A bit of romance.

Siobhan · 13-08-06 23:24:12

Thank you for your help, dear Burlesque. Ah, so many languages, so little time. . . .

The_Elfman · 01-12-06 18:32:36

Here's another old thread which might be worth re-visiting.

Elfman

Nowaysis · 01-12-06 22:10:03

Indeed. I can't believe I haven't posted any cynicisms about my lack of life experience in this thread, yet.

jwhite · 02-12-06 01:21:52

I'd missed this one and it speaks so powerfully to and for me. I had a first marriage to the first girl I had sex with. I felt so very mature at the time, but i was, in no particular order, an idiot, a jerk, an asshole, and a spoiled child. About the time I married, my parents divorced. I vowed that I would never fail as had they. I inflicted 13 years of misery on my now-former spouse. I had semi-regular bad sex in the dark in one of two positions. I didn't know it was bad sex, and it is my fervent hope that she didn't, either- I'd like to think it was inexperience and lack of ability to communicate. I know on my part it was lack of maturity or ability to commit- I never opened up, never said what I wanted or needed.

On reflection, not completely true. She found any form of oral stimulation dirty, and refused to give or receive. So, it wasn't all my fault. I'll still claim the greatest responsibility for my immaturity.

Thing was, I didn't even know until I met my second wife. At the end of our first date, I told her I thought I had made a good friend. I was attracted to her, but even better was the fact that we talked. And talked. And talked some more. Hours on the phone, over meals, after movies. She began calling me in the mornings while she got ready for work, and my day was not complete if it ended before I said goodnight. We talked about sex long before we had any; I talked about sex with the first wife only during last ditch counselling. She became my best friend. I learned to be emotionally naked. I learned to say what I meant. I learned to fight fair, without attempting to cause my partner pain because I hurt; to state the problem and circle a solution.

And eventually, we did become intimate. It wasn't mind blowing at first, but it was warm and close and comfortable, and we could leave the lights on, and I got my cock sucked, and learned just how much I loved to eat pussy. And we laughed at the faces, the noises, the improbable positions. We shared fantasies.
Ice cubes, carbonated liquids, exceedingly strong mints, discovered G-spots and female ejaculation and it just got better and better. We raised her two children as loving, caring beings. I wish we had had the opportunity to raise my two as well- they were estranged during the time we were married.

And then, one day, she flew to Las Vegas for a trade meeting, and on the night of her arrival, she suffered a cardiac arrest. She was out for 14 minutes; when revived, she wasn't there anymore. I spent 24 days watching her die. It wasn't fair. She was a much better person than I; all the growth in my life I owe to her.

No one can ever put themselves in someone else's place, but I think I know of Siobhan's pain.

Sometimes, when you meet a person, they just click. It's like you've known them forever. It's just easy. It was like that with Donna. I don't subscribe to the just one person for you theory, bur she was perfect for me.

So, how do you go on when you lose your one true love? Four kids to worry about, so head in the oven is not an option. I did reconcile with my son before she died- she'd have counted that reason enough for her death.

I got to check off most of the boxes with her. Any that we missed were trivial. And it got hotter and hotter.

And now.... Well, every now and again, I persuade myself that I'm ready to move on. She would want me to- I know, we talked about it. She even speculated on possibilities for me. Best I could do for her was Aidan Quinn. Got her wet, but no chance, that. I have been intimate with one of my dates. I thought there was potential. Donna is a hard act to follow. I was just fooling myself. I have had the relationship I dreamed of, and can now settle for nothing less. I cannot imagine casual sex. Without the emotional nudity, physical nudity means nothing. I'm much better off with our friends on the site. I can watch them, and remember the joy we found in that mystical physical and mental oneness. And the ugly come faces....

It has been two years. I weep as I write. I hope that all of you may experience what I had. I despair of finding it again.

Last edited by jwhite (02-12-06 01:25:22)

blissed · 02-12-06 02:01:07

Hey your obviously still badly effected by her death, so I apologise if I say anything that upsets you, but I don't think that if you met and fell in love with a new person that they would take Donna's place. I expect you love all your children equally even at times when they don't love you back. So I think you can love someone new and the memory of Donna too. I should imagine that since she died that hasn't stopped you making new platonic friends, so I think if you just make friends, one of them may click and you'll find yourself drawn together. When it comes to more purposeful dating, only you can decide when your ready to do anything like that. but until then I can only sympathise with you and hope you can eventually do that because it sounds like somebody deserves you.

.

