Remembering to breathe

The problem I’m facing right now with wanting to be an ethical slut — with the emphasis on ethical – is that each wrong move takes on epic proportions in my head. À la Forces of Good vs. Forces of Evil. Even if all it was — I keep telling myself — was poor judgement. I’m allowed my bad choices, aren’t I? And I’m truly sorry for the hurt I caused, and I promise I’ll be more careful in the future.

Yet I catch myself framing my next moves not as taking responsibility, but as doing penance. It doesn’t fucking help. It’s hard enough without the chorus of bitchy little voices telling me what I’ve done is wrong, wrong, wrong. Stop, I whisper. Making mistakes doesn’t make me unethical. Does it?

The answer doesn’t satisfy.

Gar and I have called it off — again. Loup’s the next to go. And Aru, too, probably. The Baroque circle is just too small for my flavour of deviancy. The thought of destroying my own network with a few careless (no, poor) choices horrifies me. But there’s a creeping horror too in cutting ties. Never mind that the ties are with just these three, that the cuts themselves are partial and the integrity of the network remains. So I can do it — I keep telling myself — and it’s for the better. But I’m frightened.

Idiot. I don’t have to be. This mash-up of guilt, regret, stoicism and fear is completely avoidable. I could talk myself into anything, including an elevated state of aloofness. I could choose not to care…

But if I’ve learnt anything about choices, it’s that that would be a bad one. Possibly the worst of all. And I’ll fight hardest against such wilful anaesthesia. Because when you’ve been drowning, the first breath you take is always the most painful.