Friday, March 10th

209.)

As the date ticked further and further away from March 3rd, I felt more and more like myself. March 4th was the day after my birthday. March 5th was the day after the day after my birthday. But March 6th was National Oreo Day. March 7th was National Cereal Day. With so many holidays about food, my birthday seemed to get lost in the mix.

I apologized a lot to Blossom. She said she understood, and I believed her, but I couldn't stop apologizing. I felt really stupid for how I'd acted, but we both knew that it could have been a lot worse. I didn't even bake anything! Or maybe that wasn't a good thing, if not even my coping mechanisms were kicking in. Another thing to talk to Stephanie about, I guess.

"So is it a good thing or a bad thing, that I didn't bake last weekend?"

"Does it have to be one or the other?" Stephanie asked.

"I walked right into that one," I sighed. No judgments, right? Ugh. Therapy sure was tedious sometimes.

"So the weekend wasn't as awful as you thought it would be?" Stephanie asked.

"It was about as awful as I knew it would be," I said. "But no... not as bad as I thought."

"Good distinction," Stephanie laughed. "You're very self-aware sometimes."

"I try."

We were quiet for a moment. I didn't know what to talk about. I knew apologizing to Stephanie would yield the same results as apologizing to Blossom, except she'd tell me a lot about how emotions are important and I shouldn't run from them or something like that. I rummaged through my brain to find the mental To-Do list titled "Things To Talk To Stephanie About".

One result found.

"Oh, this is kind of an old topic, but... I was doing a thing with Blossom, a kind of sexy thing."

"Mmhmm." Stephanie nodded.

"But I found it a lot easier to do it with, like... a roleplay. Like, a character I was playing. Or a story to go with it. Instead of just... uh... sex. Is that normal? Probably not?"

"Normal for you? Probably." Stephanie shrugged. "Honestly, I'm not surprised at all. You're a writer, right? You tell stories all the time. You mentioned before that you're always making up stories in your head."

"Less so, recently," I corrected her.

"That's probably because you have Blossom now. You have an outlet."

"Hm..." She was right. The closer I got to Blossom, the fewer fantasies seemed to invade my daily life. Granted, they were still there. They still bounced around in my brain like lottery balls. They just took a little longer to fall into the tray at the bottom.

"Maybe having a storyline keeps your attention?" Stephanie suggested.

"I don't think that's it. Blossom can certainly keep my attention."

"Well, then what about roleplaying is so appealing to you?"

"I dunno... I get to be someone else?" I tried. "It feels like there's less pressure..."

"So, it's a game? Lower stakes?"

"Maybe?" That didn't feel quite right, but I couldn't think of anything else. Roleplaying created a degree of separation between me and my actions.

"We've talked about intimacy before," Stephanie prefaced. "It causes you a lot of anxiety, because you're worried that you might do the wrong thing. That you might hurt someone, or someone might think less of you."

"Pretty much."

"Let's explore that," Stephanie said. "What exactly are you afraid that Blossom is going to think?"

"That I'm... I dunno. Gross? Or, uh... perverted?"

"And those are synonyms?"

"Not exactly," I sighed, popping the little rubber bubbles on my fidget toy. "I don't know how to explain it..."

"Well, do you think sex is gross?"

"It can be," I laughed, trying to lighten the mood a little. Stephanie laughed too. She always laughed when I made a quip like that, probably to reinforce the fact that this wasn't an inquisition. We were just talking.

"What about it is gross?" she asked.

"I don't think sex is gross, exactly... it's just the way people act about sex. Like it's this uncontrollable, primal thing... like it overtakes you? And I mean, it kind of does. I've felt it with Blossom. I feel like I lose myself sometimes..."

"Is that what you're afraid of? Losing yourself?"

"No, not really. I'm afraid that, if I'm not constantly regulating myself, I'll do something I don't like. Something I regret. Or that I'll act contrary to... to me. And Blossom won't like me anymore. Which I know is silly, because Blossom's the most sexual person I know. I don't think I could even begin to bump up against her limits."

