The scent of time and love

2016-08-312017-03-142 Comments

I’m at my parent’s house, I couldn’t bring myself to go home to an empty apartment. I feel sad but at the same time happy and grateful for the moments we’ve shared together in real life, so far. When you are building a home together in a long distance relationship, it is impossible to take anything for granted. Time. Love. Life in general. A long distance relationship is a good reminder of how precious life is – how rare it is to find someone you can connect with on a deeper level – and how time can work both as a highway to common goals and as an invisible wall of limitations and restrictions.

I am thankful that I live in a part of the world – and in a time where time difference as a concept is merely a nuisance and not an impossible obstacle. We are always connected through chats, emails or Skype. It is possible to create an everyday life together through those channels, but of course it lacks many dimensions.

I’m thinking about the sheets in my bed. They still have his scent. My whole bed smells like him. I don’t know if it’s a good thing or if it will make me miss him even more. I don’t want to go home right now. What is home anyway? At the moment I’m not sure.

Outside, summer is making one last performance. Blue skies. Sunshine. Heat. But it doesn’t fool me – I can feel a new season comming. And with Johnny gone, I feel like there’s a new season waiting for me in my life as well. I’ve been so focused on our time together (and the involuntary foucus on all my health issues this summer) – now it’s time to go back to dealing with the restoration of my life. Reclaiming things. Explorations. Working on my self-empowerment. Finding a job. Getting back into the art world. Make more paintings. I have a lot to do.

But right now, I just want to go home to those sheets.

A crash course in “us”

2016-08-252017-03-14Leave a comment

Things rarely happen the way you plan it, but the unexpected always brings something positive with it. This time with Johnny has been bittersweet – I wish I wasn’t so sick and it has made me feel trapped in my own body, in my apartment and in the passivity of waiting for my health to improve, but it’s also been pretty perfect, because we’ve been spending so much time together talking – defining who we are as a couple, what we want to achieve with our connection and the direction in which we want to walk together. I’m not gonna lie, it’s been tough at times. We only have a couple of weeks to figure these things out, then he goes back to the States and it might be another year until we’ll get to build an everyday life together in the same place again. These weeks have been like a crash course in “us”

Our honesty and directness are crucial – we can’t afford to be vague about who we are or what we want, we already have the language barrier, time differences and painful pasts we want to avoid revisiting. Our talks can be brutal at times because we challenge each other, in a positive way, to get to the realness of each other and cut through the layers of insecurities and imagined expectations that’s been forced on us by other people. It hurts to let go of fears by facing them. You’re bound to get your ass kicked by them before you’ll able to triumph and rise above. It hurts to get your comfort zone crushed. To let someone inside even though you are still healing a damaged, delicate heart. It’s confusing to let go of preconceived ideas of what you should be, do, say, or act – and instead just be and see what happens when you are showing your bare bones for the first time. Will you be able to move or will you fall apart?

But the brutal nature of honesty together with the smoothness of intimacy makes the relationship vibrate with life and energy – and there’s a clear sense of movement and progress and that gives me the biggest sensation of relief and satisfaction.

“You have to work hard for the things you want otherwise it’s not gonna be what you want but a compromise or something else and you’ll end up dissatisfied”, Johnny says. And it’s true. I’ve worked hard to achieve my dream of becoming an artist. Whenever I’ve had to compromise in my art I’ll end up losing my true artistic voice. I’ve worked hard to just be me without having to sacrifice or compromise who I am in order to fit into other people’s expectations of me which leads to depression or getting caught in traumatic places. So I understand the importance of the hard work. I just wish my mind wasn’t so full of little wounds, created by the traumas and the PTSD, it makes the hard work feel even more difficult and hard. My traumas are connected with love, intimacy and vulnerability. But that’s also where the magic happens in my art. That’s where I feel at home. Naturally it gets confusing at times. I need these deep talks with Johnny, otherwise I’d probably freak out and just give up when the trauma wounds are too sore or bleeding. But I’m lucky we share this open-hearted connection and that we both want to change and adapt to each other without losing our integrity. Change is hard work – building a home is hard work, but also so rewarding. I have been breaking free from my past for several years now, but now I’m actually breaking free from who I used to be in that past. I still don’t know exactly who I am when it comes to love and relationships – “great” Johnny says, “let’s find out together!”.

