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kassmvalencia · 2 years

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woah! time to use tumblr as my journal and if any of my very few followers happen to read, i love you.

so i guess the last time i updated, i was in a relationship. it didn’t work out. in fact, it ended horribly as i continued to discover the lies wherein it was built. honestly, it wasn’t as earth shattering as i thought it would’ve been, but it was definitely perspective shifting.

well, in the weird way the universe works, i’ve met someone else. i’ve met someone whose made me realize my tendency to stray toward the unhealthy, as they kindly and patiently guide me toward what is good and light. until i met them, i hadn’t realized how much i tolerated. i was like the metaphor of the frog in boiling water! crazy to see myself that way….

anyways, we don’t talk, but the person i was with used me, lied to me, gaslit me, love bombed me, stonewalled me, and i suspect (more than suspect) cheated on me too. it wasn’t until i finally came back to Chicago that i realized how much life i lost in the summer i spent with her. for some time i guess it really killed me that i let myself be treated that way for so long and really only because i found myself waiting for the days she treated me more kindly and put in effort to see me happy. honestly, i thought that’s how all love was supposed to be, just this endlessly waiting for the days my lover decided to love me.

anyways, fast forward to august and i SWORE to myself that i would wait until after graduation to start seriously seeing anyone again because being with my ex really impacted my academic performance. life had another plan and another lesson to teach, i guess. i met anya.

there is no other way to describe anya except as gravitational pull in human form. to be near them is to immediately feel decades and decades of love. love seeps through the sparkles of their eyes as if there wasn’t enough space to contain that love in a past life. there is a shift here. the things that didn’t fit quite right all fall seamlessly into place. everyday is xmas with anya. everyday i wake up, and i am met with kindness, with tenderness, with support, and with encouragement. there is no room in their heart for impatience and anger with me. they encourage me to be great everyday and in every corner of my life. they leave nothing more to be desired, for my cup overflows. if i need something, it was already mine. if i crave something, it’s delivered to me yesterday, if i yearn for something intangible, they would leave no rock unturned to look for it. i only strive toward loving them as deeply. it feels unreal, and i feel undeserving.

one day, if life allows, i hope to travel with anya. i hope to go to grad school in europe and backpacking in colombia and moon-bathing in iceland and whale spotting in Alaska. i hope to do it all with them. they show me what it is to be enthusiastic about life and about the unknown.

i’m hesitant about planning my life with someone (understandably so). nevertheless, i plan my life with anya, and anya plans their life with me. nothing has ever felt so aligned. i’m thankful for the hurt i’ve had to endure to be here because everything is finally falling into place.

i graduate with a B.S. in Psychology by the end of this year. I (hopefully) have a research internship lined up with my professor. I already have a potential job post-graduation. i have the most wonderful partner in the world, and it is a blessing to be loved by them every single day.

muah! goodnight <3

-kass. chicago, il. 3:47am

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oh-em-gee-wowe · 7 years

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Remembering Pulse

This one is going to be long, so I’m going to insert a read more.

I rarely understood what people meant when they remembered where they were when something important/traumatic happened. The very few times an event occurred where I remembered where I was...was 9/11, when Michael Jackson died, when gay marriage became constitutional in the United States, and when Robin Williams died.

However, each of those times were vague recollections and more feelings than anything else. Strong ones. Of grief, and where gay marriage was concerned, joy.

Pulse was different. In every way. I remembered where I was supposed to be- I was supposed to be going to Rocky Horror Picture Show with @nicolaiv and our mutual friend Scott amongst other people. I remember that I had a killer migraine earlier in the day and that I was feeling drained and that I couldn’t go, so I sent my excuses and headed to bed early. It was also Stanley Cup playoff season, and I had watched the previous game a day before.

When I woke up, I was in hell.

In my morning routine I woke up to search Tumblr,

and I read what had occurred.

I could not believe it.

Everywhere I looked, Pulse.

Pulse, Orlando, Florida.

A feeling overcame me, so strongly. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. As I read about the information that was still coming out, I felt ill.

Shooting.

The word chilled me to the bone, and it shouldn’t have shocked me but it did. Growing up in the United States and living in Texas, gun violence wasn’t new.

But the fact that someone came into a gay club, our safe haven, and shot it up?

There was a part of me that screamed in total agony.

It was like stepping back into history. Pulse came after I had made peace with my bisexuality, amongst my other labels, and I felt brave enough, queer enough, to go to Pride. I was planning to go to my very first one, as I had skipped the many from before because I wasn’t “gay” enough.

Pulse came after I took a class where I met my friend @kittykatze-331 , where I read Stone Butch Blues, among many other classic LGBT literature. After I had read what had happened to us as a community before and after Stonewall. After I learned even more about the AIDS crisis.

