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engagedtobefree · 7 months ago

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Not yesterday, but the previous Thursday was a really great day.

I had my appointment with Chris. I got there like 15ish minutes early, and he came out and took me right back. There was so much that happened so I don’t even know what to start with. I guess I could start with saying that I finally showed up. I stumbled through it, but I still did it, so I’m incredibly happy nonetheless. I was still nervous but I was able to flirt a bit. My main intention was to give back to Chris and I did that, so mission accomplished. I don’t really remember everything I said because I was so nervous. Chris told me many times that I make him nervous, which he did at my last appointment too, then he asked if I make him nervous and I said yes. I don’t know if he can tell, but my mouth gets so dry from how nervous I am. Maybe that’s why he asked lol. I am simultaneously comfortable with him but also nervous. It’s an interesting combination. He was very complimentary and flirty as usual. Chris starts off by wishing me a Happy Mother’s Day and I laugh and tell him he’s the only person to say that to me. He’s so sweet. He said he was nervous that I wasn’t going to show and that he overthinks things, which is actually what I do too. Both this appointment and my last one I have been nervous that he was going to move me off his schedule. I didn’t say anything about that, but I did tell him I looked forward to being there. I also told him it’s cute when he acts weird and silly, that he has the nicest smile, and something else too but I forget specifically, though I know it was a compliment towards his physical appearance. I also touched him, but more on that later. Actually it’s funny because the second time he complimented my teeth I said to him, “That’s all me. I don’t want you to think I’m seeing any other hygienists on the side”. Well, he went into a whole spiel literally for several minutes about how he'd make himself my hygienist again 😂 I fully did not expect that when I said what I did. He's so silly. It's adorable.

I had an appointment with the oral surgeon last week just to check x-rays (I don’t have to go back for that again. Yay!), and Chris didn’t make an appearance. My appointment was originally mid-April, then got pushed back to the end of April, then got pushed back again to May 7th. Of course the oral surgeon was running behind, so I sat out in the waiting room for like an hour, my heart racing every time someone opened the door. Even when I was taken back, I kept on high alert but didn’t see Chris anywhere. I didn’t let it dishearten me or take it personal since I knew there was probably a reason I didn’t see him, but I was still bummed out about it. So yesterday, pretty early on in my appointment, Chris told me he went up to the Poconos for 4 days on his birthday, which was May 8th. When he was telling me about it, he told me like 3 times that he went alone lol. I’m not sure if like last time he was giving me an opening to ask if he was single or not since it wasn’t on my mind like last time, so I wasn’t reading into anything like that or looking for it. I just thought that it was a good confirmation for me that he was alone and then I was done with thinking about it. Stacy told me I should have still said something, but honestly, it didn’t even cross my mind since I had already let go of my intention to do that. I have always felt like I can trust Chris, so I decided to stop questing that. Because of that, I no longer need any sort of confirmation from him. I stopped questioning myself, so now it’s easy. The thing I do know though is that regardless, I know Chris had definitely said what he did as a way to tell me why he hadn’t been there last week. I appreciate his thoughtfulness. I like that Chris tells me certain things but not others. He gives me reassurances and his honesty, but he also leaves space for me to figure things out on my own or put 2 and 2 together, even if it's something that isn't complicated to figure out. Intellectual stimulation is something that I need, and he definitely gives me that in a few different ways, this being one of them.

He told me he was in an accident the morning before and I was thinking how I’m glad he’s okay, though I don’t think I actually said that out loud. He opened up to me a lot about his family life, and like mine, his also sounded pretty chaotic and traumatic. (I'm not going to post specifics out of respect to Chris.) He was very open, which I also appreciate. I know he probably isn’t like that with just anyone, so it makes me feel special. I also like getting to know more about him. He asked me about my parents and I oversimplified it a lot, not because I was uncomfortable sharing but because I didn’t want to spend what precious little time I had with him there talking about this kind of stuff. Funnily enough, Chris was thinking the same thing, because he told me we should talk about other stuff while we’re there. Because of what he was saying about his mom, he mentioned astrology and tarot, and added on how he doesn’t judge anyone if that’s what they’re into. It sounded like he was telling the truth, but I could sense some slight resistance beneath the surface, which would be understandable based on his own personal experience with it. I’m into both of those things though lol. I’m very practical about both, however. Like yoga, to me they are tools for healing, growth, and following my dharma. I am very aware that people do get weird about both of those things, spread false info, or use them in ways that are not helpful or serving of a higher purpose. It is very annoying and frustrating to me when I see someone, especially someone with influence, using them in ways that are stereotypically incorrect or downright harmful. So I 100% understand anyone’s trepidation towards them. What I won’t tolerate is anyone like the stupid, pompous men on the internet I see quite often that try to veil their blatant sexism by attacking women for what they’re interested in. I know that Chris does not fall into that category at all though.

