Identity

In the eleven years since my arranged marriage fell apart, I fell in love once, and was infatuated more times than I care to remember. On most of those infatuations, I look back and wonder how I had been so deluded. I regret more than one of them. Now I see the constant desire that I walked around in as a function of nature. Life wants to continue, and if I was to be a part of that, this was my last chance.

 I walked around in an almost constant state of desire. I was never satisfied, and I was almost constantly yearning. I became pregnant three more times, none of which came to term. 

This year, my feelings became neutral in a way I had never before experienced. I no longer noticed men as objects of attraction, and if I did, it was only from the distance of one who cannot or does not wish to participate. I envied men, who never have to experience this shift into invisibility.

Now, halfway into the year, I looked back on images of myself, in a boudoir photo shoot, and expressing my sultry side for the Identity Shift Project, and I wanted to delete the images, because that's not who I am now. But I don't delete them, because I don't want to erase the identity I have created, however misleading it is.

As for my identity as a writer, I still like to think that I will have something more to say one day. But on this day, I don't know what that will be.