Pulse felt like terrible a time traveling artifact, that sent me back to the time when LGBT people were arrested in their own nightclubs, it transported me to a time that was far less safe than we have now. Though I was very much aware that we still live in dangerous times, Pulse transported me to a place that we couldn’t even go to our own nightclubs and be safe.

As I kept reading, and my day sprawled out in front of me, I remember the texts.

Did you hear?

Do you know?

Did you see?

What happened?

Oh god!

Oh no.

What are we going to do?

I ran into my kitchen where my parents were preparing breakfast and I asked,

“Did you see what happened?”

My parents were aware that I was bisexual, and had even offered to drive my friends and I to the parade maybe a week before.

I told them what had happened and they left me mostly alone for the weekend.

Pulse was a reality check in the way only a tragedy could be.

It was the dying scream of a crazy man, a “Know your place” echoed in our history, carved in our skin.

I had never felt as empty, so defeated as I had that weekend.

I remember reading articles by people in our community older than me, grieving over our own, and I could practically see the tears on their faces.

I read their apologies, their “We’re so sorry, we fought so that you would never have to experience this, we thought this was behind us, we’re sorry we failed you.” It stuck with me, and I still remember that even now. Why did they feel like they had to apologize? They were not the one who walked into that nightclub during Pride and killed so many.

I remember thinking of the community even younger than I was. The teenagers, the kids. I know I wrote something, but I can’t remember what.

I remember people in our community telling us that it was okay to grieve, that it was okay to distance ourselves, but if we could, to show up to our own local Prides. To those who could, should. Pride was the celebration of who we were. I remembered being scared of going, if only for a millisecond, to my first Pride.

But I would not let hatred influence me. I would go, and I would be careful.

As more names came out and more info came out, the one thing I remember was

Latin Night.

A night with latin music. I loved Latino music, as it was a part of my culture.

The next thought was,

It could have been me. I could have been there.

That weekend I listened and cried to my own mix of Spanish music. La Gozadera. Vivir Mi Vida. Madre Tierra. Carnaval. Camisa Negra. Reggaeton, anything to make me feel better.

I had a text chain with one of my friends about if we should die, who gets what, and what would our funeral look like. I was virtually hugging my friends. We were in pain together, and we spoke to each other the entire day, the entire weekend. I basically only talked to them. I didn’t really speak to anyone else.

And then I felt a fighting spirit within me. The Phoenix by Fall Out Boy became my new anthem. Try to fucking stop me, I thought. We will rise from the ashes. Put on your goddamn war paint.

I’m going to Pride and no one can fucking stop me.

The Penguins went on to win the Stanley Cup at the end of that weekend, the same day as the Tony’s. I remembered praying for them to win, because I needed a goddamn happy thing that weekend. Even the NHL, bathed in their homophobic culture, took a moment of silence before the game.

I think I cried when they won. My first real tangible hockey thing was connected to something deeper than love for the sport.

Then the bomb threat happened.

Houston Pride was going to be a week and a half or so after Pulse.

Someone called the police and said that we should be careful.

I went over my battle plans and safety procedures with @cutecajunlizard and @watwudbuffydo and we told each other that we had the other’s back, and that if worse came to worse, we were all wearing running shoes.

I remember my first pride in my native city, and my friends and I weren’t the only brave fucks that went.

Together we held strong.

And tomorrow, we would continue to survive.

Almost one full year has passed since June 12, 2016. And we’re all still brave LGBTQ fuckers.

Hold together,

Hold strong,

Because we still have a lot to do.

#Pulse #Orlando #One year anniversary #pulse tw #death tw #lgbtq pride #pride month #idk this just came out

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jennleahanne · 7 years

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Awesome Bath Bomb Bling!!! #jewleryjarcandles #bathbombbling (at Stonewall, Manitoba)

#bathbombbling #jewleryjarcandles

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ultralifehackerguru-blog · 7 years

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New Post has been published on http://www.lifehacker.guru/5-ways-not-to-hate-your-husband-after-kids/

5 Ways Not to Hate Your Husband After Kids

Since I got married, my “love language” has become the love language of picking your shit up off the floor—because nothing kills romance or libido faster than cleaning up after someone like a 1950’s housewife. And yet this is the norm for many heterosexual new parents: that the woman, whether she works or not, will do most of the labor (much of it unseen) around child-rearing and housekeeping. We may have had egalitarian relationships pre-kids; we may anticipate that we’ll enjoy a pristinely fair division of labor post-kids, but when the actual baby arrives—well, it can be like a bomb going off in your marriage.

For one, the sheer volume of work is not really comprehensible in advance. The Sisyphusian labor of dishes, laundry, housekeeping, admin, and childcare is just…brutal and inexorable, like being caught in a years-long, slow-moving mudslide. Most people have a hard time feebly mumbling, “I don’t think you understand how hard I work around here” whilst scooping mud out of their face.

