Category: Balance

Writing the Hard Stuff: Book Lament

    K Ghislaine
Stretch

One of the things I pride myself on is being able to write in an authentic way, be it good, bad, or just weird. The thing about this book writing part though, is it’s even tougher, and has brought me to tears more often than I ever thought possible. Yesterday, I actually wrote myself a little motivational cue card in hopes that reading it would help, with my book writing lamenting.

For those who don’t know, I am writing a memoir of sorts, of my experiences in non-monogamy. There are a lot of words written, and it is so close to being done, however, there this internal struggle with being real about how I experienced things outside of monogamy, and not wanting to be all doom and gloom. That decade was hard. It was filled with challenges, and there are days that I lament the fact that I felt so alone exploring it. There are so many wonderful people that I met, and such incredibly hot moments, but looking back, it took a lot out of me.

I was not experiencing things in the manor that made me feel safe, cherished, or even loved. And that is difficult for me to rectify. With that in mind, I don’t want my book to read like a horror story (OK that is being really dramatic and it’s not even close). Instead I want it to be an adventure story, that cherishes all the incredible things that happened, but, I just can’t tell that story, because it is not authentic.

To balance things out, I have started a few posts on Medium that aim to share what my takeaway is on the complexities of love and what each relationship norm or not norm can bring to the table, in Love Explored (Which you can purchase a membership via Medium directly, to explore so many amazing writers!). Writing this helps ground me, to be able to look towards the possibilities and the lessons I wish I got to experience first hand, far more often than I did. That decade of my life, forever changed me, and I’m so glad it made me a more loving and accepting person, rather than the biter and angry individual it very easily could have.

I’m trying to be brave, authentic, and articulate in how I remember my life. I hope that’s what my finished product shows. I really, earnestly do. But, I suppose that will be in the eyes of the reader to discover, when it is finally finished. It’s the big push to work through these hard emotions, and I thank each and everyone of you who have offered encouragement, listened to me babble things out, and who have joined me for drinks or bought me beer. Soon….

Stop Preying on the Vulnerable

    K Ghislaine

No Means NO!

Dramatic Big Cliff Photo for Effect!

I shouldn’t have to have my guard up when I am being vulnerable: And yet, here we are again.  A lot has happened in my personal life over the past month or so, and in order to understand it and process, I write about it. Yet, without fail, when I show the slightest vulnerability, my DM’s get flooded with personal messages from strangers asking if I’m OK. If there is anything they can do, and wishing that they lived closer so they could hug me.  Reality check here, that is predatory behaviour.  Do not think for one freaking second that I do not know what you wish me crying on your shoulder would lead to. As always, no means no!

I make my only presence clear, that I do not like private messages, especially from strangers.  There is no grey area to this.  I am perfectly clear, and repeat myself every few months. And yet, here I am, dealing with something intense and finding that I have to have my guard up against douchebags, preying on my vulnerability.

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I am so freaking done with that behaviour.  So done.  Like beyond done. I deserve to show my feelings in a safe space.  I demand that.  And if you don’t accept that, don’t follow me. But ask yourself first, why you think my feelings and clear demands for consent are not valid to you.  Why do you think you get to supersede my clear words?  Why is it that you believe you are an exception?

Yeah, you’re not going to like that answer if you actually think about it.  Why?  Because, you will find that you are the quintessential “all men” that you probably hate hearing about. Sorry, but I am not sorry! This is ridiculous how many times I have to state the same thing. I should not have to constantly demand respect, not should any other woman.

Yes, I post sexy photos.  Yes, I write about taboo subjects, and absolutely if you follow me on Twitter you will see that I don’t hold much back.  I am real, bold, and proud of who I am!  None of these things should make me a target for dick pictures, lewd messages, or thinly veiled openers to “get inside my private space”.  I am quite comfortable in the public sphere, and believe me, I can handle the majority of people.  What I cannot abide are those individuals who believe rules don’t apply to them. That is a garbage take, and I want you out of my life… right MEOW!

Here is a list, for easy reference of a few other times I have ranted about this, while I sit here baffled that I have to type this out again:

Consent: Why is this Not Getting Through?

Human Beings Have a Right to Say NO

No Means No

Saying No Can be Difficult as a Woman

If you have written anything on this subject, I welcome you to add it to the comments section of this post, or on social media. I will be retweeting all of the articles in hopes of getting through to someone out there who needs to hear this. For those rare individuals who want to atone for bad behaviour of the past, please share this post (after reading a few articles and what others have had to say), and then feel free to buy me a beer via my Patreon!

