depression

Cirque du Danger: How I Fell In Love With Aerial Silks

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I collapse onto my back, sweating and panting heavily. I’m flushed, both from the heat of the room and the flood of endorphins, and I can’t stop grinning. My muscles are deliciously sore from use, and I can already feel bruises beginning to form on my hips and thighs.

But I’m not in my bedroom, at a play party, or in a dungeon, and I haven’t just had sex or bottomed in a scene. I’m in a fitness studio, surrounded by little else but about eight other women, a bunch of mats, and fabric dangling from the ceiling.

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Six Weeks Later

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Six weeks ago, I endured a seismic shift in my life.

Six weeks ago, my long-distance partner of over 4 years told me that he had developed feelings for another woman, and that he was leaving me, in part so he could be with her. I had just arrived on a plane that morning, ready for a week of laziness and quintessential New England autumn activities, and instead I found myself in his new apartment (his job meant regular relocations), staring out the window at a city I’d never seen before that day while my world crashed around me. Everything I’d built up in my head, everything about what our lives were going to be like once that grand mythical day arrived and we’d finally live in the same place, crumbled.

But this isn’t about that. It’s not even about him, and it’s definitely not about her. This is about me, and what came after.

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