Excerpt from: F*ck Me: A Memoir
Excerpt from: F*ck Me: A Memoir
Introduction
When I split with my husband in the fall of 2019, I came to terms with the fact that I’d possibly never fall in love again, never have a romantic relationship again, or ever even have sex again. To move forward, I had to be OK with that. I had to believe that my life would still be better.
At that point, I’d forgotten how important
intimacy was for the body and soul, how important physical affection was to my
personal well-being and happiness. And it certainly didn’t occur to me that
sexual fulfillment would make the difference between me being just a
mother and me being a woman.
To
say that sex was the last thing on my mind is an understatement. Those first
few years following my separation were decidedly the worst of my life. Apart
from the ugly, drawn-out divorce taking place, I was also grieving the recent
passing of my father and dealing with his messy estate. Cancer had claimed the
lives of two other close family members that year. Covid hit a just few months
after my ex-husband moved out. I had 80-100% custody of my kids, aged six,
seven and nine, whom I was homeschooling during the pandemic. And the week
after my fortieth birthday, I lost one of my best friends to an overdose.
Then one morning in November of 2020, I awoke
in the most excruciating pain of my life, radiating down from my neck and into
my arm, back and face. I spent the next five weeks in relentless agony, trying
to get a doctor’s appointment, while taking pack after pack of useless
steroids. I couldn’t drive. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t function. Finally, I
was able to see a pain specialist who read my X-rays and MRI and discovered
that I needed urgent spinal surgery. A month later, a skilled surgeon sliced
through the front of my neck and inserted two artificial cervical discs. I had
five days to recover before my kids were returned to my custody.
And yet.
Despite the hell that was my life during those
years, I managed to emerge from the pain, the obstacles and the tragedies, the
physical and emotional trauma – not unscathed, but not broken either. If I
could survive all that, I thought, I could survive anything. I started to heal
on the inside and out. I started to feel worthy: worthy of respect; worthy of
love; worthy of more. I hadn’t felt that way for a long time.
Over the decade-long, damaged and damaging
marriage, I’d forgotten how self-reliant I’d always been. I watched myself over
the years, as if watching a stranger, getting older, more out of shape,
disconnected from the outside world. I’d stopped working to stay home with my
children. I’d lost my sense of curiosity. My world became smaller every day.
Personal growth was replaced by stagnation, the
wonder of youth replaced by the mundane.
By my late thirties, I found myself insecure
about my competencies, my intelligence, my sexuality. In short, everything I’d
felt confident about in my youth. It was as if I’d forgotten that I’d always
been a straight-A student, graduated from Berkeley early and received an MA
magna cum laude; that I’d lived on my own in a foreign country for eight years,
spoke three languages and had a successful career in education; that I’d taken
to motherhood with relative ease; that I’d trained, certified, and worked as a
doula for a dozen families in the last two years while tending to my three
young children and caring for my sick father.
These were not small things. These were
victories to be celebrated. I’d downplayed and dismissed my achievements for so
long, I’d all but forgotten they’d existed. But, as I prevailed time and time
again in the wake of losing my father, leaving my husband, surviving Covid and
triumphing over every hurdle life threw at me, I began to remember who I was
and what I was capable of accomplishing.
An integral part of reclaiming my inner
strength was regaining my physical strength. By 2020, I hadn’t worked out in
over nine years. I was weak and afflicted by chronic pain. I started working
out a few days a week, which turned quickly into more than a few days a week,
and eventually became every day of the week. I was more active, spent more time
outdoors, built up muscles that I hadn’t used in years. I had more energy,
slept better, ate better, felt better. And looked better. It wasn’t long before
my post-baby body was completely transformed and the sedentary lifestyle I’d
settled into left behind like a bad dream, forgotten.
For the first time in years, I felt light; I
felt free. I felt like me.
By the time Covid was blurring into the
background, becoming the new normal, my mindset had unequivocally shifted, and
my self-perception was forever altered. I no longer felt I had to prove myself
to someone else as I’d been doing for most of my adult life – proving myself to
teachers, parents, partners, bosses and co-workers, even to my own children. I
decided I had only myself to impress and, for perhaps the first time in my
life, I knew I was worthy. And that I deserved better.
***
While I wasn’t sure I’d ever experience love or
sex again after my divorce, I’m happy to say that I’ve already fallen in love
again – and had my heart broken. I’ve engaged in thrilling, unique and
unexpected encounters that have helped create a richer and more fulfilling life
than I’d ever imagined for myself.
