twits

*Disclaimer*

this is not my usual piece of writing.

welcome to my life, blogoworld.

<3

(and dad -- don't worry, i'm doing very well and making choices you would be proud of!)

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There’s a problem in this country called I like to call “Twits.” Twits are usually young women, seventeen through the early college years, who twit around wearing twitty outfits, forgetting how to make complete sentences and tottering around on four-inch stilettos while they go to class. These twits usually travel in packs, dress alike, dye their hair very similar, and think it’s perfectly acceptable to get wasted and vomit after a night of good hard flirting to attract a young man’s attention so he knows she’s a lot of fun.

Undoubtedly, twits are a problem. I always think “ahh, twits, you will one day grow up.”

I was never a twit, never tottered or teetered or got tore up from the floor up. Once, I threw up in my roommate’s hallway after drinking a half bottle of vodka upon realizing my recent boyfriend broke up with me because of another young lady. But that was it.

Actually, that is pretty twitty. I didn’t know how to handle my emotions and chose a mainstream way of processing, instead of actually searching and finding an avenue more appropriate and personal for me.

Okay, so I have been a twit.

This “twitness” has an interesting base. It’s designed often to be impressive for men. Women package their individuality up into tiny, sexualized, reproductions of various current trends, and parade their new image around as themselves. They parade in PACKS.

So I see this sexuality paraded around, and I think, “hmm. I used to be like that. Packaged.”

And then I realize that my Twitness, even the smallest amount of it I had,

was literally beaten out of me.

i've lost a sexual connection to men. lots of women dress up for men. they parade for men. they strut for men. they demonstrate for men. that woman is not me. that woman works too hard to get what she thinks she wants. that woman is not grounded in a reality based on her self, image, and desires. i was that woman, once. and that woman was murdered.

it's not at all a bad thing.

Sexuality is an interesting thing for an abused woman. The “sex” part of it completely loses its pretense. Throughout the abuse, the biting, the possession, the commandeering of your own body, you very silently forget attraction. You forget what attraction feels like. You lose all connection to pleasure. You lose all connection to yourself.

In the aftermath, the months after you’ve left your abusive life, you experience a huge disconnect from your sexuality. Instead of the common rejoicing of womanhood, the sexy strutting, the killer heels, (the simple pleasures of being a twit,)

my body becomes my relic to strengthen.

I practice yoga to release, I box to strengthen. I practice yoga to strengthen, I box to release.
My body becomes a vehicle of power, a re-claiming of what was taken from me. I dress in power clothes. I wear tight, stretched, curve-hugging pieces. I invest in empowering shoes. I look for ways to represent myself as a New Woman, a Stronger Woman, a Woman who has Survived and Strengthened a Past. My body, my sexuality, becomes something for me. I have no vision to how sexy I look to a man. I see, clearly, distinctly, how sexy I look to myself, how strong, how capable, how free and clear-minded.

I am here to strengthen. I am here to heal. I am here to take my time.

and sexuality takes its time. there's a new peace within it. the peace gives me the opportunity to exist and respond to people i meet, gives me the space and the balance i need to make decisions. there's a stillness and a beauty that grounds me, and a very, very quiet opportunity for hope and re-birth. calm, stillness, re-birth.