Him telling me about his parents though was a big reassurance. Even though nothing has gone anywhere yet between Chris and I, I’ve already started worrying about him meeting my mom. She is a difficult person to deal with. There’s been no doubt in my mind that if anyone is capable of dealing with her with ease and efficiency, it’s Chris, but I still dreaded the thought of him even having to do that. I’m not happy that he understands because I know how absolutely awful it is when your parents are difficult and unstable, but in another way, it’s a sense of relief. I act very differently around my mom than I do normally. I’m very closed off with her, and my patience is in short supply. There are times where I try to enter a compassionate mindset for her, but it’s difficult for me to stay there long-term. I understand that my mom has her own trauma and was not helped in the ways she should’ve been when she did seek help, but I also recognize it is no excuse for her behavior and how she has treated me throughout my life, especially when I was younger and helpless. I was also worried that maybe Chris would see me differently because of how I act around my mom, so it’s also a reassurance in that sense as well. There are reasons why I have walls up between my mother and I, and they will never come down. Any time I even give my mom the tiniest bit of info about anything in my life, she turns it into something negative and catastrophic, a dramatic tragedy that must be acted out in four acts before reaching an anticlimactic conclusion. This is just one of her many unnerving talents, and it’s not even the worst of them. She also says things that are inappropriate or just wildly inaccurate. I’m going on a weekend retreat in July and one of the teachers is from Canada, and she not only freaked out because of me doing something as a grown adult, but she also said how Canada has the highest human trafficking rate in the entire world, which obviously is so far from true. I really don’t know how she comes up with this stuff. This is just one recent example, and a mild one at that. She did end up buying my train ticket to the retreat for me, which was nice, but it took a bit for us to get there. My mom has certainly improved with some things, and I can recognize certain efforts she’s currently making, but unless she manages to do a complete 180, which is doubtful, our relationship with each other will never be a close one. I need to protect my own well-being and mental health.

I noticed about half way through my appointment that Chris seemed to be rushing through it. I thought that was weird and wondered why he would do that, but I didn’t have time to think over anything because Chris started talking again. When he was finished with my cleaning, he said he wasn’t going to call the dentist in since my mouth always looks fine. I’ve never been to a cleaning where the dentist wasn’t called in to look at my mouth afterwards. When we had gone back to the room, I immediately noticed we’re in a different one from all my previous appointments with Chris. Normally, I wouldn’t remember something like that, but I’m always hyper aware of my surroundings when I’m there. The room Chris picked that day is in the back, at the end of a hallway. He told me some supervisor or whoever was there that day, so at first I assumed he picked that room just to have some peace and to be left alone. I was wrong, at least partially so. After he was finished, he booked my next appointment, then after a few minutes or so, he sat up on the counter smiling. He said since his appointment before me didn’t show up and he took me back early, with his next appointment not being until 4:10, we had time to just sit back there. I turned and looked at the clock and it was only 3:20-something. Everything clicked then. The reason he chose the back room, the reason he didn’t call in the doctor, the reason he rushed through my cleaning…it was so that we had time to just sit and talk. He completely surprised me with that 😭😭😭 I have noticed about Chris that he seems to have an intent and purpose for saying and doing certain things, then he puts everything into action. I find it admirable. I know that the reason things haven’t really gone anywhere outside of his work is fully purposeful on his end. He has some sort of intention there, some reasoning as to why, and so I know when he does move forward it will also be purposeful and intentional. I trust him, so I’ve learned to find contentment with waiting. I can trust that whatever it is, whether I can predict the outcome or not, Chris will take us in a certain direction and get us where he intends to go. I like that. There is a sense of safety and comfort in that, even when I can’t see the end destination.

Chris did mention how he was supposed to go to Maryland and pick up a motorcycle this weekend, and he asked if I’ve ever ridden on one, which I haven’t. He said we would have to change that this summer. That surprised me, but it made me feel hopeful. Summertime actually sounds nice. Lately I’ve actually felt really accepting of things not progressing, and I’ve been fully enjoying the extra time to continue to work on some things and tie up some loose ends. I feel like I’m just about ready though. I had been thinking how it would be nice to do something more physical with him, since I just want him to touch me as much as possible, and I had been thinking how it’s a shame that it’s not October because then we could do some haunted attraction sort of thing. When I thought about that though, I had a distinct feeling that it won’t be that long, so when Chris said the summer, that actually felt lighter, more accurate. I’d also get to touch him if we ride on the motorcycle 😈

Chris took off his smock (idk the name of it - the internet says gown or jacket but those don’t seem right to me), so I finally get to see his body better. I had actually been thinking for a few weeks now how I wish I could see him in his scrubs, and well, some dreams really do come true. He’s in black from head to toe. He looks really good. It only takes a moment of me looking at him to come up with a new wish: to see him with nothing on at all. He does keep saying how hot he is because he’s nervous, so technically I could say what I’m thinking, but I decided that for the time being I’m not going to flirt in any sexual way. The computer in this room is right behind the patient chair, so his butt was right near my face when he was at the computer and oh my Lord 🫠🫠🫠 Forgive me father, for in my mind, I am sinning. He blessed me twice by going to the computer again when I asked if he had an appointment card for me. I had actually touched Chris twice during my appointment, once while he was working on my mouth and then again when he was at the computer. His skin was very soft. I connected this to that one poem Chris is in that I mentioned in another post. One of the lines I wrote about Chris was: “To know you is to know God, to see you is to see straight into the heart of heaven, and so touching you is an act of forgiveness I can’t follow through on.” I wasn’t just talking about touching, but also moving forward in general, but still, I touched Chris. I hadn’t realized this till later in the day. I feel okay. I feel good. I’ve worked through a lot of things and it’s nice to see myself moving forward now, letting go of past hurts and releasing any shame I’ve been holding onto. The bits before that are really about this knowing that I’ve always had since day one that Chris is special. He has a goodness about him that I’ve always sensed. I remember specifically thinking at my first appointment with him, “This is a good man”. I really didn’t have any particular reason for thinking that; it was just something I could sense. And I don’t do that, I don’t go around just thinking men are good, so that really says something that I felt that way. It’s not that I think all men are bad or anything, and I know that terrible women exist too, but I do think it’s rare to find a man who is well-roundedly good. Okay, so back to the poem. In regards to the first two-thirds of the line, there’s a bit more to them than what I explained about them, obviously, but that’s the simplest way I can put it, I guess, and all I really want to explain here. What I love about writing poetry is that I can write one thing and there’s the surface level meaning, but then there’s deeper meaning underneath it. What I can say in just one sentence could garner a whole paragraph of me explaining what I meant by that one sentence.

