Realignment

There’s an infectious axiom that floats around daytime television, self-help books, and yes – blogs: No one else can love you until you love yourself.

Bullshit.

During my darkest hours, I was loved.  For every day I was most full of self-loathing and despair, there was a person in my life who loved me… and probably couldn’t see the corrosive feelings gnawing away at my insides.  Just like I couldn’t see their love.  Like there was an invisible wall between us.

Those people propelled me to start a ten-year journey of healing from a place of self-injury to a deep self-love… and I did it in a way that would make life coaches cringe hard.

Stage One: Build a fortress.

In my late twenties, I met some rebellious and raucous women who inspired me to say, “Fuck this.”  I stopped looking for love and relished just having a good time; I casually dated and never let anyone get close to me for years.  Using this defense mechanism of putting up walls allowed me to do two important things – learn who I was and what I wanted for me outside of relationships, and embrace casual sex.  I’m very thankful for both.

Stage Two: Stop dating men.

I’d had so many excruciating experiences wherein I a) developed Real Feelings for a boy, b) told him, c) had sex with him to get him to like me back, and d) felt crushed when surprise! He didn’t.  This is probably one of the reasons why I just stopped being that attracted to men.  Dating women allowed me to express my feelings in a safe space (for the most part).  They didn’t lie to or mislead me in order to get sex; in fact, if anything, I had to work on my communication skills in order to tell them exactly what I wanted up front and be really honest when I wasn’t looking for a monogamous relationship – before the sex.  Not only did I have relationships (and phenomenal sex) with strong, adventurous, no-nonsense, compassionate, intelligent, and hilarious women – I was surrounded by them in my community.  Dating women taught me that I have inherent value that is not directly tied to my cunt.

Step Three: Allow yourself to fall in love recklessly with someone you know will break your heart.

I started dating men again because I fell in love with a coworker who I knew was going to leave in a matter of months. When I realized a month in how intensely and romantically I loved this man compared to his palpably platonic love for me, I acknowledged it and dove in headfirst.  I allowed myself to feel all of my feelings – the euphoric and the excruciating – and when I made it through the other side, I’d learned not only to survive, but to open my heart completely because I knew I could survive and recover from heartache.

[Step 3.5: Travel to a tropical locale.  Feel the breeze, listen to the waves, self-evaluate, and drink rum.  Have a lot of sweaty sex with someone who makes you laugh hard.]

Step Four: Recognize the value of other people’s love.

I never have to guess how The Engineer feels about me, and he never has to guess how I feel about him; we tell each other every single day earnestly and without prompting.  His emotional intelligence and general smooshiness have made me reflect on my expression of love to friends and family and theirs to me – and I try mindfully not to take a single drop of that love for granted.  When I was in my early twenties and was surrounded by people who loved me, I couldn’t see the forest for the trees.  Or, rather, the tree – the tree being whomever I happened to be infatuated with at the moment.

Lots of people have loved me when I didn’t love myself – when, in fact, I felt empty, worthless, and unlovable.  And their love, whether or not I felt it, allowed my fractures to be re-broken and eventually mend – if not perfectly, enough to make me feel whole in and of myself.

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Rain, Rain…

If you’re in England and have been suffering from the Great British Heat Wave / walking on crunchy brown grass for weeks, you know how desperate the country is for rain.  It finally came while I was here… and stuck in a tent with the intention of going on a 15 km hike!  No matter; we found other things to do.

Washing Station

We never expected them to be so red or so lustrous.  Walking along a burnt and dusty road, grateful to have finally left a trail of children behind us, we crested a hill overlooking a cerulean lake and noticed clusters of bushes littered with scarlet berries.  Neither of us had seen coffee cherries before and could only guess at what they were based solely on the fact that we were in a coffee-producing region.

Once we arrived at our guesthouse, the owner offered a tour of their coffee processing facility for a small fee; we gladly took the opportunity to learn more.  You rolled a cherry between your fingers before pressing it just hard enough so that juices seeped out slowly.   Watching your nimble fingers wheeling the berry until its seed poked out its shoulder, glistening and coy, I ripened.  You abruptly opened your mouth to make a joke about popping cherries, but thought better of it almost as soon as the thought had formulated.

