More than my heart is broken

Photo by Ahmed Ashhaadh on Unsplash

I think my vagine is broken. Okay, that's a strong line to start with, let me back up a little. I've struggled with body imagine, feeling sexy, dating, and sex for my whole life. I was always the biggest kid in the class, both in height and weight, until middle school when I became just the fattest kid in my class. When I look back at pictures of myself, I wasn't as fat as I felt, and even now while I am plus sized I'm not as fat I think I am. But feeling fat mentally for a long time stopped me from living life. It does not do so now. I've lived a lot of life in the last 15 years and I plan on living a lot more. The one part of my life I've been missing that I still haven't figured out is a love life.

Now, to be fair to myself I'm still unlearning a lot of internalized misogyny The Church taught me. It has only been in the last five years that I have seriously tried to date. I wouldn't saying I picked the best time to go out in the world and find a lover but It's hard near impossible to find something if you never look for it at all. I've managed to find out that men my age are trash (this doesn't mean all men or trash or that I hate mean, it's just that usually if a guy isn't in a relationship by now it's because he can't figure it out or doesn't want to), I don't want to raise a boy into a man (I don't have any children on purpose), and I hate online dating. Every time I decide I'm going really give Tinder/Bumble/POF/OKCupid a try I have some kind of interaction that let's me know I don't have the personality to put up with the bullshit that is online dating. There is so much of me that doesn't fit well into a text message or a phone call that I am often miss understood when communicating over text. And I always thought I'd get to have a love story.

I remember as a kid I would dream up ridiculous scenario in which I'd meet a ruggedly handsome man that bugged the crap out of but held my interest. After a reluctant courtship I'd realized I was madly in love and we would get married, have kids, and life happily ever after. Or I'd be shopping in the middle of the night cause I couldn't sleep and we'd bump into each other grabbing the same rare bottle of roasted walnut oil. The one that cost too much but makes an amazing vinaigrette. We'd swap numbers and take turns making each other dinner and laughing too hard at silly jokes until one night we never actually made it to dinner for all the sex we were having and just order pizza. We would meld our lives together knowing we were better together and never really have a formal conversation about how we would just be together for the rest of our loves. Maybe we'd have  a kid or just adopt and live in a loft with one too many rescue dogs.

But I've never had a love story. Once I had a high school boyfriend. We "dated" for three weeks before he told me he wanted to break up. I remember impersonating every golden area Hollywood actress and dramatically hanging up the phone because that's what you're supposed to do when your boyfriend breaks up with you. I also remember not feeling anything once he called back and we agreed it was over. I liked that he was interested in me, but there was nothing about him that made me want to date him other than he wanted to date me. I knew then I didn't love him and this wasn't my love story. After that I didn't really want to date anyone. I wasn't attracted to anyone in my circles or outside of my circles. There was one boy I had a crush on but whenever I tried to talk to him I would be too tongue tied to make conversation. I remember he was slender with dark mahogany skin and an Scurl. He looked like a young Blair Underwood. I don't remember what happened to him but I do remember that after him I didn't really try to talk to an boys. My strongest attractions were to grown men and to this day still are. I thought by now I would have found the person who makes me a better version of myself.

In fact, I'd convinced myself that since he hadn't come into my life by 35, I would just be single the rest of my life and I was fine with that. I didn't need him (I don't actually, I'm a boss ass bitch) and it was his lost for not finding me in time cause now I didn't want him! I lied to myself and said I was okay with this and would be fine on my own. Oh how naive and foolish I've been. This summer, I was visiting a friend and over drinks we had a long meandering conversation. The kind that happen only while intoxicated on a patio, the summer humidity working it's magic to loosen your tongue. Several times over the course of this conversation I mentioned that I'd probably never get married, after having me say this a few times she asked me why I believed that? I told her it was because I truly believed that if I were going to be married in my life then it probably would have happened by now. She asked me how I knew that? Even now, months later I don't have an answer for her. I'd just believed, like I did everything else The Church told me, that if I were to be married with children in my life it would have happened by now. I know this is a lie but it feels very real.

I'm not a dumb person, I know the stats and know that most people get married or have a LTR in their lifetime, but for some reason I was convinced it wasn't for me because it hadn't happened yet. But before my panic attack I thought I'd die young so that tells you what I know. What I do know is that thinking about never having a love story makes me sad. Not the sadness that is my depression, just sad. The kind of sad that makes you cry when no one is around or suddenly hits you while driving home in rush hour on a Tuesday. It makes you cry Dawson's Creek tears no reason other then you're lonely.

I hate that so much of my self imagine and self worth is still tied up in the idea that I should be a wife. I feel guilty for wanting to be loved and have someone love me, cause a strong women wouldn't want a man, right?. To tell the truth I don't even know if I want to be a mother anymore. Raising kids in this dark timeline seems impossibly hard. And here I was thinking I'd locked this part of my heart away, it having sufficiently atrophied away so I wouldn't have to feel this particular pain again.

I was so wrong. 

So wrong that the loneliness had made my vagine not want to be touched and she loves to be touched. She has a whole drawer of toys she likes to play with but now none of them interest her. I know this loneliness will pass and she will want her toys again but right now I think, like my heart, she is broken.