A master plan and how to destroy it

2016-08-232017-03-14Leave a comment

I never realized that the fear of my own past has created all these walls of protection. After nearly 20 years of being non stop in either destructive or dead relationships, I’ve become sensitive to so many things when it comes to relationships. It would be easier just to spend the rest of my life alone – without anyone by my side. It would be easier to isolate myself completely. I don’t fear loneliness – there’s nothing worse than the loneliness you feel in a dead relationship anyway. I always have my creativity. My art and writing will always be my company. I would live only by my own rules, my own expectations and fulfill my needs without making any sacrifices for anyone else. I would feel safe in my loneliness because there wouldn’t be anyone there to hurt me, to leave me or to destroy my sense of happiness. I would be lonely but free – and I could make art all the time. I would become a hermit genius who produces like 10 000 drawings a year. I would create an amazing legacy.

It is a tempting thought. Somehow like it’s a loophole – it would guarantee a pain free future. My life would be a trauma free zone. I would outsmart the unknown and create my own destiny – and the magic word would be ‘avoidance’.

But it’s only tempting for a minute.

I look over at Johnny while he’s not aware of my stare and for a second I’m a little annoyed. Who is this man who makes the avoidance seem like a bad idea – who challenges my idea of becoming a hermit genius artist and instead wants me to be in a relationship again even though I clearly suck at it? I could ask him to leave now, then I would pursuit my plan of loneliness and avoidance and it would be the last time I would be this close to a man ever again. I could ask him to stop loving me, because I am too damaged anyway. It must be hard to love me. I have my freak outs, my days of tears and sadness, moments of ugliness and darkness. What does he see in me anyway? Is he blind? Stupid? A masochist?

Suddenly he notices my stare and gives me a smile. Oh crap, don’t smile, don’t look so happy. It makes all these thoughts seem so delusional. I smile back. Great, now I’ve done it. Now it’s too late to ask him to leave. This happiness makes it feel impossible. I don’t like it. How can my magic word be ‘avoidance’ when I just want to explore everything in life with this man? What’s wrong with me?

He comes over to me, puts his arms around me and I suddenly forget about my plans of loneliness and solitude. He whispers in my ears: “I know you feel scared, I know you feel naked and vulnerable right now. I understand. But I don’t want to put you in another cage. You’ve known too many cages already. I want you to feel free. I want to make you happy. I never want to take from you, only add. This is the first time in your life where nobody is demanding something from you, more than to be yourself and it freaks you out. But I am here. I won’t leave. I am here.”

His words feel wonderful inside but they’re equally scary. Because the antidote to avoidance – is trust. And here it is – I either trust him or I can go on with my plan of avoiding everything he represents to me. Love. Pleasure. Happiness. Sharing. Or I can go for all those things and trust that everything will be alright. But all that comes without any guarantees. Without any walls of protection.

“Just be Mia”

2016-08-202017-03-141 Comment

My best friend, my team mate and my boyfriend.

My health is slowly improving and I’m beginning to enjoy my time with Johnny without feeling anxious about having to stay at home most of the time. I think in a couple of days, I will have recovered completely.

The good thing about being sick and forced to be at home has been the hours we have spent talking, caressing each other, getting to know each other in a more intimate way than we would’ve done if we had been busy doing things outside. I’ve learned a lot about myself these last few days. This is the very first relationship after all the bad ones – when I felt like I was playing the role of the ‘good girlfriend’ which was all about serving my boyfriends and sacrifice myself and my needs along the way. Now, I try to be myself and to be naked and real about what I want and need. It’s not always easy. I feel torn between being ‘the good girlfriend’ and myself sometimes – not because Johnny expects anything like that from me, but because that submissive behavior is so ingrained in my mind. I feel vulnerable in being myself without making sure that my lover is comfortable, satisfied or happy all the time.