But the second major problem is more insidious. It lies in our understanding of gender roles, and not in broad “only men should work and only women should stay home” strokes, which I think we’ve (mostly) moved past. It’s more that a million little pieces of information are passed to women via a social pipeline—information that is generally not passed to men. A girl’s first job is often babysitting, and in adulthood she will attend baby showers in which (whether she wants it or not) she gets an earful about the best straightjacket sleep-sack and best infant containment system; by talking to older mothers, she perhaps has already formed an opinion on cry-it-out versus co-sleeping or attachment parenting versus arming children with machetes or whatnot.

This information puts mothers, even on day one of parenthood, way ahead of fathers in terms of know-how and expertise. And unless she’s willing to instruct (and he’s willing to be instructed, and the instruction is more worthwhile than just doing it herself) it’s easy to slip into an arrangement in which moms shoulder the bulk of the childcare and housework. This is slowly changing—men attend baby showers now, and daddy blogs are a real thing—but women are, generally speaking, still running the domestic show.

Which brings me to resentment. Which brings me to Jancee Dunn’s new book How Not to Hate Your Husband After Kids, which she wrote after a crisis in her own marriage involving division of labor, anger, vicious fights, and finally, the realization that if things didn’t change, divorce was inevitable. Her meticulously researched book pulls together the social science behind domestic labor and gender roles (news to me: Men are more likely to be awakened by “strong wind” than a crying baby, whereas women will levitate awake and sprint into a child’s room—running through the air à la Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon—at the merest infant sniff) with first-person interviews and her own marital experiments in couples counseling. She even sought help from an FBI crisis negotiator.

A note: Her how-to is primarily for heterosexual couples—there is a larger body of research on heterosexual couples than there is for same-sex couples, and hetero couples have all the aforementioned gender-role programming to deal with—but the book is pretty helpful for anyone at all who’s ever resented their partner after having a baby.

I spoke with Dunn to get her top five tips for not hating your partner after kids.

1. Let him screw up.

A friend of mine recently said, about her husband and new baby girl, “He would take a bullet for this kid, but he might forget to put a hat on her.” Remember that social pipeline of information? He doesn’t have it, and if you don’t let him learn, you’re engaging in “maternal gatekeeping,” or keeping him from participating in the nitty-gritty of childcare.

He has to bond with his kids too, and you have to let him make mistakes. That means not hovering and not signaling, overtly or subtly, that you know better. Total immersion is the only way, says Dunn. “Leave the house. Get a coffee, or go away for the weekend. His way is not the wrong way.” (I have recently learned that it doesn’t actually help my sweating husband, when he’s struggling to get the kids out the door, to raise my eyebrows and say “classic mistake—always put your own coat on last.”) If you don’t have both partners fully taking ownership, then you’ll stay stuck in the employer/sullen teenage employee dynamic.

But what, you ask, if your husband doesn’t want to do any domestic labor? What if he’s content to let you be the maker of the grocery lists and the keeper of the pediatrician appointments, summer camps, play dates and special laundry instructions? Then, Dunn, says, you are going to have to learn to …

2. Stay on your own side.

You need to advocate for what you need, or stay on your own side. Now, this advocating can mean losing your temper and screaming that he needs to get off his ass and fold a load of laundry, or no it’s not okay to take a long nap after a long hot shower after taking a long solo run all morning, or you can have a civil conversation and divide up the chores. And keep having that civil conversation, weekly or monthly, as new responsibilities crop up and others fade away. (Goodbye diapers, hello baseball camp.)

Dunn suggests dividing housework based on who likes or loathes what chores—her own husband hates the grocery store (“the crowds, the florescent lighting, whereas I like seeing the new products and thinking about what I’m going to cook”) so food shopping has become her responsibility. He’s compulsively punctual, so he’s in charge of all things time-sensitive, like bill-paying and taking his daughter to her classes.

Not staying on your own side means stewing in silent fury as you do the dishes, bathe the kids, pack lunches and fold laundry—while your spouse reads a magazine in bed. It means presenting things as a choice: “Do you want to do baths or dishes?” and then, after that, “Do you want to fold laundry or pack lunches?”

This doesn’t necessarily mean that you get to dictate exactly how the chores get done—my husband prefers to pack lunches and do dishes in the morning, so unless I want to do these things myself…they’re waiting until tomorrow.

3. Insist on your half-day.

Dunn tells me that “weekends should not be a forced march” of childcare and chores. “You need to negotiate weekend time, and ask each other ‘what are we doing this weekend that meets everyone’s needs?’” She calls it the “everyone sort of wins” strategy.