Solo Road Trip Realizations

    K Ghislaine

AKA – Road Trip Reset

BC is Beautiful Cont….

So, if you’re reading this, you have probably figured out that, yes, I in fact survived my solo road trip!  Woo hoo.  And, I am happy to report, it was wonderful, empowering, and all the things I needed it to be.  I slept alone in my car, I took lots of walks in nature with my dog, even more photos, and I drank some really great beer.  But something more important happened on this trip, I allowed myself a mental break from thinking about the men who are, just not quite in my life. And this was exactly what I needed to do, a road trip reset.

This trip was only about me being in nature, writing, and just driving on the open road.  At home, I have been feeling a strange pressure to find a man, settle down, and there is some sort of guilt in the fact that it is taking me so long to get the man I want.  But out there, in the mountains, I reset. It was a hard reset, and it freed my mind.  As an added bonus, I got my solo power back.  I accomplished the goal that took me two seasons to achieve, and that was this very road trip. I don’t like being held back by fear, or told that I cannot do something.  Two nights sleeping in the woods alone, proved to myself that I could in fact do all the things I want to.

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I rebuilt trust in myself to make good decisions, and have some adventures.  It was a win that I dearly needed.  And before anyone asks, there were absolutely zero temptations to meet up with anyone.  I actually enjoyed my own company, and for the first time probably this year, I didn’t feel lonely. I was in total control, and it was empowering.

I have tried the mantra of “enjoy the happy ride”, or just to go with the flow.  But ultimately, that is just not me.  I want what I want, and I am willing to try a number of different ways in order to achieve that goal.  I am responsible for my own happiness, and cannot let the empathic side of me overshadow what I want to accomplish.  To deny myself autonomy and the ability to fight for what I want, is to ignore who I am.  And for what? To hope someone else will care about my wants or needs?  F that!  Doing that, has brought me no joy.  I would rather a firm door slammed in my face, than continue to tread lightly. And by that I mean, just being me, with a take it or leave it attitude.  I love being silly, letting my hair down, and being playful. But, I have been lost in the idea that I have to first prove my accomplishments and earn my place through, oh frick I don’t know what I was thinking.  I was just scared of not being valued for who I am, and like I said, this road trip was the hard reset I needed.

So, with that, expect an update on my book, some more sexy photo shoots, and an update on a project that I am working on!  And of course, I will keep you updated on my love life, because, aren’t relationships and breaking away from the norm what this blog is all about?

The Rollercoaster of My Life

    K Ghislaine
Yoga Calming the Rollercoaster

The past few days have been a shiny example of the rollercoaster of life, and true to form I am going to openly and honestly share a few of the highlights and my thoughts. My personal life is going through some pretty significant changes. I am questioning what I want from future relationships and openly exploring what that might look like for myself, and those around me.  My book has taken what I consider to be an incredible turn, and I am writing with more passion and purpose than I have in a long time.  Also, I have met a person who is treating me the way I had always hoped was possible but never dreamed I deserved. It’s new, fresh, and very exiting.  And while I am just trying to live in the moment, and take things that are really new day by day, it’s difficult not to look back on my past and wonder why I made certain decisions.

While all these pretty significant things are going on and bringing me beautiful little highs, I am getting slammed back into reality at what seems every fricken turn. Physically I am in a pain, but healing from a sprained wrist and body aches from an icy fall I had. Emotionally, I am at a place where I am trying to be vulnerable with one person, and putting up walls and boundaries with another. It is an exhausting struggle, that multiple times during the day I worry that I am just going to break, say the wrong thing, or cave all together. The balancing act is treacherous, and I look forward to the day when all this emotional regulating pays off. Unfortunately, I see no end in sight, and that makes my emotions difficult to anticipate. Which in turn, makes me a little volatile, and wanting to just run away to some safe haven, and hunker down until everything has stabilized.

So, while all the real world stuff is playing ping pong with my emotions, I spent yesterday reading the comment section from my last blog post. Not only, did I get to read fully unsubstantiated claims, I also found out that my troll is back. Normally I just smile, and calmly respond to haters (I’ve done it for years and am pretty adept at not taking things personally), but yesterday, it broke me. Call it bad timing, or whatever you want, but honestly, I just dropped my head down on my desk and started crying.