Last edited by blissed (02-12-06 02:03:41)

jwhite · 02-12-06 02:11:19

I think that I have the capacity to love again. I would hate for that person to spend their life trying to measure up to Saint Donna.

That said, I really appreciate your contributions. The bunny does rock, truly.

Journeyfan · 02-12-06 02:38:03

jwhite,

Your post must be one of the most heartfelt and heart-rending I have ever read on this forum.

I really cannot find the right words to express how deeply it moved me. I just wanted to let you know how much I appreciated your openness and honesty.

I sincerely hope you find love and happiness again in the near future. Donna must have been a very special human being.

Be well.

JF

blissed · 02-12-06 04:43:54

Thanks jwhite, I think you just need more time to get over this really.

.

Calenture · 03-12-06 07:23:36

So here's an opinion: I have been deeply moved by this thread, and profoundly impressed by the articulate way in which Siobhan and jwhite in particular have managed to describe their experiences.

I have not participated before in a forum under a pseudonymous 'username'. It is a curious and interesting experience. I am not at all tempted by the possibilities for abusing my anonymity; nor do I feel the need to invent a fictional persona that bears no relation to my own. What I am finding tempting is the possibility of revealing aspects of my private self in a 'safe' environment: things that I have to repress brutally in my public existence. (Don't worry: nothing illegal.) I suppose my point here is that the candour of Siobhan and jwhite is all the more remarkable in that they don't seem to be making much of an effort to protect their anonymity. (Not that I'd want to go prying anyway.)

Last edited by Calenture (05-01-07 09:19:26)

jwhite · 03-12-06 22:05:21

I have not been as honest with anyone in real life as I have been here. Sometimes the feelings are too intense to verbalise. Sometimes I choose not to inflict my pain on others. Sometimes it's just easier to shout into the void. Sometimes it's easier to organise thoughts when one can step away for a few minutes and come back to it.

I wrote the following bit to my family last year. The feelings ebb and flow; some days are better than others. With time, the good memories stand out a little more. And one must go on somehow.

I have always loved music of all sorts. It has been my constant companion for as long as I can recall, and often has provided comfort or inspiration. Well, in one of those synchronicities, several things I have listened to recently have spoken (shouted?) to me. I remember sitting up one sleepless night whilst waiting to pull the trigger on my divorce, when a video on MTV by Paul Carrack had a chorus that said the sun was still going to come up in the morning no matter how bad I felt, and that I'd better figure out how to deal with it. Not exactly Norman Vincent Peale, but the right push for me at that particular time.

"Once in a while, you get shown the light
in the strangest place if you look at it right."
-Robert Hunter, "Scarlet Begonias"

So, probably the thing I feel worst about is all the things that Donna and I never got to do, all the vacations we didn't take, all the experiences we never had. And I feel guilty that I was so focused on our material needs that I couldn't take a break, let it slide, and just enjoy life. Some of my fondest memories are of camping trips, trips to DC, the week we spent in Hot Springs with the Christian family- just time together with no particular point, just hanging out.

So, (and you probably don't really need to know how my mind works, but here goes) I was listening to Randy Newman's first album this weekend. Now, to the casual listener, Newman is either that guy that never gets an Oscar, or the twisted SOB who wrote "Short People", or the cynic who makes fun of the lame and halt, but he writes about pain real good. He does it better than Joni Mitchell, because she's so deep in her navel that she can't see out to the universal.

So this album is a really great choice- opens with "Love Story", a happy relationship song, immediately followed by "Bet No One Ever Hurt This Bad", a bad breakup song.

....And then, "Living Without You" ...
The milk truck hauls the sun up
And the paper hits the door
The subway shakes my floor
And I think about you
Time to face the dawning gray
Of another lonely day
It's so hard
Living without you

Everyone's got something
And they're out trying to get some more
They've got something to get up for
Well, I ain't about to
Nothing's going to happen
Nothing's going to change
It's so hard
Living without you

... and there's more,it's a great record, and if you don't know it, you really should, I could burn it ...

And at that point, I crawled off to slit my wrists. No, obviously not, because here I am writing this to you. I had one of those epiphanies. I'm not the first, not the only, not the last. These feelings are universal; they measure the depth of our love and connection. We've all suffered great loss. And yet, we keep getting up and going through the next day because that is who and what we are.

And we all still have each other and there is so much love between us and how could that not give us the strength, not require us to keep going for each other? So, I am grateful for all of you, and I want you to know how much I love you and how much you mean to me, and how your influence has shaped me into someone with the strength to make it, and now I want to thank you for that, and to give some of that back to any of you that need it.

