Intimate

So I am married AND I have two kids.  There was a time about a year and a half ago when we went away to somewhere that I was separated from them, I could see them but it wasn’t…..it wasn’t home AND I didn’t have words for it at all at the time but I knew that I was killing myself AND I couldn’t go back to my life the way it was…..that was pretty intensely connected to someone I had met, someone I was interested in having an affair with.  I tried for a month, or I did for a month, not have an affair and I tried to see through what was going on and to see things as they were, for what they were AND that is also a falsehood, I went towards the affair the whole time, slowly though AND with great reservation AND confusion AND passion.  I wanted it very much, it felt very good AND I love that man AND I never regretted it in a lot of ways, I have a lot of feelings about it but I wasn’t ever able to feel bad about it in a way that I should have, could have, might have AND that was a problem in a lot of ways…. I mean it is wonderful to have somebody AND feel their breath against your neck AND it was very innocent in a lot of ways….we would stand AND our mouths would touch but we weren’t kissing if we weren’t moving AND I know that is bullshit but it was really romantic, it was very sweet and very, very endearing…..AND very exciting AND I had told my husband over the years that I wanted things to be more intimate, I had felt this distance AND I felt like he was putting our son ahead of me AND I didn’t like that AND I wanted to feel special to him AND I knew he loved me but I just had things I wanted to be different AND I was never able to get through to him or to get those things it wasn’t that that feeling was there all the time, I thought I was perfectly happy, I really did think I was happy, very happily married, and I was, I suppose, for all I knew AND I know now that when I went to him during that month AND tried to talk to him to see if I couldn’t convince myself, to see if I couldn’t get to him then, which I didn’t AND I probably was very protective of the affair that I wanted to have so perhaps I didn’t try very profoundly, or I didn’t obviously try profoundly enough because it didn’t happen and I did have the affair AND but what I know now that I should have said to my husband or what I should have said to hm, what was appropriate to say was that the intimacy I was asking for that I do need it and want it AND that I was terrified of it at the same time, that I was terrified to face him intimately in some deeper way or to take some other step AND I wish I could have in a lot of ways because that doesn’t go away AND none of it took that feeling away, but, what I mean to say by that is since then my therapist has talked to me about the fact that adults can’t meet your childhood needs AND I very clearly see that that feeling…that feeling of something being missing is very much about knowing that my father loved me very much AND I have such sweet moments, memories of him laying on the ground in a t-shirt, on the carpet in his boxers and t-shirt AND playing with us AND I knew he loved me but for the most part I could never have that in any kind of sustained way.  He was very intense and I was scared of him and I didn’t feel connected to him most of the time and I wanted to so badly, of course as any child does AND as a child you don’t have words for it, you don’t know what happening but you feel like you are not loveable, you feel like you are not loved and you think it something about you AND I can say that the work I have done with my therapist I have sometimes felt that, that childhood, working on that childhood part…I felt, I remember once sitting there and it was as if there was this thing inside that was so powerful that it could rise up and wash me away, that it was that strong AND that was that feeling not specifically but it was that powerful childhood…….fears and things AND that’s what I think I needed to face, you know…obviously…so my marriage all feel apart, I didn’t go back to my life the way it was, which was good….I guess that’s why I don’t have any regrets about any of it because I wouldn’t go back a day as hard as it is AND I am not crying because I want you to feel sorry for me I just crying because it hurts to be alive sometimes AND to feel all that stuff.  I guess I thought it was going to be a lot easier and it wouldn’t be painful AND wouldn’t have hurt somebody that I loved….so much…AND lose them.  That doesn’t feel good.  It hurts to hurt someone as much as I think it hurts to be hurt.  I have been the victim of affairs before, when I was dating people AND I know it is more significant because we were married but it sucks to feel judged, it sucks to feel like your friends can’t even….God I want them to come to me and talk to me about my marriage AND a lot of them did of course…but it just…. it’s hard to, it was hard to have the affair when people had seen my beautiful children and my husband and to know what I was probably doing, which eventually I was AND I loved it so there you are but the good thing about it all is that um, I know now that the best way I can explain it is when you see something in nature and it is perfect, it is beautiful…it’s a perfect moment, it’s….nature can be so easy to see it in….I know that I am not separate from that perfection…that  am not separate from that perfection AND that none of us are AND that I am not separate from a state of wholeness AND that if I think I am it is this idea that I have that’s not accurate AND I started AND I wanted to do this project because I felt lonely and disconnected in some ways AND I wanted so badly to just wrap myself around somebody else.  My lover is far away right now, I have not seen him in six months AND you just want to not feel at all sometimes AND yet you want that connection so bad, you know it’s like running away and towards yourself at the same time but I will say that….that I know that we are all one and that there is that connection and that I am not separate from that in so many ways AND that I am strong AND that I am whole AND that I am not bad AND that I do love myself for all of the….how aggressive and hard and mean I can be, not just that that is worth loving still but that we are all imperfect and some of our betrayals are greater than others betrayals but that makes me no less perfect AND human AND whole.

By Denise Prince
Submitted 5.15.09