest and Being Available

On day twenty-two, I finished reading Kerry Cohen's Loose Girl: A Memoir on Promiscuity. I was inspired by the author's unflinching honesty and self-awareness throughout the book. She told stories about her sexual history that were heartbreaking and got to the very root of why she, and maybe a lot of other girls, have sex for all the wrong reasons. Why don't women talk about things like that? I don't consider my past particularly promiscuous and yet there was so much material I could relate to and was relieved to find I wasn't alone in. As my gift of the day, I ignored my shame and guilt and shyness and wrote in my personal blog about my sexual past and all the ways that it hadn't served me well. I suggested the book to others, thinking that any of my friends would find something worthwhile in such a powerful, poetic book. Telling my secrets didn't bring the world tumbling down around me. Instead, I got replies from both distant readers and personal friends that they, too, could relate to my experiences, to Kerry Cohen's experiences, in having sex as a way to fill the void or to try and fabricate a love that wasn't there. I'll be passing my copy of the book along to one of them.

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On day twenty-three, I had "hired" my husband to babysit from 6-10pm so that I could do some meditation work. I'd gotten behind on a spiritual class/apprenticeship I'm a part of and needed the privacy to get caught up. By the end of the day, though, I'd worked out a way that we could spend more of the evening together. Instead of heading to my office across town, I closeted myself in our bathroom (the only room in our loft-style apartment with a door) with blankets to protect me from the cold tile floor and did the meditation work I needed to complete while my husband cooked dinner. By deciding to finish my homework over several days instead of all last night, I was able to join them for dinner and time together watching one of our favorite television shows, So You Think You Can Dance. It didn't seem like much of a gift at the time, but I know how happy my husband was with the change of plans and it felt like the sort of compromise that'll ensure my whole family gets the time they need with me.