It’s funny too because in my poems I always use a lot of religious imagery, I think because those words tend to invoke such strong imagery or meaning. Because of attending 13 years of Catholic school, I am forever cursed to use those words in my writing, even though I am no longer Catholic. Chris asked me if I practice any religion and I took a moment to think over my response. I told him not really, but that because of yoga I do engage in Hindu practices. I am hesitant to call myself Hindu for multiple reasons: I feel like my knowledge is still pretty limited, I am not consistent with practices, and Hinduphobia is still a very real thing. I think the last one is probably my biggest hesitation because Indian Hindus have had to deal with a lot of fear-mongering around their religion, and in certain parts of India they have to be careful because they could be jumped, raped, or murdered by Muslims over there. I would also be completely safe from the Caste system, though from what I’ve read, the Caste system was created as a way to politicize the religion. I'd also be exempt from any sort of arranged marriage. I guess through acknowledgement of my privilege in these regards would be good enough though. Many Hindus, like with other Eastern religions, consider what they practice as more of a philosophy rather than a religion. I can see that, because they are very much structured in a way where you can choose your own beliefs and your own path, with some baseline rules/guidelines that are really there out of respect and to establish some basic principles. I did see a post recently, I think it was on tumblr actually, where someone was saying how even if you’re just starting out and learning, you can still say that you practice that religion. So that is also something for me to think over, I suppose. Anyway, back to Chris. He responded back to me with something along the lines of “Oh okay, so Hinduism, Buddhism, things like that.” Then he said that’s probably about as far as he’d go too and that like me, he grew up Catholic. (He’s also Italian on his dad’s side and Irish on his mom’s like me too.) I can appreciate Buddhism and like some of the practices, but I don’t feel as connected to it as I do with Hinduism. I also find certain things about it boring, or they simply don’t resonate. I wouldn’t really care if Chris practiced anything or not, as I see choice of religion as something that should be deeply personal and not forced on anyone. There are multiple paths to get to the same destination. I did find it interesting the little bit he had said back to me though. I am curious to hear what his thoughts would be on other things in regards to that topic. I’m curious to hear what he has to say in general about anything, honestly, which is funny. It’s very hard for anyone to pique my curiosity in this way, even friends. I honestly have never been so curious to learn about anyone ever. It's not that I am never interested in what anyone else has to say or whatnot, but just not to such a strong degree.

Going back to the line in my poem for a sec, I didn't use the words "God" and "heaven" thinking about them in a Christian sense, but rather more generalized. Some words I've come to see as religious-neutral, if you will. Kinda like gender-neutral lol. In Hinduism, "God" is usually referred to as Brahman. The concept of Brahman definitely differs from the Christian God, though there are still multiple ways to view/interpret Brahman, but I've seen plenty of Hindu texts and read enough of it at this point to see the word God used fairly often. So to me, God no longer evokes much connection to Christianity tbh. I've also seen "heaven" used a handful of times in Hindu texts as well. Even within religions where reincarnation is the general consensus, there is still some sort of afterlife we are said to go to before that reincarnation happens. So "heaven" does not automatically equate to the Christian heaven for me now either. To me, they are simply words to express aspects of the divine.

Chris tells me he only works Monday through Thursday, with Fridays off, but that he does other stuff on the side for work. He stops talking and stares at me while I'm sitting there thinking, "Oh I wonder what else he does" but just like with the accident thing, I don't actually say what I'm thinking 😑 There is always a sort of disconnect between my brain and my mouth where I do not say something that there would be no issue with saying, or when I do actually say something, in the time it takes for my thought to travel to my mouth, the words that come out barely resemble the original thought. It's very frustrating at times. I say a lot of things I don't mean to say, or I don't say things at all when I want to. I’m in the process of learning just how much ADHD fucks with my life literally every day and I don’t like it. More on that later. I can also tell that Chris is a hard worker, which I like. Before Chris sat up on the counter, he had been going through my file. He said my birthday out loud, smiling while he did so, and he told me his birth year was 1987, which I had already figured out anyway since I had asked his age last year and he told me 36, so I did the math already lol. I was born in 1991. It's funny actually, one day last week I had been thinking about Chris when I opened up my personal email, and right at that second I received an email from the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation. In 2020, every month I donated to a few new places, which I don't recommend since they will constantly bombard you with emails and spam mail, but a few places I stayed subscribed to for whatever reasons. The C&D Foundation was one. I got curious and googled both of the Reeves and I shit you not, I literally cannot make this stuff up.

How funny is that??? I saw it and thought it was a cute coincidence.

At one point we get talking about Philly and I mention how I went to Temple. He says how bad it is there, which I already know lol, though campus was pretty safe. Then he says how you could get robbed, murdered, or God forbid, raped. That caught my attention because I thought it was really interesting that he said it like that. I don't think many people, men especially, would put rape before murder. Actually, in the Webtoons app on some comic I was reading forever ago, there was a discussion on one of the episodes where people were arguing in the comments about whether rape or murder was worse. Some people were on the fence, some said murder, a few said rape. I thought it was such a stupid conversation to have in the first place because both are terrible. People argue over the dumbest shit. Just say both are terrible and move on. It's weird to me when people make competitions out of things that really shouldn't be made into competitions. Anyway, I am curious as to why he would put it like that. Maybe there's no particular reason and I'm just overthinking it.

