Raining when it pours. Snowing when it’s cold enough. I’ve gotten two job offers this week. Both because my friends stepped in to help me out. Just reinforces what I believe in the first place – I’m worthless until someone vouches for me. Not so bad considering how many people need help to get started. Especially here, in a place where I’m alone. The people helping me didn’t even ask for a good reason. They just like me, regardless of what I can offer them in return. Fortunate for them, I have quite a bit to offer.

If I try to sleep somewhere that doesn’t feel like home I usually don’t get much rest. Staying awake, listening to the silence. It’s similar to savasana, except not as comfortable. In corpse pose, the idea is to completely relax. My morose sense of being likens it to existentialism. Accepting mortality is the only way to completely unwind. Laying still, remembering the importance of the present; I instinctively feel at ease, knowing at least one moment in my life is tangibly relaxing. The yoga didn’t start paying off until I learned how to let go at the end of my practice.

My husband taught me how to let go. He did exactly what I should have done in my 20s. His parents didn’t care about his happiness and recognizing that he decided to do it his own way. That’s why I love him. Back then, I met someone that showed me how to be yourself in the face of dissent. Now, I have a best friend that sees the progress I’ve made. I might never recover the security I found in that relationship, emotionally or in a practical sense. However, I’m certain the stability I gained in his care is what led to my late-life breakthrough. I’m a butterfly thanks to him.

In 2014, a new friend described his interpretation of my childhood to me in a midtown Memphis CK’s after midnight. He’s a father who nurtures his daughters and reads the New Yorker. My daddy issues always translated to older men even though the younger guys look more like my father – Freudian irony. Anyway, he planted the idea that my parents might not always have my interests in mind. That sums up how I feel about the whole thing. The main concept preventing my independence was blind faith in my parents’ choices. Considering how little I agree with their worldview, seems like a poor standard.

I have faults and I’m usually the first to point them out. I don’t think I’m great and rarely admit I’m special. Dating all by myself in Seattle has taught me how sheltered I really was from complete assholes. I went out with a guy last night that offered me a ride home and then didn’t come through when I asked for it. I’m fortunate. I have the skills needed to circumvent that disappointment. I summoned my own Uber and resolved never to trust that person again. Is it better to not date these type of assholes? Yes. Is it better not to date at all because of these assholes? No.

I’m happy for the bad dates I’ve had in 2016. Relatively speaking they haven’t been that many and each one strengthened my resolve to not tolerate bullshit. Right now I have people asking me to be a part of their lives for a myriad of reasons. Some want to suck on my nipples until I beg them to fuck me but others are just as happy to have me peg them with a strap-on. My personality accommodates both requests and I no longer feel dirty about the difference. My sexuality stopped being one-dimensional when I got to Seattle. I am capable of loving someone for more than their initial presentation.