Not that raising my kids hasn’t been
fulfilling. There’s nothing more important to me in the world. But throughout
the decade I spent married and taking care of my family, there was never
anything of my own. Nothing just for me. I’d given up my career. I’d
given up my personal space and time. I’d lost friends, abandoned hobbies. I
took on the role of perfect wife and mother and it completely decimated the
individual identity I’d worked so hard to cultivate for thirty years.
I’d lost myself and hadn’t even realized it
until I was on the path back. And that path was an unpredictable one, full of
deep friendships, new pastimes and a refreshed sense of curiosity. It was also
full of threesomes, illicit drugs, celebrities, one-night stands, BDSM, erotic
photography and sex with much younger men.
Yes, the path that carried me from small, weak,
uncertain and insecure to powerful, confident, strong and assured was teeming
with sex. So much sex. Such good sex. Screaming, shaking, squirting,
violent-orgasm-filled sex. A strange, sex-filled path that reminded me that I
was still attractive and desirable and that I had a lot to offer a partner; a
path that’s taught me to never again settle for someone who doesn’t fully
appreciate me and treat me the way I deserve.
***
Don’t get me wrong. It hasn’t always been fun.
It hasn’t always been easy. I’m over forty years old. I’m divorced. I have
three kids. I live in Los Angeles. It’s like a quad-fecta for frustration,
loneliness and insecurity.
I’d like to say it helps that I’m relatively
attractive and in good shape (for my age), that I’m educated,
financially-stable, intelligent and, to my knowledge, have no physical or
mental illnesses. I’d like to say I have all that going for me and that it’s
made it easy… but it hasn’t. There are so many forces working against me. The
apps, for one. When you date on apps, no one knows anything about you. You
swipe on a face, meet a stranger, and decide within an hour if the person is at
all worth your time, worth getting to know, or worth even just fucking. It’s
brutal.
Personal baggage is another major issue.
Everyone comes to the table with so much past, it’s almost impossible to see
the here and now, let alone imagine a future with someone new without being
blinded by previous heartbreaks, assumptions, anxiety, projections and
delusions. Everyone does it. I do it. It requires an open mind and a lot of
self-awareness to see a new person as they actually are and not as some shadow
of someone you once knew, some reflection of your own worst attributes, or some
fantasy of what you’ve always hoped to find.
Fuck me, I thought when I first got back into the dating game. Fuck. Me.
I’d endured so much already, but dating after divorce was the scariest thing
I’d ever faced. How was I going to survive it?
Then I took a step back. I realized I had very
little to risk and a lot of options. I wasn’t looking to get remarried. I
already had kids, dogs, friends and interests; I had my house and my own money.
I didn’t need anyone to take care of me. I wasn’t looking for someone with whom
to build a whole new life. All I wanted was companionship. Sex. Excitement.
When I thought about it that way, the pressure
let up. I realized that dating could be kind of… funny. And ridiculous. And it
certainly leaves you with some amazing stories.
I shared these – my dating triumphs and
failures – with friends and family as each situation, more unpredictable and
inappropriate, unfolded, and I received the same response over and over: you
have to write all these stories down!
Even my 90-year-old grandmother, who would
invite me over every other Sunday to have a glass of wine, eat some chocolate
and tell her all the updates on my love life, made me promise I’d publish this
book because, she said, the world needs to laugh at my stories with me.
So, I wrote it all down. Stories revealing the
totally absurd, but entirely true tales of the surreal spectacle that is dating
in your forties with kids after divorce in what some might call the worst place
on earth for such a thing: Los Angeles.
“What’ll you call it?” my grandmother asked
when I told her I’d started writing.
Without hesitation, I answered, “Fuck Me.”
I’ve never seen my grandmother laugh so hard or be so enthusiastic about
anything before.
***
I’d like to say that in the last chapter of
this book you’ll find out that all the misery and heartbreak and insults and
craziness was worth it because I found my soul mate. But – spoiler alert – this
isn’t that kind of book. Sorry. It does include the comical, fun, scary and
preposterous experiences I’ve had. It does describe my personal growth and
development. It does address the difficulty we’ve all felt in reconciling the
different facets of our identities. It is filled with eccentric characters you
couldn’t make up if you tried. And it does include a lot of awesome sex.
I can’t say I enjoyed living through every
experience, but I do hope you enjoy reading about them.*
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