He also asks me about yoga and says he does yin and restorative. I knew about the yin, but the restorative is new. I tell him that's good since it balances his hockey. Yin and restorative would be both considered yin practices, whereas hockey would be yang. I didn't think of it at the moment, but doing some hatha would also be good since it would target smaller muscles that hockey doesn't and also it would be good for his spine. I know he leans over a lot because of his job, and both yin and restorative involve a lot of rounding of the spine usually, so hatha would bring in more space, lengthening, and straightening there. Yoga is really all about the spine in many ways, not just physically but energetically as well. I operate under the mindset that regardless of other activities, everyone should practice different types of yoga. I didn't think in the moment to say any of that, I think because I was just so impressed with his ability to naturally gravitate towards a practice that would bring in some balance towards his physical activities. Many people tend to only stick with one type (ie. People who are very active may gravitate towards the active yoga styles, where it would benefit them to do those less). I can always make suggestions to him later though. He did say I could show him some yoga, which I agreed I could do. He said he's pretty flexible and he posed real quick in a seated warrior. He was definitely showing off, but not at all in a bad way. It was really cute. If he was trying to charm me, it worked.

Of course, Chris took his mask off after he was finished with my cleaning. I get to observe his face more. He has features that I've always found attractive: brown eyes, imperfect teeth, lips on the thinner side, darker hair (though I also find the gray sexy). Not that I'm attracted to just anyone with those features though. I never come across anyone I’m attracted to lol. I can acknowledge someone is attractive but I don't really care about that. It doesn't make me attracted to them. It's very weird to me when people harp on about an attractive celebrity or follow people on social media just because they're good looking. I'm an outlier in that sense, I think. Someone being attractive just isn't something for me to linger on or care about in any way, unless I'm in a certain low mindset where I'm comparing myself to someone else, and even then, obviously it would only be other women. However, I am very attracted to Chris and think he's very handsome. His eyes really send me into another world. At one point we just locked eyes and smiled at each other and it was so nice. I was trying to think of something to compare his eye color to, something natural, but honestly every brown I come across seems too dull and also isn't the right shade. If I had to pick something, I would say the chocolate chips in homemade cookies that just came out of the oven. I'm fairly certain the color would be accurate, but they're also warm and glistening just like Chris's eyes.

Seeing all of him is quite the experience. I haven’t really had the chance for that to happen, since I’ve only been able to really see his face briefly and because of his work clothes, I also haven’t been able to see his body well. I mean, I have still been attracted to him since day one, even physically, like that pull was always there, but I haven’t been able to see him fully until now. And it’s making me crazy. The second time I had touched him, I gently brought my fingers to the tattoo above his right elbow. It’s an alien smoking lol. He told me his one sister did it for him and that she also did one above his hip. He doesn’t say what the one above his hip is, but I probably wouldn’t have heard him anyway because my mind immediately latched onto what his hips look like, then that thought morphed into imagining what it would feel like for his hips to thrust up against me, his hard body hitting up against the softness of mine. 🙃🙃🙃 I am definitely not alone in my dirty thoughts though. Chris has always expressed when his thoughts have wandered into that direction, and I actually got to see it this time. It was towards the end of my cleaning when Chris had gotten up, and I felt some toothpaste around my mouth. I stuck my tongue out and over to the right to try and lick it off. Chris had turned around so we were facing each other, and I looked over at him and was surprised to see a serious look on his face while he was staring intently at me. I immediately could tell he was having dirty thoughts, but it took me a second to realize it was because of what I was doing. It didn’t even cross my mind that me trying to lick toothpaste off around my mouth would come across as sexy lol. I do like the face he’s making though. Seeing him turned on is a turn on for me.

Chris had touched me at my one appointment with him, the one from last May. Based on what I’ve observed, he seems like he would be very physically affectionate, so I am curious as to why he hasn’t touched me again. Maybe he thought it wasn’t well-received, but it was. I want him to pull me in close. I want that a lot. He would also make a very good addition to me and Weasley’s snuggle sessions. I want to know what he feels like up close. I want to feel his body heat and what his arms feel like wrapped around me. I want to know everything there is to know. I want to experience everything about him, both internally and externally.

Chris makes me really nervous, but in a good way, but it does make my mind go blank at times so I can’t think of anything to say, so at a certain point I look down at my ring and play with it for a few seconds, moving it up and down. When I look back up, Chris is watching me and smiling. He can probably tell that I'm nervous. We talk a bit more about a few things: he approves of the toothpaste I use, I make fun of his handwriting on my appt card, I mention how I'll be cutting a lot of my hair off soon, I mention how I shed everywhere and he asks me if he thinks any hair would come out if he pulled it lol. He has to get ready for his next appointment, so I have to leave. When I get up, he tells me I look really good. I have my gaze cast downwards as I adjust my pants, and I wish I had looked up to see what his face looked like at that moment, especially because we were standing so close. I tell him to let me know when he's not busy so we can go do something, and he says he will. He kept saying during my whole appointment that he's always really busy. It would be nice to see him more often than every 6 months, so I wanted to give him the green light to do that if he does want to. He told me to text him, so maybe he was also telling me in his own way to reach out. When I do message him, he doesn't usually say much, so I never know whether he wants to talk to me or not. Maybe I have just been getting him at bad times, or maybe he doesn't realize that he's not that great at messaging lol. He told me the same thing at the end of my last appointment, so I guess he does want to hear from me. I will just have to reach out with something more specific rather than asking how he's doing, cuz that doesn't get me anywhere. I am cutting my hair within the next few weeks and I told him he'd see it, so I could send him that.

I did message him on Sunday to ask if he got his motorcycle, and he told me he had just gotten back with it and that he had to register it and whatnot. I was really excited for him. He told me how he had been messaging with this guy on Facebook about a motorcycle, but the guy gave it to someone else, which is why he ended up going to Maryland for this one. He seemed bummed about the other one, but I could tell he was still excited to have found another bike. I was genuinely happy for him. When I messaged him too it was because I was honestly curious and hoping that it worked out for him. I wasn’t trying to force anything. I tend to always keep a tight grip on things, pushing to make stuff happen, not just romantically but in all areas of my life. In esoteric terms, this is known as Masculine energy. I do best when I release that and get into Feminine energy instead, a state of flow, allowing, and trusting. It took me a bit to get here, but it feels nice and comforting now that I’ve arrived. Being in this state in the past has also ended up being times where things have gone smoothly for me. Everyone has both Masc and Fem energies within them, as certain times and situations require one over the other, but we all also have a natural energy that is best for us to default to. It’s not always the same as your gender/sex, though for many people it could be. Mine is definitely feminine.