We were disappointed by how the scent of coffee beans isn’t intoxicating until roasted, fascinated by the silky slime of the beans in their natural state (much like a skull sliced open to reveal a brain), delighted with the contrasting colors of the sloughed-off skins against their innards.  Having a tactile experience – any tactile experience – breeds my desire for more, and by the time I’d run my fingers through a scattering of beans left to dry, I was ready to feel all of your textures.  The cartilage maze of your ears, the soft spirals of your hair, your layers of blood-warmed skin covering taut muscles.

The countryside sleeps early – farmers who are used to a cock’s awakening have an internal clock that knocks them out as they lie – but we were buzzing all night.  Unable to sleep, we crept through rows of pale moon beans until we reached the shores of Lake Kivu below.  We’d intended to sit on the sand and canoodle a bit, but as soon as your lips touched mine, everything was on the table.  You slipped my Cool Max T-shirt and sports bra over my head, not put off by days of hiking stench; I slid my much-too-short pajama pants off your long legs, and we edged our way to the water.

We inched in together, but I was the first to submerge, diving in fingertips first, coming up to smooth my hair back and wipe the parasite-infested water from my eyes.  My breasts shone in the half moonlight – incentive enough for you to swim over to me to cup them lovingly in your massive hands.  You kissed my neck and I encircled your cock in my curling fingers, stroking it to the music in my head.  We glided deeper into the water, and I wrapped my legs around your waist.  You stood deep enough to allow you to grip my hips and pump my body along the length of your cock, the buoyancy of the water aiding your effort.  I tried to hold on, but your seal skin made me feel like a drunk girl on a mechanical bull.  My hips bucked this way and that, my hands fishtailing all over your back.

A sudden breeze chilled me; I flopped backward into the water, dolphin-kicking away toward the beach.  You followed, grabbing my ankle and dragging me back.  “Not so fast,” you said, wrapping your arms around me in a vice grip.  “You owe me one more kiss.”  I leaned in, soaking, til my lips were just grazing yours, and I breathed into you.  “Bring me back up that hill and I’ll give you much, much, more,” I replied, my promise fluttering in echoes, bouncing off the silent, drying beans which were winking at us under the moon.

             

The Engineer and I both hiked the same trail in Rwanda, but not together; this is a fantasy of what I would have liked to happen had we been hiking in tandem.

 

Second Time Around

When I was teaching in Korea, I noticed a large cultural difference in terms of how students would address creative questions.  This became very apparent when I asked my university students the following question:

“If you could travel back in time, when and where would you go?”

In the US, students might answer that they would go see ancient Egypt, dinosaurs in the Jurassic period, or Woodstock.  My Korean students, however, would always – without fail – tell me that they would revisit a time in their own life in order to change it (usually to study more or take a test over!) or return to an age when they had more free time.  It’s because of their answers that this idea popped into my head.

If I could go back in time, where and when would I go, professor?  That’s a hard question.  Maybe you want me to say something about some big historical event or a famous person I might meet, but to be frank, there are moments in my life I want to go back to.  Missed opportunities.  Moments of regret.  No, not the chance to study abroad or take more advanced classes.  The chance to have more lovers.  You’re blushing, professor.  No need; I am just answering your question.

Let me give you an example.  You always ask us to give examples to show our answers, right?  So here’s mine.  Last summer, I took a trip to Europe with Jun to celebrate our last year in university; you remember me talking about this before.  We were at a hof one night in Zurich talking to a small group of Swiss women; Jun wasn’t feeling well and went home early, but I stayed.  I was left with two women, both so beautiful.  They had shiny hair, soft skin, perfect teeth.  They were young like us, and we talked about the difficulties of expressing our thoughts in English.  Well, to make a long story short – we all drank many beers, and these girls started kissing each other.  I had never seen that before; there are gays here, but they hide.  I watched them, so surprised – and so… well, it was exciting.

One of them took my hand and leaned in to my ear; she asked if I would come back to their apartment with them.  I had never done sex with one person, and here were two girls asking me to come with them!  Professor, I was so scared that I couldn’t.  I was afraid that I would be bad at it.  That they would laugh at me.  Now, I regret that.  So to answer your question, professor, if I could go back in time, I would say to those two Swiss women, “Yes.  I will come with you.  But I am inexperienced, and I need guidance.”  They would say to me, “Yes, we will help you.”  They would take me home and teach me everything.

