La Mala

So many bloggers start their blogs asking themselves - why am I doing this?

I supposed I should take time to answer this. Dulce says it's a release and I believe her. So much of my activist work is about liberation for our peoples and may be I believe that liberation has to begin within the self.

Facts: I broke up with an incredible, passionate woman, who'll live on these pages as Ya Vez, who was also verbally abusive and realized she liked the idea of butch even if she doesn't really know what butch means. While we worked together to further the arts community here in Austin, I was faced with no support for my own writing career. I woke up my own destructive tendencies and so did she. We were good but not good. Passionate in all the good and bad of that.

Then I met another woman, who I'll call Cliffy, who was gentle and sincere. An actor and healer. My having broken up with the first woman might have marked me as someone who shouldn't be in a relationship so soon, but it doesn't help that my ex lives behind my house and that, somehow, when Ya Vez calls me or emails me it's okay but when I do the same, in the name of pseudo friendship, then Cliffy ends up answering the door to Ya Vez's wrath. Oil and vinegar.

No surprise, Cliffy and I don't work either. Yes, I know, relationships shouldn't start within 3 months of old relationships, and yes, there's no way to have any kind of relationship when your ex lives at your back door!, and yes, I'm an emotional wreck even if I am happy that I will not give up my ways of expressing. Besides, Cliffy's a beautiful woman with this really gorgeous chin - why not give in to trying?

But, what have I learned? Love is not enough.

My ex partner helped me in realizing I wanted to live all of my life, to not suffer the half-life so many women suffer because of familial and institutional systems of control. I feel everthing, I'm too emotional/too needy/too giving. I will not give these up. Staying separate from myself, separate from the people I have near me and separate from the community means staying dead. Count me in, shit.