I want to go back to the “busy” thing for a moment too. He repeated it several times throughout my entire appointment, but that’s not the only thing he kept repeating. He also kept saying how since his appt before me didn’t show up, he didn’t want to keep me waiting. I didn’t think there was a need for him to repeat either thing, so then I started wondering if he had a reason for repeating them. Was he trying to tell me something else? Was he trying to tell me that he just has things going on and that he hasn’t been purposely making me wait for something to finally happen? I’m not sure. It could be me just reading too much into things, but at all my other appointments, he hasn’t repeated himself like that.

Chris talks a bit about his schooling and how he needed to learn a lot about nutrition. I try to contribute like one thing, but he already knew 😑 So I’m just not going to contribute to that topic ever unless it’s something he says he doesn’t know. I was so embarrassed, which wasn’t his fault at all. I did it to myself. It's really cute how he doesn't know where any place is. At my last appointment I mentioned 2 areas he's never been to, and it happened at least 3 times at this appointment. He does know where I live since he went to the college near my apartment. The final time I mentioned an area he didn't know about was when he was talking about Route 1**. I said oh i grew up in B******r. I thought maybe he might know it since part of that route runs straight through town, but he said he didn't. I smiled and looked at him also smiling, and there was a certain sparkle in his eye, like he was prepared for me to make a comment on how he doesnt know where anyplace is, which I was highly considering just when the check-out desk lady walked in. She has someone's file that is missing some sort of chart. They're talking a lot of dental office jargon so mostly I'm not paying attention and just watching Chris, thinking about how biteable his bottom lip is. After she leaves, he asks me what else I've been up to and I tell him how I started playing guitar again. He exclaimed "yeah-eahhh!!" And it was so genuine 😭 He asked if I would write any of my own stuff and I said I probably would but that I'm not there yet, but that I've been writing a new poem every day this year. I notice I’ve shed my hair a few times all over the seat and I say something about it. I have medium-thick hair and Weasley has medium-length, thick fur, so I am always cleaning up hair and fur that gets everywhere. I tell Chris how I am always finding clumps of my hair or Weasley’s fur everywhere, and Chris says he wouldn’t mind.

Traffic was god awful on my way home, so it took me almost double the time to get home. I was only in the door for a few minutes when he messaged me saying, "You're sexy as hell". I responded back thanking him and saying right back at ya, and he responded with the smiley devil emoji 😈. So that was all he had to say. He's too funny.

When I got into bed Thursday night, I was assessing how I was feeling because it hit me that I felt a sort of fullness. I wanted to take a closer look at that. The usual that I've felt since day one were all there: content, warm, seen, understood. There were two that were not necessarily new, but that I felt more strongly this time: enough and whole. The latter two stood out to me, as well as the understood one. It's interesting because I have felt very misunderstood lately, but I easily slipped out of that somehow because of Chris. I still don't quite understand that, but that's okay. Just because I have a question doesn't mean it needs to be answered right away. The enoughness thing stood out to me for several reasons. One being that it's a really good way for me to gauge that Chris is being genuine, and second being that I know some things I will never have to worry about. I still have some underlying relationship fears, and they haven't come up yet but I'm sure at some point they will, but I know that either they won't be an issue with Chris or if they do pop up that they will be able to be handled in a sensitive and constructive manner. I know that I can rest. It's a strange feeling simply because it is foreign to me. I am not used to not having the rug pulled out from underneath me. I'm not used to not being on guard, waiting for something shitty to be said to me/about me or done to me. I'm not used to not going home and crying because someone else was so careless, reckless, selfish. I know I don't know Chris that well, so I really don't have any way of explaining how I know that none of that will be an issue. I guess it's a combined effort of what I've observed so far and some sort of intuitive knowing that I can't quite explain logically. And the whole wholeness thing...it's not that I am incomplete on my own or anything like that. I don't actually know how to explain that feeling further or rationalize it, I just feel that it's there. I don't know if that makes sense or not. Like, I can feel it, I can identify what that feeling is, but I'm not sure why I feel it or what it means. Another question I don't have an answer to yet. After my appointment with Chris I thought oh wow nothing weird happened this time, which I was fine with since enough has already happened since day one. But now upon further reflection, I realize I was wrong lol.

