You should know that I’ve been writing sentences and deleting them in this letter for the last 10 minutes.
So much is alive in me right now and I’m trying to wrangle all of the emotions and thoughts and sensations happening in me, hoping to access the parts of my brain that know how to turn those feelings into pretty prose and poetry to express what I’m experiencing and have experienced this month. I’m trying to be elusive about what is running through me because a lot of it is pain and sadness and anger1 that probably shouldn’t be expressed out in the open to you (hello to you reading this, dear reader), but it’s so loud and I’m so raw that I’m having trouble not speaking to that pain and sadness and anger, to what is actually and has been alive for me (historically, I have a hard time with not being honest or direct with how I’m feeling, particularly in the medium of writing).
I also am really trying to connect to a spirit of gratitude for the beauty and pleasure and joy that was had this month because it’s important to root into those things. That’s what I want these moments of sensuality to be about for me—a time to reflect on what delighted my senses over the last four weeks, to celebrate my aliveness.
But again, what’s alive in me is really dark and stormy at the moment. So I’m just going to go with what is true for me right now.
June was a weird and difficult month and it seems to be sticking with that theme as it comes to close as I’ve surprisingly found myself with one less partner than I had when the month started. The waves of grief I am moving through as I process this new reality are unruly beasts. They crash into me without warning, seemingly breaking me in half, bringing me to depths of pain and longing that I forgot I knew how to get to. At the beginning of June, I was afflicted with a gnarly case of food poisoning and the other day, when I was on my knees, my stomach muscles clenching around heartwrenching sobs, my body doubled over as I gasped for air, wondering if/when the next breath would come, wondering if I would actually make it through this, I thought, “This feels familiar.” Grief is like the stomach flu.
It would make sense that grief would be such a visceral experience for me—not just because of my tender heart and how deeply I love with it but because of how much I’ve cracked myself open these last six months. I have grieved many, many times in my life but this bout is different. It’s richer, more vibrant in its textures and tonality. I am feeling it with my whole body.
My heart is broken and because my heart is broken, I am understandably having a really hard time connecting to celebration and joy right now. My mind recognizes that a solid chunk of June wasn’t full of heartbreak—I laughed and enjoyed, I moved my body and used it to love in some lovely ways—but to go through the moments of sensuality of this month means that I have to revisit memories of sweetness with my no-longer love2 that, though much of those memories were fun and enjoyable, are too painful for me to reflect on right now.
But I don’t want to just reflect on my pain either. I want to give a head nod to the moments of sensuality that have been buoying me through this period of heartbreak, helping me to imagine a new future without someone I was excited to be building a future with. So here are some tiny moments of sensuality3 I’ve experienced post-heartbreak (i.e., in the last few days).