I would give them as much pleasure as they wanted, and I would touch them the way they wanted me to touch them.  I would lie back and let them touch me and kiss me, wondering about my luck.  I would have – what is the expression you taught us? – seized the day.  Professor, I don’t want to say too much, because you seem uncomfortable.  But in my mind, I live that night every night.  If I had a time machine, I would make a girlfriend in my first year instead of getting high test scores.  I would kiss many girls on my trip.  And I would enjoy my time with the two women I dream about every night.

Lake Malawi

I wear a red pencil skirt and a tight black tank top; he says I’m the best-looking woman in the room.  I know it’s not true, but I love him for saying it.  We get drinks and sit back at first, watching all the other vacationing revelers and locals dance together; we aren’t drunk enough yet to join the fray, so we chat quietly to each other while stroking each other’s arms and legs.  A couple of drinks in, I’m feeling better about dancing, so I stand up and stride into the middle of the floor, keenly aware of the fact that he’s watching me move my hips in figure eights and play off of other dancers’ moves.  He stares at me from the bar as I dance with other men, wanting me more than ever.  When I walk over to him and suggest we take a detour to the bathroom, he is so in.  We walk back to where the restrooms are, keeping watch of people coming and going until there’s a lull in traffic, which is when we take the opportunity to dip into the ladies and sneak into a stall.  We put our empty glasses on the back of the toilet; I sit on the lid and unbuckle his belt, eager for what’s underneath.  I unzip his jeans and pull out his semi-erect cock, letting it grow in my warm, moist mouth, making bright red smears on it with my lip gloss.

He slides his fingers into my hair, pulling my head toward him, leaning his own back and closing his eyes with satisfaction as he thrusts in past my lips until he’s rock hard, head tight and glistening with my spit.  In a moment of inspiration, he takes my hands and pulls them up and underneath his belt, then continues to fuck my face in a way I would only let someone do if I really loved them.

I pull back eventually and look up at him, my eyes laughing because the bathroom is now filled with the chatter of drunk 22 year-olds.  I continue stroking him, holding a steady gaze, until we can no longer hear voices.  He zips up and I peek out first before conspiratorially grabbing his hand and tip-toeing back out into the bar.  We continue drinking: beer, shots, cocktails.  At one point we’re at the far corner of the bar – not quite hidden, but not quite out in the open – and he says, “I have something for you.” He unzips and pulls his cock out, then places my hand over it.  “What are you doing?!” I squeak.  “It’s fine,” he slurs. Luckily, everyone else in the room seems to be in the same state we are, so I touch him lightly with my fingertips, trying to block the view with my body.  I’m not as concerned later on in the evening when he pulls one of my legs onto his lap and slides a hand up the inside length of my skirt before slipping a finger under my knickers and into my cunt.  Then I give zero fucks about who can see us.  I tilt my pelvis toward his hand, clenching around his finger.  He laughs and pulls it out before putting it into his mouth to savor my taste.

We leave the bar and walk down the beach toward our guesthouse; there are no lights along the way, so anywhere is good.  We park in front of an overturned canoe; he sits down against the faded wood, drunk enough not to care about having sand all over his bare ass, and I slide a condom down over his surprisingly-erect dick (ah, the beauty of youth) before straddling him and using the strength in my quads and gluts to rise and sink down onto his cock.  I hold his head in my hands and kiss him, my knees stinging from the hard sand, my cunt wanting and wanting and wanting, all charge and sizzle.  A couple of people walk past us on the beach with their phone flashlights on to guide the way; I sit perfectly still for a couple of minutes while they pass, convinced that since I’m wearing a skirt, it’s fiiiiine.  If we don’t move, they can’t see us.  I restart and ride until the sand becomes too much, at which point we stumble 100 meters to our guesthouse and pass out, tangled limbs fitting together like Tetris pieces.