But Johnny is constantly challenging me to kill the ‘good girlfriend’ act. He keeps exposing me when I try to serve him: “stop that – just be Mia”, he says. I feel safe with him – but very naked. Sometimes I don’t know what to do when I don’t need to serve a man’s needs. I feel a little lost but of course it’s liberating and gives me a sense of freedom. And whenever I fall back into my old behavior, he looks at me with a smile and says: “just be Mia”.

But what is it – to just be Mia? I am not sure. I know how to be me when I am all by myself, but when I am in a relationship that doesn’t require anything more from me than to just be myself, I get a little lost. Because I’ve never really felt equal to anyone else, I don’t know my position in the relationship. That’s when I reach for Johnny’s hand – and it’s always there for me. We are slowly learning how to be ourselves with each other without losing anything, without making sacrifices in our needs and wants, without compromising away the essence of who we are.

Being sick has forced me to show my most naked sides. I have been too drained to be anything other than myself. It has been the perfect timing to figure out who I am when I am in a relationship. Like I am in the process of learning how to push through my old personas to let my own voice be heard for the first time, without being judged or humiliated. I am loved. For just being me. And every time I forget about it – Johnny is there to remind me to “just be Mia”.

I feel so lucky.

Post ‘Post Traumatic Stress Disorder’ – Reclaiming my history

2016-04-222016-04-224 Comments

Me – reclaiming my own history

My life is slowly coming together in all areas. The things that used to be broken inside me, are healing, the dark memories are fading – and I am liberating everything that was ever suppressed or filled with shame and fear. Reclaiming my strength. I am not suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder anymore, even though it will always be there, but in the background. I’m going through a post ‘PTSD’ phase right now.

This is the first time in my adult life when I can enjoy my days without expecting abusive attacks, humiliation or painful neglect (including self neglect). I feel happy. Strong. At peace. Awakened. With that comes a new sense of clarity – and suddenly I see things from a completely new perspective. From a place of self-compassion and disillusion. But it’s not always a pleasant experience. It can be quite difficult at times.

I look at myself, the me I was back then – and I see so many strange and confusing things I had to put up with. Things like always being on the lookout for a possible betrayal just because I was so used to it. Little betrayals. Big ones. Traumas. And things like other people’s sick behavior that I transformed into my own shame and guilt. Like it was my fault they would behave like that in front of me. Now, I look at all that and I can’t even picture myself with those people anymore. Sharing my bed with them. Sharing their sperm. Blood. Life. Plans for the future. I can’t see myself laughing at their jokes and innuendoes like I did – stuff that was supposed to belittle- and humiliate me in an indirect way. The passive aggressive crap. I can’t imagine how I could allow anyone to ever spit in my face. Or drag me across the floor, holding me by my hair so that some hair would come out by the roots. The really aggressive crap.

To be called ‘cunt’. ‘Whore’ (by 4 different men in total). ‘Disgusting’. ‘Worthless piece of shit’. To be forced into the position of a victim. Or to have my orgasms being forced out of me because it was a turn on for him when he was feeling like he was in charge of my body. Power stuff. I hate that. My discomfort was his fetish. My sense of pleasure was not interesting to him. Or to a lot of the other men before him. Not important. And I wasn’t important. Just like I was a whore to some men, I was a fuck-doll to others. Or a punch bag. A dog.

At times I felt like I was halfway to this sexually abusive style. What a nightmare.

I just can’t see myself in those types of situations anymore. It hurts so much when I look at myself from this new perspective. I feel very naked in front of myself and my own history. It has the ability to tear me apart at times. But I have decided to use everything to my advantage. I will reclaim every moment of humiliation and abuse – and turn it into something useful. A detail in a novel. A side note in a blog post. In a future lecture about overcoming trauma. And as part of my private mythology that I use in my art. I’ll squeeze the juice right out of it. If they wanted me to have all these painful experiences, I will turn it into magic because that’s what I do. That’s who I am.

The details of humiliation vary in dark tones and pain. But they are all mine. Like the awkward detail including one of these men who, before dinner (as a regular daily routine for a few months in the beginning of our relationship) would take out his semi-flaccid penis and put it on the edge of the dining table so it would look isolated from the rest of his body – and then he would make a hand gesture like it was saying ‘please… behold… and adore my pride and joy.. please…look – stare for all I care’ and with a smile on his face he would patiently wait for my reaction. In the bright light from the big lamp hanging above the table, he would also be in full display for any people who happened to pass by our windows – and for the family across the street (with two teenage sons) who were also having dinner at the same time every night and could see us just like I could see what was served on their plates. This is a confusing detail in my history of humiliation. But what the hell was it all about? What does it even mean? He seemed so proud of himself – even though his penis was flaccid and the situation was bizarre.