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Breaking Away from Monogamy is my blog. It is filled with my words, my experiences, and my truth. To have that questioned, and then my integrity called out within a few hours by multiple people just shook me. Yes, I recognize that by admitting that the troll got to me, I am opening myself to more trolling. When it comes to random internet attention seeking there is nothing I can do or say to make it stop aside from ignore it which I usually end up doing. Today however, I am choosing to be honest in saying that the so called “truth” seeker is a thorn in my side. And the timing of that person coming back into my life just plain sucks.

But, here I sit, writing about all these rollercoaster events happening, and thanks to an amazing nights sleep, I may finally be regulating on the side of that little thing called hope. There are great human beings out there. A few of you even reached out and supported me yesterday, which was beyond appreciated. And that is what I will try and focus on. Hope is healing me. And I wish the same for each and every one of you out there. Take a pause and focus on one tiny thing that glimmers with possibilities. Hold that in your mind, visualize it, materialize it before you, and let that be your 2021 ray of sunshine. I’ve got my hope written on my calendar beside me, and I read it every morning and smile. And I want all of you to have the same.

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My Life is Not Perfect and It May Never Be

    K Ghislaine
My life is not perfect

Over the past year, I placed a big carrot in front of me.  I wanted to achieve something I have never had in my adult life, and I focused my attention on that one thing.  At the age of 36, I was finally going to be debt free, by making a huge life change, and sacrificing home ownership for the removal of this mental burden.  Why am I sharing this with you?  Because, it hasn’t happened yet.  And in the interim of this will it, or won’t it scenario, I am learning a whole bunch about myself, and my mental health.

It turns out, having a carrot to work towards, is not something that gives me peace.  It is just too big a goal, and far beyond my direct control.  Thus, I placed my mental happiness on something in the future, and one that was not a sure thing.  I am going to tell you with complete honesty, that it came close to destroying me.  I forgot to find joy in the day to day.  I became consumed with this idea, that my happiness depended on this far off event, and if I just held out for a few more days, weeks, months, then I could finally smile again.  Then, I could breath a huge sigh of relief. 

I’ve made this mistake in the past.  I put all my eggs into a basket, that seems like a sure thing, and allow my mental well being to just kind of simmer, until this goal is achieved.  I’ve done this with my career, with my past relationships (maybe even my current one, but that is too close to home to analyze right now), and I just snapped myself out of doing this for a moment longer with my debt.

The thing is, I do have to make sacrifices right now.  I have put the exploration of my sexual fluidity on hold.  I was so excited to have a first date with a female, but the reality is, dating is expensive and very time consuming.  I know this.  And it would not be fair or even rational to put myself out there right now.  But, as I am figuring out, not everything I do has to feel like I am giving something up.  I can enjoy my 20 minutes of yoga a day, with clarity.  I can take breaks to play video games because it makes me happy, and my brain needs mental breaks throughout the day.  And yes, I feel proud of all the writing and progress I am making working from home part time. 

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In the past little while, I have resisted posting pity me social media status’s and it has been difficult.  I cried out loud to my partner, that I just wished someone would finally feel sorry for me, and tell me that I have come so far after such a difficult journey.  Let me just have one person feel sorry for me, I sobbed.  And you know what?  He did the complete opposite.  He told me that I could be proud of what I had done, and reminded me, that it is OK to take breaks and not work so hard.  I don’t have to prove to myself that I work 80 hours a week, to feel good about myself.  I can work half that, and enjoy my breaks and the little things.  And that my friends, is when I realized that I was using this carrot as my permission slip to be happy.  And, well, that is change I am making in my life.  I may never be out of debt, and I may never enjoy the financial freedom that I believe I would as a child.  And you know what?  I very well still could.  This isn’t that I am giving up on achieving a goal.  Instead, I am trying to be more aware and conscious that I can be proud of myself right now.  That I can celebrate small victories with as much intensity as the big ones.  And well, just writing that, the lump in my throat went down.  I breathed a sigh of relief, and the tears that were brimming as I typed, slowly just went away.  I don’t need to spell out all my obstacles and hurdles to you all to elicit sympathy.  Instead, I can let that go, and focus on the joy and the smaller moments.  Life is what you make of it right? 

Thank you for all the love, support, and a special thanks to all the people who have bought me a beer on Patreon!