Do As I Say....

Sometime in my early teenage years I discovered the joy of my shower head. Don't tell me you don't know what I'm talking about because you SOO do and I am totally not going to say any more than that....

N-E-Way.... in 1995 & 1996 I was dating L. L wanted to be a minister and he somehow convinced me that I wanted to be with him forever. We were talking about marriage before we had even been dating a year. So to be married to a minister I had to be a good ministers wife. No thinking dirty thoughts, no pre-marital sex, and no joy in the shower. (As a quick aside I did not KNOW that this was actually ma$terbati0n until almost a year later... I just thought it was something bad that I was not to do because God would look badly at me)

So, on January 1st of 1996 I put my New Year's Resolutions down on paper. Be closer to God, Closer to L, Closer to loved ones and never do what is it that I never want to do again. See, I couldn't even name it... I just knew it was bad.

As I look back on this, I see my self hatred and lothing starting even then. He could tell dirty jokes but then make me promise not to tell anyone and that was ok. I could not or I was sinning. I could not get any "pleasure" from our interactions but he had to excuse himself almost every time we were together because me sitting in his lap had given him a bit more than he could handle and he had to clean himself up.

Looking back, we fought all the time and three months into our relationship he broke down and said he couldn't handle his life. His parents marriage was falling apart, the relationship that made him believe in marriage and love and Christian life, and he couldn't handle anything. He cried a lot and we fought a lot and somehow anything that I felt got lost in the noise. His problems became center and front in my life. His and my friend M's. Mine were put to the back of my mind.

The relationship was very one sided in that respect and even now I wonder if a lot of my self talk and my you are not doing it right comes from those very basic interactions. Always giving someone else what they want but never getting anything I wanted in return. Sometimes the very things we think are insignificant at the time can have the greatest impact on the person we grow up to be.