Five-Innovative-Products-For-Every-Kitchen-3

With his dick next to the bowl of rice, I would cover my eyes and giggle like an embarrassed little school girl. Although it was so much more than an embarrassment. I was mortified. Humiliated. And I was suffocating, hoping the neighbors hadn’t seen the routine this night either. I lost my apetit. But I forced the food into my mouth after he’d zipped up. Like a good girl. Just like I zipped up after he had forced my orgasms. Perhaps it was his twisted idea of equality.

Emotional

2016-02-262016-02-262 Comments

The monthly invasion of excruciatingly intense hormones and anxiety has once again interrupted my process of self therapy. I feel all messed up – over emotional and numb at the same time. But in this break I am able to reflect on what I’m going through and to acknowledge the hard work I’m doing, which I’m usually taking for granted.

Spring is somehow leaking through the chilly winds outside my window. It’s still cold out but I can feel a change coming on. I feel just as restless as spring to unfold and blossom with everything I am.

Soon.

I am thinking about how I found love while looking for it in other places. I’m still so used to destructive relationships that I am having a hard time trusting all the wonderfulness of this love story. I’m learning how to accept love and to trust another person. It is almost as difficult as the process of my self-empowerment. Or perhaps it’s part of it. I feel extremely emotional as soon as I am thinking about him. We are quite different but we share many qualities, especially how we always filter life through our thoughts and hearts and allow details to be as significant as the whole. There is a sense of sensuality in that. We both experienced an interruption of innocence somewhere early in life, and we are slowly repairing it together in each other and in ourselves. We are like a scaffolding to each other’s heart, creating a support system so we can heal and grow. Like the crutches holding the characters together in Dali’s paintings.

salvador-dali-the-dream1

It is a beautiful love. Not harsh or indifferent like the ones in my past. It’s like we are growing up together, although we are already adults. I wonder what that will do to the passive Lolitas in my art.

Today, I will simply let the anxious hormones pass through me as if am a train station. All the emotions are warped and colored with high sensitivity and conflicting meanings. Tomorrow I hope I’ll wake up to be more in control of my inner activities.

Building an invisible house

2016-02-03Leave a comment

I made this image to illustrate my process of self-empowerment

I’m taking big steps in my self therapy – which I will refer to as ‘self-empowerment’ from now on. I am on a different journey now than during the years I lived with the PTSD where the cruel symptoms ruled my every day life.

During my abusive marriage, 2003

I might not be the smartest person in the world, I might not know much about anything really – but I am an expert when it comes to the process of losing the connection to oneself – and finding a way back. It’s been taking me about 15 years to accomplish that.

My old journey was to overcome PTSD and my new journey is all about reclaiming life and the power I lost to other people by accepting (and encouraging) a submissive position.

2009

It all comes down to vulnerability. For a long period of time, I was trapped in various situations where it was forced on me from many directions. Vulnerability became the texture of my identity – and so also the visual expression of myself. I couldn’t see it. I was busy reliving trauma every day because of the PTSD (that I didn’t knew I suffered from at the time). But the vulnerability was the only thing I could offer men in relationships, I confused it for warmth and love – and so I attracted the narcissists, the aggressive ones, the assholes, the ‘strong silent’ men without any empathy – and the broken souls in denial with a tough exterior to overcompensate for their own vulnerability issues.

2010

I payed the price for their repressed pain or for their lack of emotions – and I let them. I gave them my vulnerability as a currency so they could buy my loyalty, love and sexuality with it, over and over, without losing any of their own currency. I cared so much, they didn’t care at all. I risked my life for them, they neglected me and took no risks at all. I thought that love would either ‘make me or break me’ – they thought of me as a submissive addition to their lives which had no real influence on their hearts. Indifference is a perfect armor, it allows no emotional risks at all. I can’t relate to it – it’s a blind spot for me. I was an easy target for their selfish conquests when it came to what my vulnerability was worth – and how it was perceived. They were addicted to it – and it made me look weak so they could look stronger, better and smarter.

