This is Not a Fucking Sex and the City Blog.
If there's anything I’ve learned from the past ten years of my crazy, chaotic, sometimes erotic experiences with men, and love, and disaster, and mess, it’s that the only person I was looking for was myself. Which was a difficult realization to have, especially when you’re someone who was constantly holding onto this idea of curating an image for safety and protection, or comfort to avoid the uncomfortable process of being perceived.
For the past ten years I’ve held onto these thoughts, that if I was perfect, well behaved, well liked, socially acceptable in any capacity, that somehow it would prove that I was worthy to exist. That if I mirrored back exactly what people wanted, they’d actually want me. And in truth it even reflected in my writing. In all the ways in which I never challenged myself to go deeper, to avoid public opinion in spite of my own observations. It reflected in my relationships. In the men I’ve been with who only saw me as the fantasy I projected to them, in order for me to find a level of control in vulnerability. It reflected in my life.
Until I realized that this false sense of safety wasn’t protecting me from anything. If anything, it served as a prolonged attachment to self destruction. An attachment to a double life that I created and existed in for years, in which I went to extreme lengths to try and find my identity. To escape the suffocation I felt every single day being some version of McKenna. But still, even in that escapism, I clung onto trying to control an image. Project a narrative.
This past version of myself, this darker half of my double life, that was either fucked up, being fucked, or getting fucked over (I call her Mickey so did half of New York City. To this day I still get texts asking where Mickey is. I SLAYED HER LIKE A DRAGON IN A DUEL TO THE DEATH. I WAS KNIGHTED FOR MY BRAVERY. THE PROPHECY HAS BEEN FULFILLED. THE KINGDOM OF CHRYSTIE STREET TO THE MOUNTAINS OF MEATPACKING WILL NEVER BE TERRORIZED AGAIN ) was so hell bent on being someone else. On using harmful coping mechanisms like benders and casual connections to run away from the painful truth that she didn’t actually want to exist. She didn’t know how to exist. Pretending she enjoyed being a disaster, and projecting an illusion of freedom, was easier than just accepting herself. Same cycle, different ego.
This blog starts the very long and painful process of allowing myself to just be human. I want to write how I talk. I curse. Sue me. I’m not always grammatically correct, I speak in run-on sentences with no semicolon. Sometimes I spiral and go on tangents. I’m not always contained. If that makes me a shitty writer now, so be it. Maybe I always was one.
My experiences are fucking embarrassing and intense, and honestly sometimes so am I. Sure I can talk about the crazy experiences, the wrong doings of other people, all my lovers, but what’s the point if I can’t also admit that at times I was a piece of shit too? That I was a mess.
Two things can exist at once, right? I mean, I guess that's what I was trying to understand in some way when I went through the phase of being both Mickey and McKenna. That’s the whole point of humanity. To understand our duality. But also, understanding that to dilute our experiences, and even the roles we play in them, is to dilute our existences.
My attachment to chaos, even when it was destroying me, was only to avoid coming face to face with the fact that the perception of others was something I’d never be able to control.
Recently I sent a guy I messed around with literally once (great kisser hard to come by) some long drawn out text message about my feelings and then immediately blocked his number because I was afraid of that perception I’ve been running from. The fear of looking crazy, unbalanced, unedited, not sexy, not cool.
Like yeah girl lets get one thing clear, 50/50 chance he thinks you’re a fucking freak. But you actually think you’re a fucking freak for having feelings in the first place. You should probably face your BS so you don’t go around avoiding uncomfortable human interactions that might actually be beneficial for you in the long run. You can’t escape being McKenna anymore. You’re not a bad ass for pretending you don’t have feelings. You’re not some cool downtown girl for always trying to dominate situations you actually feel vulnerable in.
Who cares if that guy never responds, who cares if he takes a blood oath under a full moon howling like a wolf in a dark forest around a (this actually sounds like a good time) fire to never sleep with another woman named McKenna from the East Village again? WhOOO (Wolf howl. Yes. Very important) cares? You’re going to look like a freak to someone again someday, it’s unavoidable. You’re a weird girl with feelings. You’re terrified of being seen as flawed. Deal with it. Stop running away. Own it.
I think for me, owning all of myself starts with understanding that the lighter parts of me, who are connected to helping others, poise, and empathy, aren’t separate from the darker parts of me that had experienced substance abuse, casual sex, the 2018 NYC club promoter apocalypse (we’ll talk about this later), and depression.
I’m continually learning every single day that being multifaceted isn’t just about being perceived, as being physically well rounded. It’s about understanding that even the side of me who no one sees, or even the one I’m afraid to speak about, still exists. Holding onto a curated image, all for the sake of trying to escape either part of myself that doesn’t align with the one I’m comfortable projecting at the moment, is not only unrealistic, but unfair to the entirety of who I am.
I'm taking you on that ride with me for the next however many years this blog exists. If I look absolutely insane to you, so be it. I’m willing to throw myself and my messy past experiences out there publicly. I’ll allow myself to be ripped to shreds by perception if it needs to happen, in order to finally, maybe, just be me.
If you made it to the end of this, I’m glad we could finish together. You’re unlikely to get that from anyone you’re sleeping with at the moment. Let's be real. Come again soon?
xx, M