I was listening to NPR on my way into the City this morning, and they were talking with a survivor of the tsunami in Aceh. When they had interviewed him earlier this year, he was going to move far away, because he didn't see how he could stay with his home destroyed, his wife and children dead. When interviewed today, he was rebuilding his home, remarried and contemplating starting a new family. He said he would never forget, but he had found small joys and, while not yet happy, could conceive of being happy again. How eloquent. Once in a while, you get shown the light....

So, the final bits of synchronicity- got the call about Mary's mom, and, after Rob cooked dinner for me tonight, put on Jackson Browne's new solo acoustic record. My favorite song of his, "These Days", a song he wrote when he was, oh, 18, and yet so deep and profound, ends, "Don't confront me with my failures, for I have not forgotten them".

And so, to acknowledge and move forward, and to let you all know how I feel about you, I put a pen in my heart and spilled it all over this page (and some of you will recognize that line).

Merry Christmas. We are blessed to love and be loved.

And, to some extent, while we don't know one another, we are a community. We do care about one another, in ways that suprise me for a site featuring sated women. When I read this thread After Elfman resurrected it, I had to get this out. I'm glad that it touches some of you. I'm glad to have an opportunity to get this stuff out.

Thanks to all who have read this. I know my posts do go on.

blissed · 04-12-06 02:18:43

It doesn't matter if your posts go on.
I've found writing about things in a forum is really cathartic, either just to get it out like you've done and in some ways offload the burden of your feelings which helps you move on or just to crystallise my own thoughts.
Had a listen to the Jackson Browne solo acoustic album on itunes and these days is definitely the stand out track.

"Oh and I had a lover ,
it's so hard to risk another, these days"

I think acoustic guitar is great for relaxing my mind, Cannonball by Damien Rice, the acoustic version without the drums was great for me last year, well it still is. and "boats and birds" by Gregory and the hawk http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fu … 938997&a=1 Theres so many people who go through the pain of missing someone that theres just so many songs to choose from isn't there

.

Last edited by blissed (04-12-06 02:19:29)

jwhite · 04-12-06 02:40:12

Synchronicity, anyone? I was driving today, have Sirius in the car, and have had the bluegrass station on. I envy the simple faith evinced in many songs- I wrestle with mine all the time. I am, I suppose, like Rene' DesCarte; I want to believe more than my rationality easily permits. Anyway, it may simply be that we notice things which speak to our situations rather than synchronicity, but the short trip in the car was accompanied by Ricky Skaggs' Wall of Time and Newfound Road's Somewhere Between. Some may decry the sentimentality in country (real country, not the high fashion cowboy boot kind) music, but I think it helps people living hard lives to deal. Anyway, they were dead on for me.

blissed · 04-12-06 02:48:21

Sorry, I've had this pic knocking about for a while and it just makes me laugh
Tanktops rule!!!!

.

Last edited by blissed (04-12-06 02:49:17)

jwhite · 04-12-06 03:06:10

That must be one really hard, fashion challenged life! The plaid pants are the only appropriate match for tanks and turtles- or t&t to the cognoscenti

blissed · 04-12-06 03:27:49

Yeah this sort of fashion is bit of an underground thing at the mo and most people just don't get it, so It's really hard for me to find the clothes,

but my moustache is coming on fine.

.

bolero · 04-12-06 05:22:48

blissed wrote:

....but I think having a place to relate your own emotional experiences to people who really want to hear you, is great and quite rare. I think the forum promotes a range of emotional responses and over the past 5 months has become a genuinely caring community..

My own experience has not really been one of everyone wanting to hear me. I accept that because, with the distinguished exception of posters who have subscribed so vividly to this thread, I don't necessarily want to hear them. So thank you to all those who have expressed themselves in such expansively intimate ways on this thread - you have made my day. Sorry I don't know how to join in.

Bolero

The_Elfman · 04-12-06 10:42:12

At this point I would like to thank Siobhan for suggesting to me last Friday that I should bump this thread. Good call Chere.

Elfman.

Siobhan · 10-12-06 00:05:59

my pleasure and, i'm sure, the other readers as well. i hoped it would spark the kind of open-hearted honest relfection we see here -- thx so much to everyone, and most especially to jwhite who has enriched my own experience of life (and death) by sharing his.

Meanwhile, has anyone seen (virtual) hide or hair of the person who starte this thread?! Burlesque, where be you??!

jwhite · 10-12-06 02:38:37

Siobhan, respect and props to you. It was your writing which allowed me to open up.