Therefore, the first step to self-empowerment is self-forgiveness. I have forgiven myself for being so careless with my vulnerability and for letting men do whatever they want with it.

And with self-acceptance – where I am accepting both my weaknesses – and seeing my vulnerability as something precious that I have to protect and maintain (which, ironically, makes it shrink) and my strengths and resources (where vulnerability is a great one if handled with care) – I have a good foundation for what I need to achieve success, happiness and self-fulfillment.

11535874_10152959065052654_2783727054431881118_n

2015

It’s not a random coincidence that my recent artworks all have houses in them – and that I registered my new website as “The House of Mia Makila”. I am slowly building an invisible house around myself – a protection of inner strength and an uncompromising integrity – an empowerment of everything I am – to myself and to the world.

Iceland (digital)

About a different kind of starvation

2016-02-012016-02-012 Comments

Photo found on tumblr

I think it’s strange that when we talk about starvation, it’s always about the physical connection to food. But we rarely talk about how that nagging sensation of hunger, desperation and frustration can be felt in other places than in our tummies.

When we neglect our needs, we feel like something is missing – and it creates a void inside. Just like we feel when we are hungry for food. It’s a sneaky thing, the process of losing ourselves to the greyness of every day life routines, compromises in relationships, shame, fear or any place where we can’t really feel free to be ourselves all the way. We adjust ourselves to the course of life and direction or stagnation of our ambitions. But it’s easy to overlook needs or desires when life feels like a train ride without any stops. It’s easy to lose the connection between mind and body or mind and soul, and that’s when we’re slowly creating a starvation somewhere inside. You can’t feel it happening until you are faced with the suction of the void. And the void is not talking. It’s confusing. Annoying. Frustrating. You don’t know what is missing. So you overcompensate with other things. You create renovation projects and home improvement, you have another baby, you put more hours into work, you shop or try to buy yourself free of the void – for the moment and there’s a sense of satisfaction but not the sensation of true fulfillment.

I’ve been starving for many things throughout my adult life and in various relationships. For intimacy. Sex. Intellectual stimulation. For artistic growth. Self acceptance. Closure. Friendship. Relief of shame and guilt. Genuine love. Pleasure. Happiness.

The starvation made me feel angry, bitter and depressed. I didn’t know why I felt that way so it left me feeling helpless and broken.

It wasn’t until I started to listen to my inner voice – my core – and began my journey in therapy that I could see how lost I was while I was overcompensating with the substitutions or the instant satisfaction that never lasted very long.

I am slowly approaching all of my starvations, trying to feed my needs or at least acknowledge them. It isn’t easy to stay true to who you really are in this time of age when we’re constantly being hacked by norms, social stress, mainstream ideals and pre- packaged lifestyles but it is possible.

You just need to create a little space for yourself where your thoughts and feelings can float through you without any judgements or shame. That’s all it takes to start filling the nagging void inside.

Slowly healing

2016-01-112016-01-112 Comments

I wish everyone would be able to feel what I’m feeling right now. It’s something quite unique and spectacular. The vulnerable softness of scar tissue in my heart. The endless meadows of silence in my mind that used to be broken in so many places where chaos and fear were leaking out with every thought.

I am slowly healing. The wounds inside are fading and the entangled emotions are sorted out and accepted. I feel proud of myself to be here – in a place where I am able to feel stronger and more in control. I’ve been working so hard to get here. I feel lucky to have met a man who loves me for me, not for who I could be to him or who I should be if I only was a little more, or less than I already am. A man who doesn’t punish me for being a strong woman, for expressing my own wants and needs. I feel lucky to have met a man who doesn’t humiliate or belittle me to feel stronger, better and more in control. It shouldn’t be a privilege to experience this kind of equality and friendship in a relationship, it should be the foundation for all types of relationships, not only the romantic ones.