We wake up hungover to a bed covered in sand; we mumble “Morning” to each other with sleepy eyes and knowing smiles, then kiss each other languidly in the blind-striped, mid-morning sunshine.  We gossip about ourselves over a full fry-up and suddenly, I know I’m in deep.  Dangerous waters, maybe – but I’m a diver and I know the risks.  For now, his arms are a buoy, his lips a regulator.  I’m safe.

 

Small World

Puno, Peru, 2006

I’m making out with a British guy who I met on an island in Lake Titicaca against a wall in a surprisingly bright dive bar.  I’m drunk on pisco and he’s got this lovely, moppy hair that I can’t help sinking my fingers into.  I’m pressing him into a mural and so ready to go back to his… until these two girls on the dance floor catch my eye.  I come up for air to look them over more thoroughly; one has short, choppy, platinum hair and a great smile, and the other is this dark-eyed goddess who sways gracefully.  I tell the Brit I’m going to get another drink, but then wander over to the women and start dancing and flirting with them instead.  I don’t know how it happens, but suddenly the goddess’s arms are around my waist and my hands are sliding up her arms and I’m licking her lips and my body is throbbing and she smells amazing and god I want my face in her cunt.  Apparently she’s not with the woman she came with, because when I ask her back to mine, she smiles and nods.  We buy individual cigarettes from a street vendor on the way to my guesthouse; this is when I find out she’s Candian – exotic.  I’d never been with a Canadian before (P.S. I love you, Canada.).  We drunkenly explore each other’s bodies, tangled limbs and hair falling everywhere and tongue barbells clinking against each other.  She tastes salty and sweaty and I cannot get enough of her juices in my mouth.  She goes back to her guesthouse after, and I’m left wishing I’d had more sex on this trip and relishing the feeling the metal balls of her clitoral piercing on my tongue.

 

Bali, Indonesia, 2013

I’m in a gay bar near the beach and bemoaning, once again, that there are no lesbian bars – a frustrating phenomenon all over the world.  After a couple of cocktails / watching a fabulous drag show / getting to know the lovely blokes next to me, I spot a small group of women hanging out against a wall at the other end of the bar.  I saunter over to them and ask where all the ladies are; “We’re right here!” they say and laugh, and I feel at home in their presence.  I start chatting up a small butch woman; soon we’re dancing and making out, and shortly thereafter I invite her back to mine.  As we walk toward her scooter, the guys I was chatting with hoot and holler at us, and I give them a big grin.  The vibrations of her scooter on bumpy back roads prime me for deeper pleasure, and I try to stay quiet later that night as she fucks me; she is an unregistered guest, after all.  She won’t let me reciprocate, but she spends the night, and in the morning she spoons me and works several fingers into me.  I grind backward into her hand while touching myself until I come in waves, pressing my face into a pillow.  We walk out together; the guesthouse workers shoot us curious looks, and we look straight ahead.

Bujagali, Uganda, 2017

Having spent the first month and a half of my Africa trip without a single travel sexperience, I could barely contain my libido.  When I spotted a muscular Aussie sitting alone with a computer at one end of the hostel, I struck up a conversation, keeping my fingers crossed.  He had a ton of stories and a wonderfully dry sense of humor, and we had good rapport – in fact, it was the easiest conversation I’d had all trip.  We both had other people staying in our dorm rooms, however, so I casually asked him if he’d still be around the next night; yes, he said.  I like to think I was breezy the next night when I approached him, but he could probably smell the “please please please fuck me right now”-ness on me.  We stayed up chatting until the other guests had gone, at which point I sat next to him and asked if he’d like to continue the conversation elsewhere.  I presented a challenge: that we fuck on every single bed in his dorm room (To everyone who stays in dorms and is grossed out by that, #sorrynotsorry).  No problem, he said; he used to be a professional athlete and had a LOT of endurance.  We vigorously and joyously boned in a different position on every bed, working up a hell of a sweat, and I came again and again and again.  It was that perfect one-night stand where you get along well and the sex is great, but you don’t like like them enough to want to see them again.  Sweet, sweet relief.  The hilarious part came two weeks later when I had another one-night stand with a German cop (it was bad, you guys), and over post-coital beers I found out that he’d happened to have met this Australian guy the very same day.

Which is to say: It’s a small, small world.

