A very dear friend of mine suggested I do an exercise of writing down all of my life aspirations in a beautiful handmade notebook. So, I did. The list mainly includes various travel experiences and learning new skills. At one point, I was surprised to find my hand writing "Have an orgasm every day for a year."
Now, another friend pointed out to me recently that I may have a "late bloomer" bent on this subject, but bear with me. I stopped smoking cigarettes on May 31st. To reward myself, I decided to buy a new toy that's just for me. It's beautiful and it's exactly the one I wanted. These things can be expensive, and let me just say, it's worth it. YOU'RE WORTH IT.
Basically, I got this fancy new toy and inadvertently began my year long journey. Like, Forrest Gump, I just kept on goin'. And now, I'm two months in, and I felt like blogging about it. Weird, I know.
It has turned out to be so much more than I expected.
For the first two weeks, my body was just so happy for the attention I was giving, it all came so easily (excuse the intentional pun). Then, I'd find myself in logistically delicate situations where it was more difficult to accomplish. *cue all the people in my personal life counting back through the days* Eventually, I'd miss a day here or there, and be gentle with myself about it - which I believe is just a healthy way to work within a year-long challenge of any kind.
But now, I'm two months in, and its getting tough. I don't use any external visual - just as a general rule for my own challenge. So, I'm really just meeting myself - in this foreign land of pleasure where I've never truly ventured before. Sometimes, all I do is weep. Sometimes, it takes an hour. Sometimes, I'm so frazzled that I think of a million other things I could be doing while I'm doing this. And every time I finish, I'm more grounded and stable in my body. I'm honestly the least stressed I've ever been.
I've also been listening to a podcast called "Hoodrat to Headwrap: a decolonized podcast" presented by Ericka Hart and Ebony Donnley (which I highly recommend!). And Ericka Hart is a sexuality educator (with a Master's in sex ed) who says that their top "self love" activity is masturbation. I think we could all get in touch with ourselves a little more and break the stigma around talking about female/nonbinary masturbation. Let talk about it! It's good for us! Let's get vulnerable! Let's get real.