Tales from a heart

2015-11-102015-11-10Leave a comment

DSC_0229_bw

Was it all just a dream? The highway is covered in a light fog. The late autumn landscapes outside the bus windows are blurred and blended with my own reflection in the glass. The trees are bare and I feel just as naked and raw on the inside. I’m so tired and sick with the flu. I want to go home and sleep, but it’s a long ride and I feel uncomfortable in my seat. My heart has a sour feeling to it. I want to cry but I know if I do, I won’t be able to stop. When we said goodbye at the airport, I thought my heart would physically break. After you went through security and you disappeared from my visual world, I felt numb and went to a café and had a sandwich for breakfast, watching your plane vanish into the grey sky.

Missing you is harder now than before you came here. It was easier to miss you like a fantasy than as a reality. And your scent has already faded from my memory.

Was it just a dream? You came here and changed my life. It was almost two weeks of pure intimacy and love. We were being silly, laughing from our cores, citing Girls and creating adventures with our imagination. Exploring each other and ourselves like we were on spiritual safari. Two weeks felt like one single long and wonderful day – even though I got sick and you had to spend some time taking care of me. It was the first time we shared the same time, and it was confusing and that confusion helped us create our own sense of time, where days and nights were blending and bleeding hours, minutes and seconds. We used our heartbeats and time as oxygen. We didn’t need anything else.

DSC_0232_bw DSC_0233_bw

When I got home to my empty apartment, I started to doubt it all. Was it all just a dream? The long trip to the airport and back had detached me a bit from the experience of you and I felt numb and the fever didn’t help. I went to bed and looked over at the empty side next to me where you slept and I could still feel your presence in my bed.

So – was it just a dream? I have never experienced something like this before. Good things rarely happens to me and I still don’t have any words to describe all the feelings you create in me. It will take me a long time to be able to find the right shades of red to paint what I am feeling. I want to go back to painting, soon. You inspire me to create, especially with your writing. I know we will collaborate together at some point. My future is filled with unexplored excitement. I am overloaded with unexpressed words, brush strokes and colors. I need you and I need my art.

We are not a dream, but what we share is a gift that will keep creating more and more opportunities for us to grow, experience life, creativity and love, together- and in a way, that is a dream, even though it is as real as life itself.

The dawn of a new era

2015-10-272015-10-273 Comments

I have spent months working intensely with my self therapy – to let go, to train my brain to think in new ways – a new “thinking style” and I’ve been studying and making a lot of research about this. It is so much hard work to let go and to start over. But at least now, I have cleaned out all the old and shitty thoughts and feelings that daily used to preoccupy my mind and heart, that used to make me feel lost and scared. I am not a slave to my past anymore. I am not bound to my trauma anymore. I have ended toxic relationships, I have been letting go of old dreams and ideals, I’ve been braking bad behavioral patterns and trained my brain to think in a new, healthy and unfamiliar way – so unnatural from the way I used to think. That was a big challenge. To face my biggest fears and not running away from it. To take a leap of faith. And I failed so many times. Miserably. I almost gave up. Seriously. But I didn’t – and the man who loves me, was holding on to me and made sure I never gave up. I am so grateful.

Basically, what I’ve been doing for the past few years was to break free from my prison (inside myself and in the toxic relationships), losing my old skin, my home and sense of identity, cleaning out the remains of the PTSD, building a new confidence and self esteem, reunited with my core – and with my creativity and with my art again after almost 5 years of blockages, found a new skin to live in, making myself comfortable in that skin, building a new home, a new identity based on what I found in my core – and with self forgiveness, a new self respect and starting to love myself and who I really am (not who I want to be or how other people define me), I could finally see that I do deserve to be happy and that I deserve to be loved by another person, something that the toxic relationships made sure that I never could experience before.

I’m proud of all my accomplishments – and now it’s time to stop focusing on building and starting over – and instead just actually enjoy life and everything I have created for myself.

In only a few days, I’ll meet my new love – Johnny, who’s coming over from the States to see me. I feel excited and a little nervous. I’m thinking, if everything feels right, then I’ll probably have to move to the other side of the world at some point and that is a little intimidating. But I’m trying to stay in the present, where I feel happy and at peace. And – if that would happen, I am pretty good at starting over. These last couple of years has been very hard, but also the best years of my life. Because I proved to myself that I am able to overcome whatever comes my way. That is all I need to remember when life feels a little scary or uncertain.