I was thinking about how if Chris's eyes are the chocolate chips, then the rest of him is the rest of the homemade cookie. He's warm, sweet, delightful, and enjoyable 😊🥰😋🤤 I also could indulge in him every day. He is a nice balance of consistent and surprising, sweet and silly, cute and sexy. For most of the time I've known him, I have kept thinking, "God, this man just seems too good to be true", but I stopped thinking that. I think that Chris is actually genuinely, decently good. I can rest. I can rest here in the safeness of this person and it makes me want to cry. Safety has been such a foreign concept to me, and it’s only one I’ve ever really found within myself. I don’t have much, but I have a roof over my head, a place that’s my own, and I’ve worked hard to become the person that I am today and that I’m still becoming. Growing up was always like walking on eggshells, on waiting to be told or shown how terrible I was. Growing into an adult wasn’t much different. While I have good friendships with people I do trust, mainly women, it is still not the same. It is not the same as this. Sometimes I feel weird writing all of this stuff about Chris. Scratch that, I always feel weird writing this stuff about Chris. I don’t know how he would feel reading it, seeing how this woman who barely knows him somehow has all of this beneath the surface and all because of him. I really don’t understand a lot of it. I wouldn’t even be able to explain. The things I’ve noticed about him and that I like, certainly, I can explain that stuff. But the things where I’m like, “Okay, so this weird thing happened” or “I just know”, those things I have no explanation for. Some of it I could try to rationalize, but other stuff, there’s nothing definitive to point to. It’s just there. It doesn’t make sense to me that it’s there, but it is, and I don’t want to feel sorry about that, but on some level I do, because I feel like it might be seen as very odd that I have all of this going on within me while in the physical realm nothing has progressed much to warrant all of that. I’m not forcing anything either; this all just keeps coming up. I have been very, very self-aware that my past self has at times put people on a pedestal and tried to make them fit into my idea of them, and so I’ve been keeping tabs on myself, making sure I’m not doing that, not building someone up inside my mind. I haven’t done that at all with Chris. I’ve simply been observing him, taking him at face-value as best I can, then all this stuff hit me out of nowhere without me looking for it or trying to make something happen. It’s natural. All of it. A part of me feels guilty, but it’s honestly been out of my control. I’m trying my best not to think about it and to just keep focusing on what I can control, but it still pops up here and there. I don’t know if the same thing is happening on Chris’s end, so in my mind I’m just like, “I’m sorry if this is weird 😭”. I have to trust it though. Nothing like this has ever happened to me. I’ve never met anyone like Chris. There’s definitely something there and despite not knowing for certain what it is, I’m going to lean into that. This is special. Chris is special. Those two things I’m certain of.

I’ve also always kind of had the mindset of questioning the good in my life. I’ve always wondered what makes me deserving of it. Even up until very recently, I’ve still had these thoughts. Somehow, I’ve been working through that without even intending to. By no longer questioning this, I’ve also found a shift within myself to acknowledge that if this really is a good thing, if Chris is really a good man, then I am deserving of all of it. Another thing I can’t explain, but being around Chris Thursday also seemed to really push me in that direction. When I fell asleep that night, that was part of that enoughness feeling. I don’t have to be a saint to have good things and good people in my life. I don’t need to be perfect in order for a good relationship and good person to enter my life. That might sound kind of stupid, but for me in a certain sense, it’s revelatory. And of course, it’s not just Chris. I have been working hard on releasing and healing certain things that have definitely been affecting this shift as well, so I don’t want to discount that because it would be doing myself a disservice. I’m excited to see what will come of this, but for now, I am just trying to enjoy where I’m at in the present on my own journey.

Since I've already hinted at it a few times, I'm going to transition into talking about my ADHD now. I am finally back on Strattera!!!!! In chronological order, I have been on: Strattera, Wellbutrin, Vyvanse, Concerta, and Adderall. For over a year now I have been trying one thing after another, getting mixed results and side effects. Strattera is the only thing that helped with all of my symptoms, but I had developed really bad Akathisia when I went up to 40 mg. So we are going to keep me at 25 mg for 2-3 months and see how I do on that. I’ve only been taking it again for 2 weeks, so it hasn’t kicked in yet. It usually takes about 6-8 weeks to notice any changes. Even if 25 mg doesn’t do anything, I know that 40 will, so that is something to look forward to, but we will just have to figure out what to do regarding the Akathisia. I could wait it out this time to see if it passes, because there’s a chance it might. My therapist also told me there is a medication to combat it, so I could ask my psychiatrist if she knows about that. While I’d rather not add another medication on top, I will if that’s what it takes. The relief that Strattera gave me was amazing. Nothing was difficult. I was able to do everything I wanted to in a day without wasting time lost in useless thoughts or mental resistance. My focus was insane, as was my productivity. I didn’t have several thoughts in my head bombarding me all at once. I didn’t get overstimulated, or lose track of my thoughts, or forget what I was talking about half-way through a sentence, or put something down and forget where I put it as soon as I leave the room, or get constantly distracted, or struggle with finding the right words, or space out and struggle with paying attention, or feel like every little task was this huge mountain to climb. Everything was so fucking easy and I remember thinking, “Oh okay, so this is what it’s like to be normal”. People without ADHD just do things, and that is such a foreign concept to me. I remember one night after work, I cooked dinner, ate, cleaned up, did yoga, read a book, and it was only 8:30 by the time I finished! Normally, just mustering up the energy to cook and eat will take me to like 7:00/7:30. What else I do in a night is a mystery to me because I rarely get anything done. Lately I’ve been making sure my headphones are charged so that I can pop on some music or podcasts. It’s literally the only way for me to push through and do stuff. It’s not full-proof, and I don't get everything done that I need to, but it’s better than nothing. I don’t know what it is, but maybe it gives me something else to focus on other than the task. It’s not even that I find stuff boring or don’t want to get stuff done, there’s just no dopamine in doing certain things, so it’s hard for me to initiate.