Normally I try to write a piece of fiction for Wicked Wednesday prompts, but this particular prompt is so intertwined with my real sex life that I couldn’t help but write non-fiction!  More coming on this theme…

 

Steamy Windows on a Windy Morning

When The Engineer and I visited Ireland this summer, I had my heart set on taking a ferry out to the Aran Islands and renting bicycles.  We didn’t know how long it would take us to drive to the ferry terminal in the morning, so we arrived early; sitting in the car, waiting for boarding time to come and not wanting to go out earlier than we had to on a very windy day, we started kissing to stay warm.

The Engineer has these super luscious lips; he uses an obscene amount of chapstick, which means they’re always soft.  On this particular morning, as he was kissing me – long, lingering kisses – I started thinking about the way his lips feel brushing against my labia, and suddenly my cunt felt slippery and warm.  When I told him as much, he took it as an invitation and unbuttoned my jeans, sliding his hand down the front and into my cotton panties; he rhythmically glided his fingers up and over my clit, then down and into my cunt juuust a little bit.  As he continued to touch me slowly and steadily – just the way I like it – the windows started to steam up, and I leaned into his touch.

Several people passed by; our car was right in the middle of the car park, and I had zero fucks to give.  I got up on my knees on the passenger seat and put my hand on his shoulder, grinding into his huge hand and begging him not to stop.  The part of my brain that says “Have an orgasm now AT ALL COSTS” completely ignored the time and the people walking to and fro all around the car until I felt myself tipping over and gushing onto his hand; still kissing him, I breathed my climax into him and gripped his shoulder tight.  When I looked around the car to see all the windows completely fogged up, I laughed and thought, “Well, at least we’re not completely visible.”

We did make it to the ferry on time, only to find out that the waves were too high for it to run that day; fine by us, we said, and held hands on the way back to the car, chatting about potential ways to occupy our time.

 

The Basics

I know within a few minutes of meeting someone whether or not I want to fuck them. Something in their smile or their posture or the way they greet me either gives me a boner, or it doesn’t.  I usually need to hear a hello or a few words to warm me to the idea of being intimate with someone – but when The Engineer walked into our dorm room in Rwanda, one glance was all it took.  I’d been restlessly horny all day, and I thanked the universe for dropping a tall, handsome man conveniently into my room.

We were the only two in a twelve-bed dorm; he asked if I wanted to join him for dinner, and I fantasized about him in the shower beforehand, sliding fingers through my slippery folds. When, after two beers, he asked if I’d like another, I said, “No, and I don’t think you should have one, either – I think we should fuck first and then have another.” The bed creaked and banged against the wall as I rode him; I’m 100% sure the entire hostel staff heard my moans and whimpers, and I didn’t care. We went back out and had a celebratory beer before bed while chatting about our travels.

It was supposed to be a one-night stand.  He was supposed to go off on a hike the next day… but he stayed.  We spent the day walking along Lake Kivu, coming back to the hostel to fuck in the shower and on a bunk bed ladder (great for the height difference!), then changed rooms and fucked in the bay window, in the bathtub, on the huge bed.  We slept next to each other, waking up early to have sex one more time before I walked to the Congolese border.

I came back to our guesthouse in Rwanda three days later, then shortly took off for another hike the day he was returning from one; he stayed.  When I returned, he was sitting in the common area; he didn’t expect to see me, so when I ran in and flung myself into his arms, it took us an hour to get off the couch.  We went to Kigali together and spent four days mostly eating, drinking wine, and exploring each other’s bodies instead of the city (corporal tourism?).

He took me to the airport at midnight, and it was a hard goodbye; when you develop feelings for someone while in a novel or challenging situation, the feelings can be pretty intense.  We stayed in touch every day after that; when I messaged him asking him to come to Barcelona in July, he said that July was too far away and he wanted to see me sooner… and then proceeded to spend four days traveling overland by boat, bus, and minivan from Zanzibar to the southern end of Lake Malawi, where we spent a week on the beach, drinking cocktails, swimming, fucking like field mice, and being super handsy in public.  By the end of that week, after telling folks in the guesthouse that we were on our honeymoon (it sure felt like it), I was in deep.  We both were.

