Lessons in Celibacy: Week 1 Recap

It's bigger than that...

Observations:

1. I am hungry for food. Now that I’m not trying to make men hungry for me. 

   1. Releasing the fixation on keeping my body a certain size/shape to sate another’s appetite, my own is free to return. 

   2. I spend more time in the kitchen. I look forward to the experience of meals. I take doughy breaths while kneading bread over flour-dusted countertops. I smile and soften my forehead at the consideration of this unintended benefit. I commit to larger bites: hot knees dipped in sea-salted olive oil. 

   3. I revel. I relish. It is life-giving. How did it take me so long to understand?

2. Every time I get sober/celibate/abstain from something, the quality of my life is enhanced.

3. celibacy (n.) 1660s, "state of being unmarried, voluntary abstention from marriage." 

   1. yes, I am voluntarily abstaining from traditional thought forms of “marriage” and “sex,” but I’m getting hints that maybe it’s more than that. 

      1. Aren’t I also divorcing from a lifetime of obsession with male validation?

      2. Aren’t I also breaking up with the generationally inherited belief that I need a man to ascribe “substance” to my existence? 

      3. Aren’t I also unplugging from artif*cial intelligence? Instead, choosing to make vows to myself?

      4. I don’t know. It just feels like more.

4. I have been “using” online dating as a means of coping with stress, checking out, and ignoring presenting issues. 

   1. The very hallmarks of addiction

   2. Looking at myself in this way has been “cringy” (as my daughter says).

5. I have more time and mental bandwidth to focus on things that sustainably nourish, like food, hanging out with my girls, and laughing WITH THEM IN THE MOMENT. Rather than conjuring the sickly sweet joy served on the rye of a poke-through message that deems me desirable at the end of this walk/tickle time/dance party. It has to bubble up from within now. The love. The intoxication. There’s no other way. 

6. I’m finding more what I’m made of. 

   1. This experiment is a self-esteem-skyrocketer. Any effort at self-reliance always is. 

7. Since clearing the airways of obstruction, the oxygen of miracle is pumping in. Stay tuned for more. 

*Disclaimer: My intention is not to throw the idea of men, every man that ever lived, the possibility of a man in my life, under the Darjeeling Limited: thunderbussing through the northern Himalayas at lightning speed, flattening every unlucky rupee deposited on its rail.

This is an experiential analysis. Fieldwork. A gathering of information. A research project.

So far, yielding most desirable results:)