I had the pharmacogenetics test done back in February, but only recently a few weeks ago found out it came with a diagnostic portion. I looked over mine and there was one section in blue that stood out:

I thought seeing something like that would make me feel good, but it didn’t. On one hand, I had something to show my mom, who kept complaining about not having definitive “proof” of me having ADHD despite me having been evaluated and diagnosed by three separate psychiatrists over the last decade, but on the other hand, seeing it there made me feel like there was really something wrong with me. Like, I already knew that there was, but seeing it “on paper” hit a bit differently. I’ve been reading up a lot this past year on ADHD and a lot of things I never even knew were symptoms are. Certain things that I’ve always thought were character flaws are actually not that at all. It’s been simultaneously enlightening and depressing. I’ve also seen how other people, aside from my mom, react to me telling them I have ADHD. People give me a look, like they’re not sure whether to believe me, and I’ve even been asked, “Are you sure?”, as if I haven’t lived through this struggle every day of my life. There’s a reason why I have continued to pursue a diagnosis and treatment. I have read enough about ADHD to know that I have it, to look at my life and recognize that the things I struggle with daily are not my fault. None of it is some personal moral failings, it’s literally because I have a mental illness/disability that prevents me from living and acting in ways that are easy to others, and here was the proof of that, right before my eyes. Girls are less likely to be diagnosed with ADHD because they display symptoms differently from boys, even when the hyperactivity is active and recognizable, so many don’t get proper diagnosis until they reach adulthood. Growing up people around me always commented on how I was in my own world, I got called an airhead, I always got in trouble for not paying attention. Not a single adult in my life ever brought up that I might have ADHD. I know it was a different time when I was growing up, but it still hurts. I also really hate how people still treat mental health. My mental health shouldn’t be commented on, yet people make it their business to. Everyone thinks they’re a psychiatrist and that they have the right to affirm or deny another person’s diagnosis simply because of their own inflated sense of ego that tells them their opinion is fact and that just because they haven’t seen something means it must not exist. Acting like the brain can’t get sick is so stupid. It’s our most complex organ, yet people act like mental illnesses aren’t real or aren’t a big deal, despite the brain literally affecting everything. I can’t stand humanity sometimes.

There’s been a lot of studies done on the COMT genetic mutation and its association with ADHD. There’s different types of mutations and the one I have, the Val/Val mutation, has the highest connection to ADHD symptoms. That mutation is seen more in those with the external hyperactive symptoms, but it doesn’t mean that external hyperactivity will definitely be there. (I say external here because the “hyperactive” elements are still present in those with ADD subtype, it’s just that the hyperactivity is confined to the mind.) When this gene has the mutation of producing too many enzymes, then that means dopamine is getting processed too quickly in the prefrontal cortex, which is where executive functioning happens. Not enough dopamine means executive functioning skills become impaired. Those with low activity of the COMT enzymes don’t process dopamine in the prefrontal cortex quick enough, which means they are at risk for having higher levels of dopamine that can result in serotonin syndrome, which when left untreated, can be deadly. Now that I’m writing about this, it actually makes sense that Strattera, a reuptake inhibitor, has been more helpful for me than stimulants. Reuptake inhibitors prevent absorption from happening too quickly, but the stimulants simply raise dopamine levels. Since my problem is dopamine being processed too quickly, simply raising dopamine levels might not be good enough, or I might have to raise them a lot. It makes sense that a reuptake inhibitor would solve my problem better. Interesting.

My psychiatrist actually originally wanted to try me on Ritalin next if the Adderall didn’t work, but the Adderall ended up giving me a really bad flare up with my bladder disorder. My psychiatrist told me how stimulants can affect the bladder, but I forget what she said regarding why that happens. Regardless, she didn’t think it was a good idea to continue down the stimulant path because of that. I’m pretty sure they have my bladder disorder on record, but maybe she overlooked it. I didn’t react to Vyvanse or Concerta, but maybe cuz they were at lower doses. If I continued on those, I would have had to increase my dosage because the lower dosages weren’t cutting it. The Vyvanse made me crash though, so I wasn’t about to increase my dosage on that. The Concerta worked fairly well for what it helped with, but it wasn’t targeting as many symptoms as I would’ve liked. I know stimmies are a different breed from the non-stimmies, so I didn’t expect them to work as well as the Straterra, but I still wanted them to feel like they were worth taking, and I never felt that way. Apparently like 20-30% of people with ADHD aren’t really affected that much by stimmies, and I think I might fall into that bracket. Unlike the Straterra, the Welly-b didn’t do anything for me except increase my anxiety, and my dosage got upped like 2 or 3 times. Each time my anxiety just got worse but none of my ADHD symptoms improved. Strattera is pretty much my only option at this point, so I’m glad that I have previously seen success with it. It gives me something to look forward to.

When I was with my old psychiatrist, she did want to drop me back down to 25 mg, but I was very impatient (another symptom of ADHD). I had been wanting to switch to a different psych office for awhile, so it ended up working out in the end, and I am glad I got to try stimmies so I can see that they don’t work well enough for me. I feel like a lot of different parts of my life are finally coming together, and I know that it’s because this past year or so has really been about me learning to be okay with waiting and being patient, working through certain things, and also to stop pushing and allow myself to simply let go. Some periods are for healing, not striving. Some periods are for deep introspection and learning, not action. I feel like I do a pretty decent job of being objective when I need to be, but the past two years have really required me to take a good hard look at myself from a multiple angles to see where I am self-sabotaging and where I have been in my own way, what I’ve been avoiding, how I’ve been lying to myself, etc. There was something I said last night in therapy about all of this, but I don’t remember what it was. It was one of those prolific things that comes in a moment of deep wisdom, that after you say it it’s gone forever. That happens to me all the time when I teach. No two classes will ever be the same because of those deep, insightful moments. Maybe one day I will figure out a way to retain that wisdom, but for now, like a butterfly I managed to catch between my palms, it will continue to fly away from me the moment I open my palms.