My husband and I long ago agreed that we would each get a half-day off, every weekend, in which we could sleep in and had no childcare or housekeeping responsibilities. Even if we’re all home, one parent is off duty. When my kids inevitably ask me if they can have a snack/watch TV/set fire to something, I say “Daddy’s in charge till lunchtime,” and they take their requests to him. (Answers: yes, yes, and depends on what it is.) I read in bed or go for a run or meet a friend for coffee, with no comment from him. He watches the Braves lose five games in a row, with only a few comments from me (“This is how you relax?”). It’s blissful.

4. Have sex during Tae Kwon Do.

Who has energy for sex when you’re caught in a mudslide? Many new mothers feel like sex is just another demand on their time and bodies, and it’s often easier to say “not tonight, dear, I have a long Netflix queue.” Dunn cites research that claims the marital “sweet spot” for sex frequency is once a week, and that the ideal length of time for intercourse is seven-13 minutes (insert standard note here that intercourse is of course not the only way to have sex). That’s really not a lot of time—and if you, as Dunn did, ask your husband to take some of the evening routine off your plate by putting the kids to bed a tad early, it won’t cut into your precious, precious, sleep time.

For others, scheduling sex is the only way to make sure it actually happens. Dunn tells me about a friend who has a standing sex date with her husband while their twins are at Saturday morning Tae Kwon Do (a drop-off class, I presume). My own husband, at one point defeated by the relentless demands of a baby and a preschooler, said desperately, “We’re going to have to start paying for sex.” When I asked him to, uh, clarify, he said, “We need to hire a sitter to take them out of the house for a few hours or we’ll never have sex again.” Nothing like paying for a babysitter to make you use your time productively!

And having good sex means you’ll want to have more sex, so getting over that first hurdle, so to speak, will make you more eager to do it again. (Disclaimer that no one should be having sex unwillingly—these are just tips for finding time and getting in the mood.)

5. Learn to fight fair.

“Know that your baby is affected [by your fighting],” Dunn says. “If you’re fighting over her head, making a few choice gestures, she’s getting those stress responses. We were in a pattern called ‘Demand-Withdrawal,’” in which one partner tries to get the other to do something, or to engage and communicate, and the other one just shuts down. The relationship gurus John and Julie Gottman call this stonewalling, and it’s one of the big predictors of divorce. (Um, maybe because it’s enraging.)

Dunn and her husband went to couples therapy—and even consulted with an FBI crisis negotiator—to learn to fight fair, and to fight away from their daughter. They learned techniques such as “mirroring,” when the person echoes what the other person just said, and paraphrasing the gist of their complaint. She said, “And sometimes you have to laugh because the paraphrasing is wildly off—‘You’re angry because I stepped around you while you were emptying the dishwasher’—‘No, I’m angry because you stood there jingling your keys and saying let’s go instead of offering to help.’”

For her part, Dunn had to learn to control her temper, which a therapist told her was verbally abusive, and to ask directly for help, rather than spiraling into a rage cycle when her husband couldn’t read her mind.

How To Not Hate Your Husband After Kids is extremely helpful, and even comforting, if for no other reason than you realize that many couples are confronting the same programming and conflicts you are—and have managed to fight their way clear.

“We’re only a generation or two away from the homemaker/breadwinner model,” she says. Every couple has to reinvent what’s right for them—a strict feminist model calls for a precise 50-50 split, but Dunn argues for what “feels equitable” to each couple.

And Dunn notes, while we’re talking, that her book isn’t necessarily going to help a marriage that’s really far gone. All of her research-backed advice is predicated on the belief that both parties are good people who want everyone to be happy—it’s not, obviously, for people in abusive relationships or even for women married to partners who are just fine with watching football all weekend while their wives clean, cook, and chauffeur.

“A lot of people have come up to me [since the book was published] and say ‘too late! I already hate my husband!’” she says. Her stock answer has become: “‘Therapy, both couples and individual, really helped me—and maybe it can help you.’” To me, she continues, “and maybe it will help that person get out of their marriage—to ask themselves, ‘why am I letting myself be treated like this?’” Towards the end of her book she cites a comment from sociologist Scott Coltrane: “One of the biggest shifts in recent years is that many women will simply not put up with partners who don’t contribute at home.”

We can’t necessarily do anything about the mudslide. We can’t necessarily do anything about the gender-role programming we received in childhood (and continue to receive). But we can stop and have a conversation about who takes the kids to hockey and who goes through the bills. We can have sex during Tae Kwon Do. We can make sure that everyone sort of wins. And that’s how not to hate your husband after kids.

But What If You Still Hate Your Partner?

Everything I Learned About Relationships by Sucking at Dating

Five Communication Mistakes Almost Every Couple Makes

What You Can Do Right Now to Safeguard Your Relationship Against a Bloody, Messy Death

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