Baby, I'll Be Your Abeona, but I'm no Adiona

I'll get you on your journey, but I can't promise your safe return.

Getting ready to compress and possess.

First things first.

So I have quite a few new subscribers who aren’t familiar with my brand of weird and backstory. Let me give a brief:

I was deep in the world of evangelicalism for over two decades, primarily in the Southeast. My husband and I even went to seminary. We got trained at a huge megachurch in Raleigh, North Carolina, before moving our family to churches in South Carolina and Washington state where my husband pastored.

Like many, the pandemic made us question if we truly fit in evangelical life. And the answer was no; our views were growing more progressive compared to our congregation and denomination (Southern Baptist Convention) as a whole, so we left our church and organized religion. We stayed in our small, isolated area of southeastern Washington while our family adjusted.

After many discussions and finally the opportunity to be the authentic me, I came out as bi/pansexual and with a desire to embrace my sensuality and sexual discovery with my husband’s support. As a writer with some publications under my belt, I decided to go back to school and received my master’s degree in creative writing. I write about my journey here and through other publications, such as my viral piece earlier this year in Huffington Post.

On Substack, I’ve shared about broken relationships, endearing friendships, and some of my fantasies and sensuality pursuits as I unravel from embedded shame from purity culture. As a creative nonfiction writer, you are witnessing my successes and shitty challenges. I do it (under my real name — not too many do this) because I know there are others like me who have felt trapped for a very long time, especially as women who are driven to give, want, flaunt, please, and release in provocative ways as we mother and love and stitch lives together day-in and day-out.

Where am I now?

• Still submitting pieces to lit journals.

• Writing my memoir that attempts to figure out why I’m such a sexual creature.

• Working in professional development, a job I’m grateful for but will not be my career. (I like to think it’s prepping me for my future TED Talks.)

• Being an epic mom and wife while talking about sex and desire. Gasp!

• Exploring solo sensuality after giving up (taking a very long break?) on ethical nonmonogamous dating.

• Recognizing my super power of not giving a fuck because embarrassment, especially based on the thoughts of others, is a transfer of power.

And stay tuned for my list of perks as I offer paid subscriptions at the end of the month. What should I offer? Help me out by giving me some input.

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This piece was just sitting in my Google Drive. I was thinking of submitting it for a flash pub, but I think people who don’t have the insight or context of my life just won’t get it. (I’m also very focused on submitting another piece titled “Delayed Communion.” At the moment, that’s my baby.)

Your Abeona, My Adiona¹

With the ticking down of last light, I begin the process of taking back my settlement.

My borders reigned in and reinforced.

The continents of my mind seek Pangeal unification.

I fold, tuck, clasp, relocate, and gather like the dramatic little forager I am.

No worries, this is just my body balling up for the night. My ritual. Stationing myself. Driving myself deeper from crust to mantle to core where my breath and compressed flesh offer a warm seal.

(I tend to make everything a performance.)

The magic of dusk signals that my body is my own once more. I contort my limbs, scrunching, to believe it.

Feet rub, fingers in creases, teeth perforate lips.

Taking an inventory of myself before turning off the world for the night.

I’m still here.

Because when I wake, I am a sprawled offering, a rich treasure trove out in the open.

I seek to discover myself, but I let myself be pillaged.

Sure, I guide a select few travelers on arduous journeys if they have tales of intrigue or that certain je ne sais quoi. I sometimes allow easy pilgrimages over my unpredictable terrain for kind souls who have also found homes on the periphery, but for others, the most stubborn of explorers, I concoct long “short cuts” and forced respites.

Don’t take too much from my resources. I can offer more than enough, but don’t be greedy.

As the day wears on, I sometimes tire of serving as a compass, my capacities stretched beyond the four corners.²

And as the sun sets, I cease offering strong winds and reliable currents and safe passage.

I will look at you through the “We’re Closed” sign of my reconnaissance shop and lock my cache up tight. Supplies you keep forgetting for your own voyages.³

I cannot navigate for you because I forgot my own routes, so I compact myself again.

I feel all my faculties by pressing and caressing. I remind myself where my paths lead and the extent of my boundaries as I redraw the map to myself again and again and again.⁴

1. Abeona is the Roman goddess of outward journeys. Adiona serves as the goddess of safe returns. I can welcome you and make the trip worthwhile, but I can’t promise I’ll get you back home, especially when I need to focus on getting myself centered and in place after all of the giving. Metaphor, metaphor, metaphor.

2. I thought of this in reference to being overwhelmed in life but then also tied up and edged. Interesting how being stretched can bring chaos in one way and relief in another.

3. Self-worth, empathy, humor, lube, etc.

4. Self-love, reconnect, grace, lube, etc.