I have been off Adderall for about 3 weeks or so, but I'm still trying to recover from it. It messed my sleep up so badly. I already don't get enough sleep, but with Adderall it got to the point where I was only sleeping 2-4 hours a night. I'm slowly getting back to my usual 5-6 hours. Hopefully being on Strattera will get me to a healthy 7-8. Usually 7.5 is perfect for me, but that hasn't happened for a long time. I was thinking about how I don’t really have any big thing to move through atm. For the longest time, I was focusing on specific things, and now I’m just like, “Okay, what next?”. It’s probably a bit of a problem that I really don’t know what to do with myself unless I’m working through some major thing I’m dealing with. I know there’s still stuff to work through, but nothing is really asking for my attention right now. It feels weird. I think though that maybe I can use this time for extra rest, to simply focus on how I can handle some of my ADHD symptoms and to focus on restoring my sleep. That doesn’t feel quite **big** enough to garner all of my attention, even though it is very important, but I'm trying to get myself into the mindset of allowing myself to enjoy a period where I’m not working so hard. I can rest. It is okay for me to rest. (Side note: I wrote this section during my lunch today, then later, one of the tarot readers I follow posted her Friday current energy check-in, and she actually mentioned what I was talking about here for the Libra reading, which is me 😁 Ali was one of the first tarot readers I’ve ever followed, because she uses tarot correctly, so not as any sort of future-predicting kind of thing, but reading what’s there and then giving actionable advice on it. I only follow a few readers, and she’s one of them because she’s very insightful and most of the time I find her readings to be accurate in regards to my own life. Here’s the video from today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0--6Z4dKGY)

In a sense though, this is a really big thing for me to take on. It takes me at least 2-3 times as long as it takes non-ADHD people to do stuff because I have to push through mental barriers, I continuously get distracted, I start something then don’t finish it, and I have so many thoughts about one thing that it makes completing a task take so much longer. Lately I have been trying to keep up with cleaning and tidying as well as going through my entire apartment and getting rid of stuff, so that means I do not have the time or mental energy to focus on other things, like cooking good meals and attending to my hobbies like I want to. Unfortunately, focusing on one thing means everything else gets neglected a bit. If I try to focus on everything, nothing will get done, so this is a necessary sacrifice. My poems have been suffering a lot. I’m not up to par and I’ve been mostly writing haikus, senryus, and lunes most days. Writing every day has been a good way to process a lot going on in my life, the good and the bad, and I’ve been enjoying seeing what can come out of me. I wrote about my friend who had inappropriately touched me without my consent, and it’s interesting because one of the lines reminded me of something Chris said to me at my appointment with him. He said, “You have really pointy canine teeth. Did you know that?”, which of course I did lol. (He might not have said canine but several of my teeth there are really pointy, so it still stands.) I asked him if people ever came in to get the vampire teeth done and he talked a bit about that. In the poem I just mentioned I wrote, “I run my tongue across my teeth and wish I could feel daggers”. I wrote it as a way to express wishing for a natural defense mechanism against predators, which in this case would be a man. I wrote this two weeks before my appointment with Chris. There’s been quite a few things he’s said to me where it related to something I had been thinking about recently. It’s interesting.

I wrote a poem a little over a week ago about my Uncle Albert after asking my dad some questions about him during a phone conversation. He was a Libra, born on September 24, 1964, so I was right about that. My dad didn’t share a whole lot, as it was making him a bit emotional since he’s been dealing with the death of his girlfriend, but he did tell me how my Uncle Albert took home ec class in high school and how much of a terrible baker he was. I was also a terrible baker too. I wrote that in my poem, then added, “the difference is I grew old enough to get better at it”. My uncle committed suicide when he was 21. I realized something in regards to that too. So my Unlce Albert was 21, I’m fairly positive my cousin John John was 22 when he was murdered, I was 23 when I attempted suicide (though obviously I didn’t die), and my cousin Vincent was 24 when he died. None of that probably means anything, I just thought it was interesting. My brain is always trying to find connections like that. Anyway, before I began writing my poem, I just kinda put that message out there, “If you’re here, could you tell me somehow?”, then I immediately noticed the Amazon bag I had thrown on my armchair. I thought maybe it would fall off or something since it was kinda teetering on the edge. So I go down onto the floor laying on my belly, propped up on a pillow, and I’m writing away. Then when I finish, I put my pen down, and literally a second later, the Amazon bag makes a loud popping noise. I’m not sure that that is definitive “proof” of anything, but it was oddly specific. I didn’t go anywhere near the bag before I started writing, and it had been sitting there for like two days cuz I kept forgetting about it, so it wasn’t like I touched it recently or anything. I have had only smaller experiences with the other side, nothing really too crazy, though Idk what is within the normal range of what other people have experienced. I decided to sign up for this Mediumship event happening at the end of June. The guy who does them occasionally had them at the yoga studio I trained under and taught at before it closed. The owner, Barbara, was very particular about who she allowed to teach or have events at her studio, and she raved about this guy’s abilities. I always wanted to go to check it out, but never really felt “called” to do so until now. I do have some hesitation about fully believing because this guy is not just communicating with the other side in regards to himself, he’s communicating with spirits connected to other people. Then I started thinking about how I’ve had crazy experiences and apparently have spiritual abilities not everyone has that other people would probably doubt me on, so fuck it. I’ll indulge. So yeah, I’m hoping that someone comes through for me. That would be nice. I mentioned it to Joyce yesterday and she said she’s actually doing a private mediumship event in July to see if Craig comes through. I told her I would let her know how mine goes since I’ll be attending mine first. The one I’m going to isn’t private, but it is capped at 28 attendees. It’s 2 hours, but not everyone gets a message from him either because of time constraints or no one comes through. I’m crossing my fingers for myself.

So this post was not supposed to be this long 😅 I originally only intended to write about the most important things from my appointment with Chris, but ended up writing about a good 80-90% of it lol. Everything felt important. I think also because my posts about him for a while have mostly been just me overthinking everything, so it was nice to write about some good stuff happening. I can’t wait to see what happens next 🥰

#this was 15 pages in google docs #i'm a little insane #it's a jumbled mess #not in chronological order #no smooth transitions #i also switch between past and present tenses a lot #but this is too long to edit all of that #anyway going to watch lisa frankenstain and have some drinks #last week was great 🥰#chris #uncle albert #adhd #personal

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