He took me to the airport again in Lilongwe, and the goodbye was much harder, even though I was sure we weren’t done seeing each other – and we weren’t. He called me when I was in Spain to tell me he was coming to Ireland with me at the tail end of my trip.  He flew over his home to travel with me in a country he’d never been to, even though he was homesick. He met me at the airport with roses; we rented a car and spent eleven days driving through the countryside, staying in bed and breakfasts, cooking for each other, listening to amazing live music, and playing.  We dropped the L word on day five after walking along the Cliffs of Mohor, and when we parted, he gave me a framed photo of us that he’d taken with his phone on the second day we’d been together back in Rwanda.

I’m not someone who believes in fate.  I don’t believe in soulmates, and I certainly don’t believe in The One. But I do feel pretty lucky that we happened to be in the same place at the same time.  Being with him is so easy; I feel emotional security AND physical lust at the same time, which is strange and wonderful.  I feel prioritized, valued, and deeply cared for, and that’s something I haven’t experienced since the last time I lived in the US.  This is good.  It’s really good.  And it’s not over yet – not by a long shot.

Gratuitous sex stories to come!

El Nido

Last post before I depart!  I thought a travel sex story would be fitting.

I’m not someone who loves Valentine’s Day, nor am I one who scorns it.  For me, it just comes and goes like the tides.  There is one Valentine’s Day, however, that is forever etched into my memory, and thinking about that particular day will always make me smile.

Two years ago, I was travelling in the Philippines; I was sitting at a bar my first night on Cebu, and I started talking to the gentleman next to me.  Our conversation flowed so easily that it felt like we’d known each other for years; we skipped the small talk and jumped right into deep conversation about our travels, life philosophies, families.  We laughed and talked for hours, then agreed to meet the next night.  I arrived that night with a huge group and dragged him from the bar to our table… then proceeded to ignore all the people I came with to talk to him.  I felt so drawn to him – to his laugh, his easygoing nature, his penetrating questions and openness (maaayyyybe to his extraordinary body as well).

We met again the following night – same place, same time – and as we were chatting on a porch underneath a full moon, a photographer asked if he could take pictures of us “while we were flirting and the sparks were flying.” Yes, of course, we said, laughing.  As he walked away, I put my hand on Neil’s leg and said, “Just so you know, I am flirting with you.”  He smiled nervously and we continued to talk until I absolutely had to go.  He walked me out; we were both planning on heading to another island around the same time, so I asked him to come north to meet me when he got there.  Sadly, he said, he was heading south, but he’d keep in touch and maybe we could meet up for a day before I left.  I grabbed his hand, leaned into his ear and tipsy-whispered, “No – you need to come up north so I can fuck you.”  He kissed me lightly on the lips and said he’d try to make it.  We said our goodbyes; I didn’t sleep a wink that night thinking about how his strong hands would feel running down the length of my body.

Fast forward a week and a half.  I have just arrived in El Nido; I’m walking back to my hotel, and who should cross my path but the one person I’ve been wanting to see this whole time?  We hug, we laugh, we beam at each other.  He tells me that he was warned not to go south because there was political turbulence, so instead he came north, hoping to run into me.  Looks like the stars aligned!  That night, we had dinner on the beach, the surf literally touching our toes.  We ate freshly-caught fish and drank fifty cent beers by candlelight and talked like children do when they have a secret language.  The wait staff finally had to tell us that we had to leave – they were closing.  We looked behind us to see that they had taken all the other tables and chairs off the beach and we hadn’t even noticed.  I looked him in his clear, blue eyes and asked if he were going to take me home with him some night that week; he asked what I thought about tonight?  I kissed him in response, and we walked uphill to his hotel, me in bare feet.  We got a bit lost along the way – the good kind of lost.

We spent the next three days going on adventures (sightseeing, kayaking, snorkeling, making out in secret caves), eating amazing food, and fucking like bunnies.  My last day in El Nido happened to be Valentine’s Day.  That morning, I got a massage, bought a dress (a rarity for me), tweezed and shaved my travel body, and told him to come to mine before dinner.  As an avid fan of Dan Savage, I knew it was best to fuck first – so when he arrived, I was only wearing a sarong, which quickly got flung aside.  Even with the air conditioning on, we were soon covered in a slippery layer of sweat, which we’d earned.  We relished every inch of each other’s bodies and slid all over each other in the heat of the tropics until we were starving and exhausted.