No more starting over, for now. This is the beginning of my a new life – my life, and I feel so excited.

The distance

2015-09-262015-09-264 Comments

[photo found on tumblr)

I’m feeling restless. Frustrated. In my mind, I am trying to expand my body so it can reach all the way across the Atlantic ocean to America, so I can wrap myself around the man I love. To melt with him in every way possible – or I guess in all the impossible ways. To fall in love is easy, but to build a real and solid foundation of a relationship with someone on the other side of the world is hard. It is hard work and takes a lot of ambition, to overcome the frustration and to deal with the two dimensional world of talking on the phone. But I’ve never felt closer to anyone in my life. We have created a world of our own, our home, with sensuality and intimacy as the core of that home. It is an incredible experience.

If I close my eyes while we are talking, I can feel how the two dimensional reality is dissolving and transforming into a timeless room, filled with warm light and body heat. It’s all there, in the silences between us, or in the sound of his voice – our world and its strong heartbeats. He can touch me gently with his breath, in places I don’t even recognize in myself, he can light my fire so easily by looking at me through the digital blindness.

I didn’t know it could all be there, without me being there at all. Physically I mean. But he will be here – soon. Only a month to go until I can wrap myself around the man I love.

Why I am “jealous” of gay people

2015-08-142015-08-168 Comments

Even if I don’t envy the hardship and the struggles that gay people have to endure on a daily basis; the prejudice, the ignorance and the cruelty of narrow-minded people and societies, they do have something I wish was available for all of us to use at some point in our lives: a closet to come out of.

In my entire adult life I have found (heterosexual) sex to be the most difficult and confusing thing I know. I’ve had a series of relationships and the sex in all of them always felt uncomfortable and sometimes even painful. Although I was struggling with penetration pain for almost 15 years, I was struggling with something just as painful: emotional numbness and boredom during sex. I couldn’t feel IT, I couldn’t relax and enjoy myself – and I was not feeling any pleasure. While I could follow my lovers excitement and pleasure all the way to the climax while we were having sex, I was having a totally different experience.

I was traumatized, totally disassociated, distant and bored out of my mind. I couldn’t understand what was wrong with me and I started to hate my body, my pussy and my own sexuality. But at the same time, I could feel how sexual I was, how I was longing to be touched “the right way”, to be fucked “my way” and to be seduced and teased so I wouldn’t be able to take it anymore and just unleash and be as sexual as I knew I was even though I didn’t have any experience of it. I was a butterfly trapped inside a jar and I couldn’t breathe or fly. I was a roaring lioness but chained and drugged in my cage.

My cage was the relationship – the mainstream version of a monogynous relationship, and the jar was my fear to look at the nature of my own sexuality and acknowledging its power and force.

Once I started to do that – everything else was falling apart. I went to sexual therapy (all alone, without my boyfriend) to “fix” whatever was wrong with me and my body so I could enjoy our sex life again, because it was so good in the beginning. Not once did I think that this might not be MY problem, that perhaps the problems didn’t have anything to do with me at all. Not even once.

I was the one who was experiencing the penetration pain, I was the one who hated my body, I was the one who felt gross and disgusting when I looked at myself naked in the mirror, I was the one who couldn’t relax and surrender to my boyfriend and the moment, I was the one who was a mess and felt like crap about sex. My boyfriends were all fine with the sex and their bodies. They had crooked penises, small ones, big ones, they were fat, skinny, tall, short, they had all kinds of weird sexual fetishes, loved to show off their sexual power or wanted to be dominated and they didn’t feel weird or awkward about it. They were all sexually confident (or like “whatever”) and I was confused and lost. The problem HAD to be mine.

I was the problem.

