I need to spend less time driving around and more time writing or at least jotting down my notes. GV8 keeps pushing me to buy a voice recorder so I'm not in my car on the freeway with a notepad propped on my steering wheel, but... yeah, haven't done that yet.

I've been a bit irritated with myself since the thing with The Bassist.

Been thinking on it quite often, actually.

And my friends have been lecturing me to not be so hard on myself, that no (wo)man is an island, that we all need external validation sometime (even GV8, someone said, shock of shocks).

I feel like those people that should get it, the ones that have known me longest, are not doing so. They've all been like, "Well, you didn't sleep with him, you just went down on him, so that's like nothing for you. Hardly any backsliding."

But it's not the activity as much as the motivation, as much as the self-awareness.

Before I turned 18, I had around eighteen or so sex partners under my belt. I know it was over fifteen, as I was able to keep track back then and the fifteenth person I had slept with was the one that ended up impregnating me.

I had the abortion in July. July 14th, July 17th, something like that. I used to know a woman who lit a candle every year for a baby she had aborted, but I can't even remember the date. I simply don't care. Which sounds bad, but it has been so long and I look at my life fairly often and think how many things would be different, how I would be different, worse off, if I had continued with that pregnancy.

And it doesn't bother me.

Part of me feels that, for most people, life ends, growth ends with marriage and children. You're so busy focusing on other people, as you should be, that you are unable to focus on yourself, on recognizing your needs, your goals.

When I was 18, I was still angry and bitter at the male population. Raging, in my own way, but still desperate for validation.

Rack up a few more partners.

19 I met the second long-term relationship guy, pulled me off the market for a year, year and a half. Something like that.

Single again, wild again. Met a man who stopped me from falling into a pit of self-loathing, reined myself in.

Met Rick, dated two years, broke up, went into a series of one-night stands looking for comfort, looking to fill that emotional hollow. Called Rick one night (seeking comfort, not seeking to get back into the relationship), bawling my eyes out because I couldn't make it hurt any less. None of those men were doing any good.

Rebound relationship, Darkeyes, came out of that fragile, shaking like a leaf over how abusive our post-relationship had become, trying to live together in separate bedrooms, remain friends. One-night stand, one-night stand, lover, lover, lover, lover, one-night stand, lover, lover, one-night stand. I don't even know.

Finally, finally got myself to calm down with the constant need for the illusion of control just a few months before I met GV8.

And you know, it's been good.

I've been good.

This last year, 2009, new sex partner total was something like... five? GV8, Mr Brush-off, RR, Pseudonym Pending, and the Broken Prince. Five men in one year while single. That's an all time low for me.

I haven't even had sex with anyone but GV8 in the last almost four months.

It's absolutely bizarre.

I haven't felt the need. I was finally growing, was finally hitting that point where I was being confident enough in myself, confident enough in my life, that I did not need those things that sex can bring to a person: validation, control, comfort. My addictions. I've always had control issues, always seek comfort in physicality, and as much confidence and cockiness that people think I put out, I'm just like any other "average female": defined by who desires me.

Which I hate to say.

I'm so very different in some ways, but in others, ways I wish I wasn't, I'm exactly the same. Same triggers, same fears, same needs.

Re-reading that post where I talked about where my head was at, the guilt issues, etc... it read exactly like something I would have written when I was younger. Not just a little younger, but somewhere between 19-21.

It was the goddamn same.

Progress tossed in the face of emotion.

Progress tossed for the sake of comfort.

Because I'm letting GV8 get to me, because I'm letting myself get tied up in knots over this man. Though, really, what better man to get myself wrapped around? He's almost everything I could have asked for in a mate.

But I'm letting his actions upset me.

And I know better. We cannot control another person's actions, but we can control our reactions. I reacted poorly. I reacted out of fear and insecurity, I reached out and tainted a friendship, and I knew I was doing it, knew before I even did it.

That's not acceptable.

I did not come from lowest level gutterskank to where I am now to allow myself to backslide because some man has my heart in his fist.

I did not fight as hard as I have to break bad habits, to break dependencies, to realize patterns of rationalizations I have run myself through, only to consciously allow those same things to reemerge in a time of mild emotional stress.

Especially with everything I've learned from GV8 in this past year. He's been an incredible role model. His behaviors, his approach to life, is something I've been doing my damnedest to learn from, to mime. Under his tutelage, I've rapidly come into my own skin.

It feels like I betrayed that, like I betrayed the time he invested in me, by behaving as badly as I did. Part of me fears that all that growth, all the behavioral changes that have taken place were maybe just an illusion, maybe just temporary without reinforcement.

I thought they'd be stronger than my need to be desired. Thought they'd be stronger than that drive for validation, for control.

And now they need to be. I can't slip up like this again. I can't let all my years of work, all my self-therapy, to get tangled up because a situation with some man is making me feel out of control. My happiness and desirability are not hinged on whether or not he wants me, they are only hinged on me and my actions.

I need to learn this. I need to get to the point where I don't have to talk myself through the motions until I convince myself. I need to have this in my head as The Way Things Are.

And I will. I will be beautifully strong. I'm not going to fail.