Desertgirl44 · 15-12-06 13:29:25

Wow. I'm not sure I have the words or eloquence to write what I am feeling after reading this thread. The honesty, the emotions, the stories themselves have given me much to reflect upon about my own life and background.

Every one of us has a story to tell, our journeys through life are but one story after another. To write one's story down in a journal, to commit to paper one's feelings can be cathartic. And often a first step along the road to healing or understanding.

To do the same thing on an online forum is a serious step. Knowing you're putting your story "out there" and knowing there may very well be feedback can be quite daunting I think. As can actually telling our stories to our friends and loved ones (or even our therapists for that matter).

Friends tell me my own story is "different" and a galaxy away from their own life experiences. I accept part of my background has involved quite a bit of non-conformity. But, when I reflect upon my life's journey thus far, I come to the conclusion that I've been very lucky. A tumultuous break up of a relationship or two sure, but nothing horrendously challenging. Not really. Not when I read the stories in this thread or look around at some of my friends' stories, or read about in magazines.

My spiritual beliefs tell me that we should learn something positive from each of life's challenges. That there is meaning behind the horrible things that happen to all of us from time to time. (It's just a pain that sometimes it can take bloody ages to work out the meaning!)

Even though I'm in a lovely (and loving) relationship now, I still fight the challenges it throws at me because of its own non-conformity. I feel I've spent my adult life wondering from one non-conformist relationship to another ... and another ...

My previous relationship was a long-term, open marriage. And there are times where I feel that relationship was more honest and open (than my current monogamous relationship) because of its openness.

And then I get confused because that open marriage crumbled and funnily enough we've both moved into ultra conservative relationships (and monogamy is a BIG thing).

But I do know I've learned a lot about sex, total and brutal honesty, and self-confidence from that open marriage.

This relationship has the intimacy of close friendship and companionship, something missing from the marriage. But it doesn't give me all that I need. Some of that is to do with him and his story (and I wish I knew what his story was!). Some of it to do with my own fears.

It's really hard to sometimes to commit to paper one's true thoughts ...

I'll stop now because there's this mouse running around the floor near my feet and I'm doing my best not to squeal.

Thank you to all who have told their stories, thank you for prompting me to reflect.

Cheers,
Desertgirl

Calenture · 15-12-06 14:00:05

Thank you for sharing with us Desertgirl. We appreciate it.

polarchill · 15-12-06 14:08:11

Desertgirl44 wrote:

Thank you to all who have told their stories, thank you for prompting me to reflect.
Cheers,
Desertgirl

We're always around and willing to talk over things.

Adagio · 15-12-06 16:44:41

Thank you Desertgirl for sharing.

As I read the slices of people's life that they have so graciously and trustingly (is that a word?) shared with us, I'm reminded of how diverse a bunch we have here. There is so much to glean from others' experiences if we allow ourselves to do so. I, for one, hope that I will allow myself to do so. Thank you to those of you who have given us a peek (or wide open view) into the window of your life.

Desertgirl44 · 16-12-06 00:54:45

Adagio wrote:

Thank you Desertgirl for sharing.
As I read the slices of people's life that they have so graciously and trustingly (is that a word?) shared with us, I'm reminded of how diverse a bunch we have here. There is so much to glean from others' experiences if we allow ourselves to do so.

Thank you Adagio and everyone else.

We are a diverse bunch here aren't we? I find that aspect of IFM fascinating. I guess it proves the point that just because we choose to look at porn, that doesn't make us sickos. We're just normal people with a range of backgrounds who simply accept and enjoy what IFM has to offer (be it the visual images or the forums ... or both).

And yes, I believe we are all "normal". Although according to the psychiatric bible the DSM-IV I am abnormal and in need of treatment, as are 99.9% of the population. (I loathed this aspect of my nursing training because it says being gay is "abnormal".)

Personally I prefer the term "eccentric" or possibly "bohemian" and I thank my father's family for choosing to label themselves that way and bringing me up to believe that it's quite okay to be eccentric, in fact it's preferred!

polarchill · 16-12-06 01:10:00

Desertgirl44 wrote:

Personally I prefer the term "eccentric" or possibly "bohemian" and I thank my father's family for choosing to label themselves that way and bringing me up to believe that it's quite okay to be eccentric, in fact it's preferred!

As my psychologist says, there is no normal. Last night, in fact, the subject came up again. He asked why I repeatedly express a desire to fit in. I explained that I don't particularly want to be like other people; I more desire the ability to mimic conventional behavior when neccesary. I feel that my quiet, introspective nature often comes across, to people who don't know me, as coldness. And not many people in the real world actually get to know me, because I'm, well, quiet and introspective.

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