a to z challenge – s is for sad & sucky; t is for thumbtacks

So S should have been for sexy. Or submission. Or “somebody got her ass whupped.” But it wasn’t.

My pseudo father-in-law (nesting partner’s father) passed away last Tuesday, and though it was expected (he was in hospice with late-stage lung cancer) it hit me hard, as all deaths do. I have had a number of deaths in my life from a young age (“You’ve had to deal with a lot of death,” my therapist said, and then we delved into that whole morass of grief and sorrow and guilt and the baggage I still carry with me re: my father dying when I was 15, my brother about 8 years later, my sister 10 years after that, my grandparents and then, most recently, Warren. Oh, and my beloved dog Cooper, who I didn’t even know I loved enough that I would shatter and fall apart when he died of stomach cancer, poor thing.) And every time someone else dies, it brings it all up to the surface again, rather than letting me keep all that grief stuffed very tightly into a little box in the back of my mind. This stuffing, of course, is not a healthy thing, which is probably why each subsequent death hits me so hard.

So anyway. Sadness.

And then there was the suckiness. I decided, as hinted at yesterday, to go out with friends to a fetish night event last night (yes, in spite of everything – death, Covid, distance, being alone.) Because, lo and behold, this was the 1st post-pandemic (I know, it’s not actually “post” but I mean “since the pandemic started”) kink event I had gone to; it was also the 1st event I had gone to since my kink partner and I stopped seeing each other; the 1st time I had gone alone to an event without him since forever.

It was rough. In so many ways.

It was also stupidly risky. I had been led to believe that there wouldn’t be that many people (there was NO attempt to limit numbers), that it would be masks-enforced (roughly half the people were wearing them) and that there would be social distancing. Unless social distancing is 6 inches instead of 6 feet, um, NO. Not even close. And no play stations to go escape to. So, I didn’t even get beat up.

There were some positives: I got to hang out with friends, and it was cool being around kinky folk! It’s been too long! And I got to dress up, something I rarely did even with kink partner, and wear heels, and I looked pretty damn cute. So there.

But SOOO not worth the risk, tbh. Now I will spend the next week anxious over every symptom, even tho I am half-vaccinated. And I feel like one of those assholes that is fucking the whole world over by ignoring safety recommendations. I keep thinking, I’ve been so cautious for all this time, it was JUST ONCE and I really thought it wasn’t going to be like that! Sigh.

Okay, on to a little more fun – if it can be called that. Actually I am a little worried about this task: “Find or buy at least 100 thumbtacks and place them in a container of rubbing alcohol.” That’s it, no further instructions. Apparently, they are for some future use, but yikes!!