"So it's not a problem with the behavior," Stephanie said. "Which makes sense, because you can still act that way in a roleplay."

"So then what's the problem, if it's not my actions? The way I'm thinking about them?"

"I don't necessarily think there's a problem," Stephanie corrected, editing my word choice. She was big on semantics sometimes. "But maybe the issue isn't how someone else thinks of you, but how you think of you."

"Huh?"

"Well, when it comes to sex... what do you think of yourself? Of your body? Of your actions?"

"The word 'gross' comes to mind again," I sighed, sulking into the sofa. "I don't think I'm that attractive... but that's probably how a lot of people feel. And Blossom seems to think I'm sexy? I guess? Or maybe just because I dress up with her..."

"What about your actions? What if you do something lewd? What if Blossom does that same thing? Or anybody else? Is there a difference?"

I thought about it. Me grabbing Blossom's boob the other day. Her grabbing mine. Lin grabbing someone's boob. A random guy at college grabbing someone's boob. Yeah, they were different.

"With Blossom, it feels in character. With my friend Lin... maybe it isn't exactly in character, but it's fine? And a stranger... kind of weird, but not gross. More like, expected. With me... it's not in character. And it's not fine. And it's not expected."

"What are you feeling right now?" Stephanie asked.

"Uncomfortable," I sulked. "Like I shouldn't be talking about this."

"That people shouldn't be talking about sex?"

"No, like I shouldn't be talking about this. Like, it's okay for other people to talk about. But not me."

"Ah." Stephanie leaned back in her chair, like she often did when she figured something out. I gave her a quizzical look, but she just smiled at me. Because I should be able to figure it out too. Because I already knew the answer.

"Because I hate when I have wants," I sighed. Obviously.

"You want to experience these things with Blossom," Stephanie said. "But wanting things is scary. It's the same reason you act like a brat sometimes, right? To give yourself some breathing room, to trick your brain into saying 'well I don't want it, my character does'. Or 'I don't want it, it's being forced on me'. And that's enough distance to let you enjoy yourself."

"So it's the same problem it always is," I groaned. One stupid, unsolvable problem that seemed to ruin every part of my life. Why couldn't I just want things? Or better yet, why couldn't I not want anything at all?

"I don't think it's a problem," Stephanie smiled, still arguing semantics. "But isn't it better to understand what's going on? Then we can make little adjustments."

"I guess..." I sunk further into the sofa. It felt nice to understand what was getting in my way, but it felt too insurmountable. It felt like I'd never conquer this one stupid fact about myself.

"It's okay to want things," she reminded me. "It's okay to want sex."

"I know that. But it doesn't change the way I feel."

"The best way to change a feeling is to change a thought or a behavior," Stephanie said. "It will feel incongruent at first, but people hate feeling incongruent. Feelings, thoughts, and behaviors tend to fall in line over time."

"So just ignore my feelings and fuck around?" I asked, a little annoyed. "That hardly seems like a solution."

"Little adjustments," she said again. "Instead of pretending to be someone else when you do your roleplays, why not pretend to be a different version of you? An Amanda that is allowed to want some of this sexual stuff?"

"How is that any different than what I do right now? I'm still me, even if I'm pretending."

"What you say to yourself is more important than you think," Stephanie explained. "That's why I correct your words sometimes. Even though the word problem is the same as say... the word obstacle, they affect you differently. Problem feels more negative. It lowers your self-esteem."

I nodded. I knew the importance of word choice: if you want a reader to feel a certain way, you have to use certain words. Sometimes strong ones. Sometimes weak. Sometimes really long run-on sentences that give the reader a sense of urgency, like there's more and more to tell about a single thing, like there's a huge mystery behind every corner. Sometimes short, to punctuate a point.

"When you roleplay, remind yourself that the character you're playing is you. Not all of you, but some of you. An alternate version of you. You from another timeline, or another dimension. Something like that. Give a version of you permission to get what she wants."

"Slutty Amanda," I said, trying to be silly about it. But I felt a little uncomfortable saying it out loud. In all the Amandas in all the dimensions in all the universes, it didn't seem very likely.