Otra Recap in Book Six: Trying to Hold On 2019

Time Zones and Day Reviews are interesting.

From one perspective, Tuesday was a “travel day.” Except… perspectives and relative time through space play with it. From one perspective: Tuesday was the following:
5 a.m. Wake Up
6 a.m. Airport
7:20 a.m. Board the Plane
7:40 a.m. Wheels Up
2.5 Hour Flight
10:10 a.m. Landing in Phoenix
11:00 a.m. Board Plane in Phoneix
11:30 a.m. Wheels Up
8 Hour Flight
7:30 p.m. Landing in Kona
8:00 p.m. Pick up rental car
8:30 p.m. Eat Dinner
9:00 p.m. Hang Out w/Family until 2 a.m.

So Tuesday was travel with some family hang out. Except… according to actual clocks… that wasn’t it at all. When we landed on Tuesday; we had the entire afternoon left in Hawai’i. Like… “dinner” was actually at 3:30! Hang Out was from 4:00 until 9:00! According to clocks. SO… yeah. That’s… that’s how that plays out.

Wednesday was a chill out day. I mean… you already know that.

But… a little bit of yikes. Because it is VERY hot here and we have no air conditioning. So, even though Wife was able to hit the pillows and crash; sleep on Wednesday night was fairly tough for me. To the point where… I maybe got two hours of sleep… after jerking off twice to get my body drained of energy to sufficiently ignore the heat. :( No wonder we were getting a Hotel for the night of the 4th! Even though the festivities were only a 45 minute drive away; it was a solid 10 degrees cooler with better ventilation and fans in the hotel. Which also meant.... I saw it as likely the best opportunity for sexy times with Wife. After all, we were planning a really nice and expensive dinner… then hotel… so the right environment for a sexual encounter.

We packed light and headed out early on Thursday morning. First stop of the day was the July 4th Hawai’i Rodeo. Massive tradition and celebration and attended by a really interesting and diverse international multi-lingual crowd. Family next to me? Only spoke French. Family in front of me? Only spoke Native Hawaiian. Family behind me? Spoke English but preferred to converse amongst themselves in German. And the stands were filled with a sea of different skin colors from Japanese to Philipino to Mexican to Tan White to Ghost White to Africa Black to African American Black. It was honestly beautiful to see. Even though IF is better than Tiny Town as far as “Do minorities exist at all?” it is still really nice to see a place where everyone is gathered and it isn’t homogenized to shit. Hear that Steve King, you stupid fucker! The last line added because Steve King (racist that denies racism) has often said he wants to see a “a more homogenized world.” NOPE. Fuck you, and all your Race Supremacy Bullshit.... diversity is the spice of life and a beautiful fucking thing!

The Rodeo itself was… okay. I mean… the Hawaiian Novelty was interesting but it was like a normal, regular mid-west Rodeo that you’d find in Montana, South Dakota, or Iowa anyway in most respects. The highlights (as always) were when the little kids get in there. You see a five or six year old girl who loves the sport and wants to be JUST LIKE Daddy? Tiny little girl with beautiful long black hair practically lept from her horse, grabbed the calf by the head, and told her Dad to get the ribbon on the calf’s tail!! LoL. They kind of had to explain to her that… that wasn’t really what the event was intended to be. Daddy is supposed to grab the calf and hold it steady so that you can pull the ribbon off the tail. Meanwhile I’m thinking, fuck that, lil kid knew the event and wanted to do the Big Girl part and rocked that shit! It was super cool!

The rodeo went until a little after the noon hour and then Wife, me, Cousin, and his wife all went to the hotel to check in. Wife sat on the bed playing cell phone games, I hit the bed and concked out. 2 hours of sleep was not enough. So I got another 2 hours of sleep before I woke up and Wife and I watched Episode 1 of Season 3 of Stranger Things. Then we went to get a cocktail with Cousin and his Wife before dinner.

Dinner was… impressive? The nicest restaurant on the island. Excellent very well prepared food… but also EXPENSIVE AS FUCK. Like… worth it.... worth it… but the entire bill for four was over $300. So… that’s what we’re talking about for price point!! Wife was smart, though, in not getting something too heavy. Just a seafood salad but one she absolutely adored. She kept saying, “IF she could eat salad like that every day, she’d ONLY eat salad!” So… yeah. I’m thinking… comfortable hotel, it is cooler, we don’t have to worry about Cousin and his Wife hearing us, expensive dinner but not so much that it bogs Wife down.... sounds good! We get back to the room, I kiss her on the cheek and say, “I love you.” She… ignores it and doesn’t respond. She sits on the bed and reads her manga (fully dressed). I get out of my clothes and get under the covers. She… keeps all of her clothes on and gets under the covers. Falls asleep. Fully clothed. Sleeps through the night fully clothed. I… struggle for several hours into the night. Approximately 4 hours. I watch some Brooklyn 9-9, I watch some Bob’s Burgers, I read several articles on “What to do when my wife won’t have sex with me?” with the following advice repeated often:
(1) It is not about you; it is often about her. (2) That doesn’t mean you don’t feel pain. (3) Express to your wife the pain you feel but in such a way as to not be accusatory. (4) Chose that this may be a season of your life that you just need to make sure you GIVE to your wife without expecting in RETURN; perhaps she is going through a rough patch and just needs you in ways that don’t result in sexual intimacy. (5) Never ever give up.

That is a condensed version of about… 8 different articles. Which… made me a bit self-reflective.

See, I’ll admit that I rarely feel a connection to my wife. Like… I’ll look at her and just be caught in this emotional “I love her” and this physical “She’s so beautiful” and this intellectual “I can see us succeeding in life.” But then I acknowledge… I never hear, see, or experience a reciprocal of that. But… is that my programming? Is part of my programming that I expect/want/demand verbal/physical acknowledgment? And if so, when you look at (even non-religious) Marriage Counseling advice like detailed above… there is this emphasis that “things happen, don’t give up.” Is stuff like that what I should be listening to or just… additional reinforcement of my core programming?

And this self-reflection led me to something else.

I think people mistake me for a complainer or someone “entirely unwilling to change their situation.” I would argue that neither of those are really accurate descriptions. I suppose if I were to do an allegory:
Think of me in terms of trying to beat a maze created for me by someone who knows me really well. I get to a T intersection and have to chose between going Right or Left. My first thought is “Go Left.” But then I think, “They would know I’d turn left, so I should turn Right.” But then I think, “No, they’d know that! They’d know I would figure that they would know I’d turn left, so I would then want to go right. So I should probably go Left because they think I’d think to go Right.” But then I think, “NO. You’re overthinking it. Just make a decision and go!”

And that is a big part of why I write here! There are different realities. I’m just trying to figure out which one is going on and how I fit there. Because there is the “Programming”; Public Perspective; Authentic Concern Perspective; What Is Healthy? I’m trying to figure out… what decisions are being backed (and/or made) by a lifetime of Ultra Christian Sexual Hang Up Programming… or my Unhealthy Sex Life History… or the Societal Influence… or Genuine Friendly Advice… or Self Preservation… or anything.

Ultimately, that’s why I came back to this kind of writing in law school to begin with. I am required to be a good husband; I have moved my wife to a state she hates, how much responsibility should I feel for the 3 years of celibacy? And… in some ways, I’m still trying to reflect on that and how my world is viewed, reacted to, and lived.

And that kind of brings me down a little. Because… it makes me feel bad that I grew up trying to understand what it would take to be a good husband and… to feel like all of that is now just the shackles tying me to a life that I can’t fix by myself and am having difficulty getting my partner to fix at all.