volume ten
after the boys of summer have gone
Ohhhhhhhhh dear,
I have to be honest with you I had a whole different newsletter written ready to go out to you all this week, but then Monday night happened and a friend said if I haven’t yet written about this I should, so here we are. Sorry, you will have to hear about my adventures choosing what to wear out in public another time.
Monday was the first day it felt like fall. I had to put on socks, I had to put on a sweater, I drank two more cups of tea working from home than usual and spent the afternoon with my knitted blanket — made by my lovely friend while she road-tripped across North America, Tina — across my lap. The start of fall is always so nice. I welcome the cool breeze, the snuggly clothes, the warm drinks, the lazy couch evenings and the fact that for the first week of fall my demisexuality appears to disappear.
Look before I go into this, of course I am a demisexual. If you have been here for more than two seconds you already know because I talk about it every week, and you’d know that it doesn’t change with the change of the seasons. I might wish I was a witch, but I am in fact, sadly not. (That’s exactly what a witch would say you reply, to which I say “and?”). The fact of the matter is, the second I left my house yesterday, the same as it happens each year at the start of fall, I was surrounded by delicious humans ready for snuggling.
For those of you who might be new here, my demisexuality means I don’t want to sleep with, kiss, hold hands with or even hug someone until I have an emotional connection with them. Sometimes I hug my friends and that is because I love them so much. If you are new in my life, there is a point when you are not yet in the hug zone. One day you might get lucky enough to cross that bridge, but it will be for one of two reasons: I am comfortable enough with you and we are friends now, or maybe, just maybe, we have known each other for approximately 2-3 years and now I am attracted to you. The best part is I won’t know what way this will go any more than you will so buckle up!
All that to say is just because I feel emotionally connected to you, doesn’t mean I will have a physical attraction to you. The emotional connection is a prerequisite for the rest of the sexy feelings I might form, but far more often than not it doesn’t make it to that point. Like I am talking a 500 to 1 ratio without any exaggeration. Hugging is affection towards people I love, but outside of that friendship bubble is where it gets messy for me and that is my demisexuality in a nutshell.
So back to Monday night, and the first day it felt like fall. I left my house to go and meet my friend and uh-oh! Everywhere I look are sweaters and scarves and cute hats and beanies and plaid and blue denim on blue denim. Who gave you all permission to look this cuddlesome? I mean these jean jackets layered with a hoodie? Or the plaid shirts that are actually jackets? And don’t get me started on the gold buckles on the wide-brimmed floppy wool hats that match the gold buttons on the button-up coats and the snakeskin boots.
I kid you not when I say I walked past a retail store that was obviously closed for the night and there were two people inside, covered in paint, painting the walls and one of them was in jeans and a jumper doing it and I had to calm myself down by telling my friend how I was feeling. I could not tell you what this person’s face looked like, their age, whether their hair was short or long, none of that remains in my memory just a few hours later. I do remember their navy blue jeans and their dark blue cotton jumper with a little white logo on it. Look, what I am saying is, fall makes me horny AF. The more layers someone sports? The more I want to wrap myself up in them.
I know this is a thing that happens for everyone. Believe me, I spent most of my life living in Australia where I guess you could say the seasons change, but also do they actually? Since moving to Canada, I have lived through (and survived thank you very much) almost seven years of the two scariest seasons in North America: break up season (spring) and cuffing season (fall). Here I was thinking there were only four seasons. Where I grew up it was summer, then summer but the trees are dead, then summer but with a cardigan and closed in shoes and summer but with rain and new flowers. Here in Canada, it is melting hot, then hot drinks all day, then snow, then flowers and then two bonus overlapping seasons of “everyone wants to love someone” and “everyone wants to be alone”. New couples form between October and December and all the breakups happen between March and April. It is science and I am not arguing with it.
So what does this all mean for me, as I am sure you are desperate to know? Do not fear, once the initial wave has passed I will return to my “repulsed by the idea of physical touch from strangers” and my long term monogamous relationship with my couch will be back on.
Until then, maybe I need to stay in the house? Maybe I need to keep myself at a distance? Of course, I know I won’t actually act on my horniness, I am a demisexual after all. That being said I am a demisexual that is envious of anyone who isn’t and wishes I could regulate my feelings but whatever, I embrace who I am and love myself as I am and blah blah blah.
But the fact is, do I want to put myself through the physical and emotional warfare that is being horny for a stranger on the street? How do y’all do this all the time? Like, let me know, if you are not on the ace spectrum, are these feelings you feel for just like hotties every day? Do you pass someone on the street you deem attractive and little alarm bells in your chest and pants go off? Even more so, are you acting on these feelings and initiating a consensual conversation with these people? Like are you all just living your life like this? I couldn’t possibly imagine.
More importantly, do you feel these feelings elevated when the temperature first drops? Of course you do, this is a rhetoric question.
I love you,
Lauren
xoxo
Three things I struggled with this week:
I mean I think wanting to hug strangers on the street (my version of horniness) is a struggle worth mentioning here even though it was the basis of the entire newsletter.
Letting shit go!
