So, I was reflecting on the past 10 years.
I'm kind of amazed at how my life has changed in the past 10 years. I spent New Year's Eve 1999 with the Freak-Ass Church, at a big drunken party whose highlight was when, at midnight, the power cut out. And we all freaked out: the Y2K warnings were real!!! Then the power came back on and we realized that L. wasn't in the room; he had gone outside to flip the breakers and fuck with us.
On New Year's Day 2000, L. and I went to dinner with friends of his who we were trying to evangelize. (No, really. And I am SO not proud of pushing God on people, of making friends with people with the ulterior motive of trying to bring them into the Freak-Ass Church. That's not how it should be.)
L. was the guy who I on-again-off-again dated, and I was crazy about him. Though never totally comfortable with him, but I assumed I was just the kind of person who would never be totally comfortable with someone. Our breakups were ugly, but we always ended up friends again, because we were so enmeshed.
I was in the Freak-Ass Church until Mother's Day 2002 (there was no specific thing about Mother's Day that pushed me out; I just remember it being the last Sunday service I attended). They had just sucked the life out of me, and I couldn't take it any more. No church -- no group of any kind -- should leave a person feeling miserable and drained and less-than. So, although it was one of the hardest things I ever did, I left. And everyone who I had believed were my friends just...stopped talking to me. I believe the phrase they used was "If you choose to leave, you choose to give up the benefits of our friendship." (What would Jesus do? Apparently act like a Junior-High cliquey bitch, is what.)
And then I spent a fair amount of time (years, I mean) alone, very much on purpose. Most of the rest of 2002, 2003, and 2004 I kept to myself. I was really burned out on goddamn people, I was deeply hurt that my friends from the Freak-Ass Church, who I had spent so much time with, just cut me out of their lives. So I didn't want much to do with *anybody* for quite a while.
It was also some time in 1999 or 2000 that I found the Buffistas, still on Table Talk at the time. July 2001 was the first time I met any Buffistas in person, on a trip to California. TEN YEARS I've been a part of this online community, you guys. TEN YEARS. That's amazing. And for my self-imposed period of Fuck All Y'all Bastards (2002-2004, inclusive), I got a lot of friendship and support from the Buffistas. Without you guys, I would have been totally isolated.
I had back surgery in 2003, and took up fencing in 2004, 9 months after surgery.
And in February 2005, a little less than 3 years after leaving the Freak-Ass Church, I got up my courage and went to a meeting of the local BDSM group. By myself. The rest, as they say, is history. I met some good friends -- I'm still meeting good friends -- and I met Tim, had a crush on him, and realized that it would Never Happen because he was in a not-relationship with A. And then I became real, good friends with him when it all went horribly wrong with A.
And then...I kissed him. That was February 2006.
December 2007 I moved in with him, and we're living funnily ever after.
2008 and 2009 have had their ups and downs -- a parade of illnesses and maladies that kept befalling me, great vacations, job woes, silly domestic bliss -- but they passed by under the all-encompassing banner of Oh My God, I Had No Idea I Could Love Someone This Much And Be So Totally Comfortable With Them. (And the smaller banner of Seriously, TWO Closets? This House Has Only TWO Closets?)
I think about the way I felt about L., back in 1999, how crazy I was about him, yet how I still felt uncomfortable with him to a degree (as I have with every man I've been with -- except for Tim), and how I feel about Tim is so different. He's the only person in my life -- family included -- who makes my soul feel calm and at peace. I didn't realize how jangly and restless my psyche was until I met him and (continued...)