The year is ending and I am feeling shitty. When I feel shitty, I write because that’s what I do best. I wanted to talk about my vulnerability because it has been on a thousand this past year. I began 2022 alone for the first time in 5 years, I went into the new year, single. I was with a man I was in love with at one point in my life. Love lasted very shortly after his emotional abuse. Gaslighting was his natural talent, and saying, “this is the way I know how to love” was his second natural talent. But we stayed together because he really did love me in his own weird way and I stayed because I thought I wanted to be married at the time and it was comfortable. Besides, he had a good job, he was handsome and he was sometimes nice to me. The sex was okay, more for him than for me. Because sex was a fun chore not a moment for connection and vulnerability. But I was very desperately not in love with him and hungry for something different. I wanted a mindblowing, inevitable connection. I wanted to love someone so good that they’d describe my love as liberating and soft. I want my love to revolutionize a heart. Nevertheless that “something different” hit me like a ton of bricks on a morning in September.
A woman who I truly found beautiful swept me off my feet with a gorgeous smile and a beautiful gap and squinty eyes. She was absolutely stunning. I knew it. I felt it. I wanted it. I tried so hard not to do so because I was still with this man who was trying to progress for “us”. While he tried to progress for the sake of our relationship, I couldn’t convince myself to bring him into my personal space to meet my loved ones. Meanwhile, I am in bed thinking of how to ask this woman on a date. I wanted to speak to her, to be near her. I wanted to know her. He would talk about his day, his shitty coworkers, and the shitty bar he would drink at with his friends and the whole time I’m thinking about her. I see you.
The last time I had sex with my former partner, I thought of her… I thought of the way she had spoken to me that day when we began interacting more. Her aura and mine moved together quicker than she and I did. That made me shake in ways I hadn’t before and he absolutely knew that I wasn’t shaking for him. That prompted our break-up argument. He went his way, and I went my way. Five years of stability, are gone. I felt free and ready to figure out who the hell this woman was. However, I saw some behavior from her that I didn’t like. I felt like she was hard on me without getting to know me. It made me rough on her. But my attraction and curiosity about her were stronger which made me cave. I wanted to know everything about her. She became my favorite book without even reading the story. I asked her what made her vulnerable and her answer is what made me feel deeper intrigue. She struggled with softness and I wanted to softly take care of her. Softly brush her hair, softly kiss her, softly hug her, softly argue with her, softly make love to her. I wanted to give her so much softness but the softness makes her withdraw at times. Withdrawal from one another is hard to deal with when you want this person as much as I wanted her. I wanted her in every way possible. I wanted her and all her levels of intimacy. I want her on the good days, on the days she can’t move from the bed, on the days she can’t stand the world, I want her when she’s mad, I want her when she’s happy. I simply and softly want her. I feel you.
Her. Such a simple pronoun but with thoughts attached to a woman who has never been mine and I have never been hers. I was told that love feels like the feeling after you eat your favorite meal. The love I have developed for a woman who refuses to be vulnerable looks like a lot of things. But the love I feel for her cannot be compared to a favorite meal, a favorite smell, or a favorite memory. My love and likeness towards her look like liberation, freedom and pleasure. Her love is liberating. Her heart is full of freedom. Her hands are full of pleasure that transitions into love. Her hands are very good at love and pleasure. I thank God for those hands because they have made me cry tears of pure body-shocking pleasure. I am very connected to my body therefore I know how good our pleasure feels. This woman who became the Juliet to my Romeo [we also are very much star-crossed lovers, I believe it, right person just at the wrong time] gave me a softness that I have never felt before. Her softness was safe, her softness was warm. But her softness was seasonal. I taste you.
Her lack of vulnerability was always at the front line and that is hard. Not talking, choosing to hide feelings, denial, and frustration is hard. Staying up at night wondering if our fuse will fizzle out is hard. Watching her love someone else is hard. Watching her in front of me and not being able to claim the smile that I fell for when I landed my eyes on her is hard. Not being able to tell her how I really feel is hard. Watching her inner child fight with her adult self is hard. Watching her eyes gloomy when she’s hurt is hard. When she hurts, she reverts back to being a little girl. Her eyes look like those of an innocent child being scolded which reminds me how she is a half-liberated woman. I hear you.
Why half liberated? Because she only pinpoints her arousal in her hands, not the rest of her body. Half liberated because she is trapped in a cycle of mistrust and self-abuse. Half liberated because a liberated woman allows herself to feel unapologetic. Half liberated because her inner conflicts are on liberating herself and her desires yet thinking about the importance of commonality and monotony. Both things are not hers. I recognize a half-liberated woman because I am a half-liberated woman. The chained part of her screams for softness, vulnerability, and understanding. I am the one searching for the key while she covers my eyes in the process, making it that much harder. This leaves me with the question, “how do we become fully liberated?”.
Chronicles of a Latina 