But after a year in sexual therapy, I was finding pieces of my sexuality that I didn’t know existed – or that I had repressed in order to fit into the mainstream idea of a relationship and its boring sexual routines. And this is what I found: I am VERY VERY sexual, I don’t like to be either sexually submissive or a dominatrix – I want to feel like an equal, I don’t enjoy sexual routines (like “foreplay-blowjob/being-licked-doggystyle-some-missionary-more-blowjobs-more-doggystyle-my-orgasm-and-the-big-finale-his-cum-on-my-tits/ass/face-and-then-feel-like-“OK-that-was-that”) I want the sex to feel like a dance – like pure energy being produced and released through my entire being. And I need to feel deeply connected to my lover, not just like the sex is part of the relationship because that’s what a normal, healthy relationship SHOULD include, like a duty or a responsibility, I need to be seduced and teased in order to feel sexually curious, awaken and stimulated, if I’m not, if you try to fuck me after a little foreplay (a foreplay that is ALL about getting me wet, not as a time to really connect through intimacy and love, but more like a necessary act before the “real sex” can begin), my pussy will be dry and the penetration will be extremely painful (like pouring acid into an open wound), it’s very simple really – I am not a machine that you have to lubricate so it can start working properly, I am not only a body that needs to get your sexual attention – I am a woman, a human being and I am sexual in my mind and heart too. That’s where the real sexuality lives anyway even though it is expressing itself through the body.

I can’t stand the mainstream idea of what sex is. I need so much more than that, I am so much more intellectual and present than it allows us to be. Before I started my journey to find out who I am sexually, I had no idea that sex is so much more than what we learn in school, hear from our friends when they share stories about their sex lives – or from the world of pornography. We think that the definition of sex is penetration and that we have to give blowjobs while the men tug our heads back and forth so our gag reflex is activated (it’s so fucking gross!), We don’t like to swallow a whole banana, we eat it like it’s supposed to be eaten, so we don’t enjoy that feeling during sex but with a cock either. It’s not a pleasant experience. We don’t like to feel like a piece of meat that you can put your cock into just because we are in love with you and because we happen to have a hole down there, we want to feel connected and loved – seen and appreciated for ALL of our existence, body, mind, heart (soul and spirit too) and invite you in because we want to feel close and a sense of total belongingness to you.

And we want to be FUCKED (so badly) but in OUR own way, not in the way you see in the porn movies. There is a balance between passionate, animalistic sex and sensuality and intimacy. It’s not only the women’s responsibility to know this balance, and to have fun with it and explore and experiment with it during sex – it’s an equal responsibility (or enjoyment). I guess you can find it in the love. Look closer. It’s there.

It was never my problem.

My body wasn’t abnormal or gross, my pussy wasn’t worthless and my sexuality was never in black and white – submissive or dominant. It was a perfect greyscale.

The problem was the shitty relationships and the boring sexual routines – colored by porn and silly mainstream ideas and definitions about what sex is suppose to be like and look like (because it’s so much about how it looks like from an outside perspective – to please the man and to live up to what a girlfriend is suppose to do for her partner), the problem was that I didn’t know that I was allowed to say “Hell no! Fuck this shit! If you can’t seduce me, if we are not connected and intimate in a way where’s there’s room for seduction and sexual exploration (without necessary props and fancy lingerie), then you aren’t allowed to come into me! It’s as simple as that!”

When I found all the missing pieces to my sexuality – I broke up with my boyfriend and began to look for something new – something true to my sexuality. I had to find out what I DIDN’T want in order to know what I really want and need in sex. No more penetration pain, no more self-loathing. No more boring sex routines or a sense of sexual duty to my partner.

I hereby reclaim every single piece of my sexuality – I am gonna spend the rest of my life exploring my sexuality with someone I feel connected too, seen by, and equal to.

I will borrow the infamous closet from the gay people and I will come out of it and proudly say:

I am NOT sexual in the way I am “supposed” to be in a monogynous heterosexual relationship (and I am not a lesbian or a sexual freak because of that). I am not interested in sex as you see it being interpreted and portrayed in porn movies. Foreplay isn’t good enough – seduction is something that demands something from both of us. There’s no room to be lazy in sex. Lazy-boring sex is not gonna do it for me.

Let’s share any sexual problems, work on them together. To feel sexually lonely and lost is awful. It always results in a feeling of shame and being inadequate.

Let’s be connected.

REALLY connected.

Let’s create fireworks!

MIA MAKILA

Lowbrow Art & Pop Surrealism

Tag: relationships