It is always one extreme or the other with me and I am either saying no to everything so that I am bored out of my mind or I say yes to everything so that I am stretched to the maximum. But honestly, it is almost always the latter because I cannot help myself. Here I am again, biting off far more than I can chew - but ultimately something will have to give, I am not superwoman. Now to choose what that will be because I love everything so much. Is it really biting off more than I can chew if I am enjoying every second of what I am doing? I don’t think so. Okay never mind, as I was, carry on.
Three blessings from this week:
I was on Zoom with my family, and my cute, darling sick with tonsillitis niece was drooling uncontrollably because of it. Do you know what I did? I covered her face with my napkin because I was eating dinner and it was putting me off. I love her, I would never do this in real life (no in real life I would leave the room). But that is what I did. Why is this a blessing? Because it made me giggle, and it made my family giggle, and it made me laugh at all the people who have ever fought me saying that I would change my mind and want children one day. My body was made capable of bearing children but that doesn’t mean that is what I am going to do with it, because my body is also capable of being a bodybuilder if I wanted it to be I am just not interested in putting myself through the long term physical, emotional and financial strain to make that happen when I really, truly love my life the way it is and do not want to change that. My mind and body are capable of so many other things I am actually interested in, and I am enjoying seeing them all through. Having said that, being an Aunty rocks <3
I went to sign the lease on my new place and ended up staying for a long chat with the current tenant which was so wonderful and in sync with where I am at in life right now and as a result, he invited me to dinner with himself and his partner once we are all moved and settled. I am attracting the kind of people I want to be around right now and I am so grateful.
I am going to be reuniting with a dear friend I haven’t seen in many years this weekend. In fact, depending on when you are reading this, picture us in a bagel-making class, or dancing at a music festival or eating dinner in Little Italy because those are some of the things we have planned for the weekend.
Three goals for the coming week:
When I am thinking about doing something new, changing course, following my gut — my inner child and past self tells me it is safe to stay where I am. Someone told me this week it’s not the case at all — it’s not safe, it’s just familiar. Just because I ‘know’ something doesn’t mean it is safe. A goal this week will be to take the step, make the change. Because staying still gets me nowhere.
Turn on my auto-reply on my personal email this weekend, letting people know if it is urgent they can reach me on my cell, and not letting my email consume time that could be spent with my friend while she is here.
TW: Mental health and suicide: Did you know that 1 in 5 people experience symptoms of mental illness each year? In fact, every day in Australia, 8 people will die from suicide. Mental illness can be debilitating and can have a devastating impact on not only those living with it, but those around them. This October, I’ll be walking to make a difference to the lives of people touched by mental illness and suicide! I'm fundraising to raise money for life-changing research into the treatment and prevention of mental illness, as well as vital support services. It would mean so much to me if you'd support my walk this October.
What I am enjoying this week: Look super simply, I am enjoying Calm on my laptop. I open it in my web browser and listen to my favourite soundscape — rain sounds — all day. It also helps me make sure I meditate part way through my day as it is there ready to go.
Ask me a question: I spy a few hair colors…do you have a favorite? How do you decide? What’s the next color? From Nicki (she/her) in Sioux Falls SD, USA.
Thank you for this question, Nicki!
When I was 12 I dyed my hair for the first time. I dyed the top layer a hot pink and of course, my school was like “nope, nope, nopedy nope!” But there was nothing they could do until it washed out.
Then I went to high school and they could in fact do something - kids were sent home for having hair colours that were not ‘natural’. So the first chance I got — when I got to higher school and the rules were more relaxed — I decided to live out my best “Avril Lavigne’s 2007 comeback” fantasy. I had black hair, with blonde, blue and pink strips through it. I was a hottie! At another point, I had all black hair with side bangs. At another point, I had all black hair with one big bleach blonde strip during my “trying to be like the girl in high school I didn’t realise I had a crush on” phase. I went several different shades of brown, then back to black. Then I went to the hairdresser with my copy of Aerosmith’s autobiography at the age of 17 and said “I want these Steven Tyler layers, but don’t take any length off”. I went from having hair to my waist to hair to my shoulders. Woof. But also I rocked it! I dyed it so then for a bit, I had a fire truck red shag mullet - before my future wife, Miley Cyrus made shag mullets cool again thank you very much. I was teased and mocked at school but I felt fucking cool. After high school, I kept going. I went completely blonde. Then my hair was dead (shocking) and I cut it all off into an asymmetrical haircut like P!nk had at the time, and went white blonde (not to mention I was big into fake tan at the time - who was she)?
I grew it out, I went dark blonde, I dyed it back to my natural hair colour, I got foils, then I kept growing it and growing it and dying it black for a few years until one day, it was down to my butt and I was like ENOUGH. I cut it off to my shoulders, then a few weeks later to a bob, then a few weeks later took a picture of Ruby Rose to the hairdresser and said “this!” and from there I proceeded to get rid of all of the hair dye with shorter cuts. Then I grew it out long again and then I came back to the Demi Moore in Ghost cut I have and love today.
It isn’t the end, but I do feel I will hold onto this cut for a long, long time. I have never felt more myself. Here is the answer to the second part of your question though: maybe I want to go blonde? I have been thinking about it and I mean it is just hair, right? I could grow it out. What do you all think?