Time does seem to sprint by when you’re enjoying yourself, so I remember the night in flashes: We’re sitting at an Italian restaurant overlooking the ocean, devouring pizza and sipping on cocktails.  We’re dancing at a club, our bodies jumping and bouncing to pop music along with a packed crowd, rum and cokes in hand.  We’re outside, dancing in the ocean to cool off, spinning and dipping.  We’re sitting on an old, overturned, wooden kayak, making out like teenagers.  He’s facing me toward the ocean and putting his arm around me and asking if I’d ever come back to El Nido – and if he were there, I’d be back in a heartbeat.  We’re walking back to his hotel at 3:00 am to fall into a deep sleep in each other’s arms – but not before taking silly pictures with each other on the balcony. We’re waking up at 6:00 am to the sound of church bells, and I have to go.

I’ve had interesting Valentine’s Days before and since, especially while traveling, but I can’t imagine any topping that night – a night that felt perfect.  A night that capped off a magical movie-like travel romance in an idyllic setting.  A night when the stars aligned.

 

Transitions

I’ve mentioned this briefly in a lot of posts over the last six months, but here it is again for good measure: I’m leaving South Korea.

After seven years of living in this beautiful country that has become my second home, I’m packing a few boxes to ship back to the US and selling / giving away everything else in my apartment.  I’ll be leaving the country with one backpack, four crossed fingers, and a thousand memories.

Seven years.  Typing these words leaves a lump in my throat.  I’ve developed some of the closest relationships in my life here, and although the world is getting smaller and my friends are only a Skype call away, it’s not quite the same as hopping on the subway or walking down the street to meet someone for a beer spontaneously.  In the past few months, I’ve felt like George Bailey at the end of It’s a Wonderful Life because when you part from the people you love, you tend to tell them how much you love them. There’s a Korean word, 정 (jeong), that describes how I feel about Korea – it’s indefinable even in Korean and has no matching English word – but encompasses feelings of love, attachment, affection, community, and giving.  Korea sometimes feels like a big family, and I appreciate that more than I can say.

I’m nervous about going home… I’m expecting the reverse culture shock of coming back to the US to be much more difficult than the original culture shock of moving to Korea, especially given the current political climate! That being said, I have a LOT to be excited about – seeing family and old friends, forging a new and more meaningful career path, probably moving to a new city.  I’ll be traveling for six months (in Africa, Spain, and the UK) before I arrive in the US and definitely looking forward to grand adventures!  My future is uncertain, though: Will I be able to find a job?  Where will I end up?  Will I have to have roommates again in order to be able to afford living in the US?

Also uncertain is the future of this blog.  I don’t use my phone to do anything blog-related for privacy reasons, and as I’ll be backpacking, I’m not taking a laptop or iPad with me.  I don’t know how often I’ll have access to internet cafés or if the ones I come across will be places I feel comfortable posting in.  I will try to post / check into Twitter when I can in the next six months, but it’s likely that posts will be few and far between.

So before I embark on this journey, I’d like to say: I feel so incredibly lucky to be a part of this blogging community.  Writing this blog has given me an outlet to uncage a creativity I didn’t even know I had, and I’m grateful for that every day.  The ways in which sex bloggers support and encourage each other inspires me and fills me with joy.

I’ll be coming through Barcelona, London, Edinburgh, and Bristol this summer; if you happen to live in one of those places or know a trustworthy person who does and will provide a sleeping space on their floor in exchange for some good storytelling, please shoot me a message on Twitter or an email (@teachershavesex / teachershavesex@gmail.com) and let me know!  As you can imagine, traveling for six months is going to be pretty expensive, and even hostel dorm rooms add up!

I’ll be posting one more Sinful Sunday and one more non-fiction story before I take off; for now I just want to say thank you so much for reading (and for posting the hundreds of gorgeous photos and pieces of writing many of you do that put ideas in my head!).  May your 2017 transitions be positive and peaceful ones, and I hope all of you will experience your own grand journeys this year, even if they happen in your own home.

xx

Jo