Figuring It Out (Patreon)

My aunt is pretty fucking cool. 

I’m not going to bore you with the full width and breadth of my family dynamics, but suffice it to say, it’s a mixed bag. Not too unlike a lot of families, I suppose. Thanksgiving dinners with their moments of tension; that one uncle who’s always trying to get his shit together; a cast of eccentric cousins with kids of their own who are just starting to get into trouble. 

I moved after college, so aside from keeping in touch with the core group, a lot of my extended family dropped off to the wayside. Nobody’s fault, but in our hyper-transient mobile age, I came to discover that I wasn’t the only one who seldom spoke with their aunts, uncles, cousins, et al. 

Except for Aunt Linda. That gal is the bee’s knees. Sorry mom, but I happen to like Aunt Linda more than you. I think I was watching some terrible-great Lifetime movie at some point, and the big twist at the end was that the daughter wasn’t actually the mother’s daughter at all — she was the mother’s sister’s daughter! (Bum bum BUM!) Also, I think there was a murder involved, and all the other usual LIfetime chicanery. 

I thought, Huh. That’d be neat. Not the murder part. The if Linda was my real mom part: a remnant of my rebellion that extended way beyond the requisite teenage years.

Anyway, time goes by, and still, I’m spending the majority of my time living at her place in Spain. She just popped through for a while (it is her house, after all), and it was a blast. Part of me (a big part, I’ve discovered) gets lonely here, all by myself, and it’s nice to have the company. Especially because she’s a brash, bawdy type of old gal who can do or say anything, and the more heavy-handed it is, the more hilarious it is. She’s one of those rare people who, if she’s every saccharine sweet to you, watch out — she fucking hates you. If she’s a bitch, it means that she’s actually quite fond of you. Snarky, like those old actresses who do standup comedy well into their 80s. 

Anyway, she’s back on the road again. I miss her, but I’m a loner homebody, so it’s nice to have the personal space again — at least for the next little while. 

While she was here, she asked me a funny question. She’s certainly not the kind who’s just going to overlook the fact that I grew some big boobs all of a sudden, and more than anybody else (with the possible exception of y’all), she’s probably more abreast (har har) of the situation than anyone else. 

She said, “Those boobs have fucked you up a bit, haven’t they.”

I must have blinked a lot. Or maybe I just reacted in away that she was expecting, and she just wanted to see how I would react, or something. I said, “what do you mean?”

“Just seems like you almost had everything figured out.”

She didn’t say that much more about it, which was even weirder, in hindsight. The conversation just kind of continued, and I chalked it up to one of Aunt Linda’s drunken observations that, given the nature of the conversation at the time and the fact that she has carte blanche to say weird, out-of-the-blue things, I put aside for a second.

But then I thought about it a little more, later on. In the last couple of days especially. And the thought that I’ve returned to is that she’s probably right. 

I have anxiety. I always have, I think. Even when I was a little kid, I got into these funks where I worried, at length, about things that I really had no control over. I don’t think there was a name for it, and God knows I wasn’t actually diagnosed (my parents were those people who assumed that therapists had way more problems than your average person, and therefore, were useless in helping other people solve theirs, which, of course, is hogwash, but totally on-par with my parents). 

But worry I did, child of the ‘80s that I was. That went into my teens, then 20s for all the reasons that kind of stuff usually does. I wouldn’t say I was a person with any particular lack of self confidence. I just worried a lot. 

Anthony Bourdain, one of my very favorites, once said something like, “As you move through this world, you leave marks on it, however small. And in return, life and travel leave marks on you. Most of these marks, on your body, and your heart, are beautiful. Often though, they hurt.” I like this quote. I think as we each move through life, and collect our requisite marks, we come to the conclusion that shitty stuff, well, just happens sometimes (I’m sure there are enough Greek epics about just the same thing, so it’s an old-enough idea). When you’re a worrier, you eventually discover that the stuff you fret about isn’t even the stuff that ends up transpiring. 

Maybe you worry about your grandmother dying in her sleep. Only instead, out of nowhere, it’s your grandfather who’s pulled in on charges of possession of underage pornography. Maybe you’re worried that the IRS is going to end up slamming you with an audit over some money you forgot to report a couple of years ago, and now it’s too late to let them know, because then you might make it worse for yourself; instead, you apply for a credit card, only to find that you’ve been denied because some asshole used your personal information to buy a Mercedes in Boca Raton. Maybe you fret about how long it’s been since you talked to your dad, and what would you say to him if you got on the phone; and instead, you get a call one morning to discovered that his body was discovered on the bathroom floor, naked as a jaybird, and dead as a doornail because of however the medical examiner wants to label “drank himself silly.”

And, in my case, maybe I was (like most other American women, whose self-image is governed by the kabal of 12 gay men in New York’s fashion district), biting my fingernails and losing sleep over the fact that my tummy wasn’t as taut as it used to be, and that I was getting older, my eggs were drying up, and I was only a few years away from that most dire of circumstance: not being an attractive target for mainstream product marketing. Too old to be sold cute clothes and expensive gadgets; to young to be sold age-defying eye creams and adult diapers; too cynical and student loan-ridden to be convinced of the contrary; and if I didn’t have a home by then, I probably wouldn’t be getting one any time soon (#30somthingamericangirl).

But at least, as my Aunt Linda pointed out, I was, a few years ago before this new adventure started, at a tipping point — I had almost figured all of that out for myself. My hands were almost at a point where they were solidly gripped around that solution that, while not being a cure-all, would have at least gotten me that much closer to being comfortable in my own head. Like chasing a dragon, sometimes, at least, you get close to it, even if you never catch it. 

I’d like to think my Aunt Linda meant something along those lines. Although, maybe she was just drunk, and I forget the context that set a statement like that up (and, like I said, she can get away with some oddball observations). 

But I think I’m getting close to the dragon again. As I’ve said more recently (and recently because it’s truer recently), I’m figuring it all out again. And, I’m affording myself the chance to have a little fun with the whole thing. 

I guess that’s a long-winded way to say that I took this picture, for no other reason than to put it up on Patreon. For some reason, I just thought you guys might like something risque and bondage-y, and I saw some rope, and thought “hey, if I tie it around myself and then, tie the end to a rafter in the ceiling, maybe that’ll make a fun picture.” And, as I’ve said before, this is the internet, and it’s anonymous, and if this picture ends up elsewhere, at least nobody can tell it’s me, and what do I have to lose. 

And then, imagine my surprise when I discovered that it was a little bit of a turn on, for reasons I’m still figuring out. Maybe that’s part of the whole “figuring it out” thing. 

Or, at least, it’s nice to step out of your own box sometimes, and take the chance to learn something new about yourself.