April 2026 – Listen Here

Being a woman is just one maddening, inconceivable, exhausting orbit around everything – moon, sun, expectation. If it isn’t hormones, it’s fatigue. If it isn’t fatigue, then the unspoken accounting – the invisible ledger of everything held, remembered, maintained.

There has to be some perfect, scientific balance – some rare celestial alignment – in which I arrive unburdened. Open. Receptive. Capable of desire that is not interrupted by obligation.

And sometimes… it is the most infuriating thing.

Because I seldom allow it.

How can a man – not a boy, but a man – step into that space?

Or perhaps the question is not how he enters at all…
But what happens when there is no space left for him to enter –
And I am the one who never set anything down.

Not the weight.
Not the vigilance.
Not the quiet, ever-present awareness that everything rests, in some measure, with me.

And there is a small part of me – sharp, unkind – that resents it.
Resents that I must be the one to loosen my own grasp –
and that I am the one who gives, who sacrifices, offers time and finances, who eventually breaks under a load almost too much to carry.

He arrives open.
Desirous.
Certain in a way that feels almost effortless.

And I… remain braced.

Still holding the week.
Still holding the children.
Still holding the life I have built with proud, careful hands –
a life that does not easily make room for anyone else within its walls.

Not because I do not want it.
I love the life I have built.

But love does not make it easy to leave – even briefly.

There is a fear, old and marrow-deep – a relic of the past – for I clawed my way here on bloodied nails, earned every inch of ground I now stand upon.

And beneath it… something more dangerous still: the quiet, unyielding belief that the world will betray, will abandon, unless I master it first.

That this beautiful, imperfect life exists only because I hold it together.

And generally, I can set the world aside –
for a moment,
an hour,
an evening.

Yet on this night… I did not set any of it down.

I want to be reached.

And there – there lies the fracture.

Because what is a man to do with a woman who longs to be undone, yet will not relinquish the thread that keeps her from unraveling?

What is there for him to lift when I have already decided it is mine to carry?

There are glorious moments and examples of when desire comes easily, unbidden, bright and unencumbered, when everything in me softens without effort.

Because I can spend an entire day choosing rest. I can curate calm. I can create a world where, by all logic, everything should align – where my Inner Goddess should rise, unburdened, ready for hours of wicked, lustful pleasure.

And yet… I falter.
And some small, unkind part of me resents that I must.

I stand at the threshold of it – aware of him, aware of myself – and unable to cross.

Not for lack of wanting.

But because I have trained myself too well to endure.

And perhaps that is the quiet tragedy of it –
not that he does not know how to seduce me –
But that I have forgotten, somewhere along the way, how to be reached at all.

How is it that I can go months without seeing someone and still find that immediate spark – effortless, electric, undeniable – and then, at other times, I am entirely unreachable?

There are moments I need to be wooed.

Moments I need to be drawn out.

Moments I need to be… seduced.

And even that is complicated – because I do not always know what I need myself.

My body is hypersensitive – to touch, to scent, to presence. My senses sharpen until even the gentlest caress feels misplaced. A kiss at the neck – once intoxicating – becomes distracting. Whispered nothings feel like noise. I want to crawl out of my very skin. 

And then comes the strangest part – trying.

Trying to move through it.
Trying to find the moment, the spark, the shift.
That one elusive position where something inside says, there – there it is, now I want this.

Because the connection exists.
Because the desire should follow, and I cannot seem to make it.

Because the other person is doing everything right.

And still… There is that quiet undercurrent of unrest.

So what is the right way to be seduced? Or is that the wrong question entirely – when nothing in me is available to be reached?

I tried closeness.
My head against his chest.
Stillness. Proximity. Heartbeat.

Nothing.

No desire. No pull. No unfolding.

Conversation drifted. Time passed. And nothing I did – nothing he did – could bridge that space.

And I am left with this quiet, unsettling question:

How do I soften? How do I allow someone into my sanctuary – without slipping into performance, into hosting, into doing?

Because that is what it became.

Hostess mode.
Caretaker.
The quiet tally of everything buttoned up and ready for nightfall.

Dinner was not provided because of miscommunication.
A glass of water to offer.
Dishes washed. Laundry attended.
The pulsing, constant awareness of what should be given, provided, managed.

And instead of flowing into the touch… I remained in motion – because stopping did not feel available to me.

Doing. Thinking. Accounting.

He sat on the couch – or followed me, quietly, from room to room… and that, strangely, made it worse.

Because now the contrast was unbearable – 

Me, still tracking dishes, dinner, details, the invisible ledger.
He, waiting… wanting… ready.

And something in me recoiled.

Not because he was wrong.
Not because he had done anything poorly.

But because I was still on duty. And a part of me was angry, feeling like I was constantly on-call. And my body knew it before I did.

“Not yet,” it seemed to say.
“We are not done holding everything together. And this life – this beautiful, hard-won life – runs because I hold it.”

And one would think – after weeks without touch – that even the smallest affection would unravel me. That the gentlest hands would unlock something buried, something waiting.

But instead, I am tired.

Bone-deep. Spirit-weary tired.

Ever the caregiver. Even here. Even now. Even with him.

And that is the most frustrating part – 

not that I do not want him,

but that I cannot seem to arrive where he is.

Because I did the things.
I rested – an entire day, in fact. I chose myself. I spent time with people who fill me. I gave myself space.

And still, when it came to intimacy… There was nothing left to offer.

So I am left wondering – 

So perhaps the question is not how a man should seduce a woman like me.

But what happens when a woman cannot lay her life down long enough to be reached and quietly resents that she cannot set it down, even when she wants to. That the world – everything that is precious to her – rests upon her shoulders.

A single mother.

A woman who carries everything.

A woman who does not need saving – 

but might, quietly, crave relief.

I don’t have a list to hand him. If he were to ask, “What can I do for you?” – I genuinely don’t have an answer.

I don’t need help.
I don’t need the kids picked up from school.
I am handling my finances.

And I can see how that might be confusing – because just last week, I recoiled at feeling “love bombed.” The constant texts. The “I miss you.” The “I wish you were here.” It made me feel guilty for time with my children – as though I had someone else’s emotions to carry, to soothe, to manage.

And I know – he meant it with the deepest love.

But it made me want to flee.

It was almost cruel, how little there was for him to do – how completely I had removed the need for him. Because I had already done it all.

And without something to take from me – some invisible burden I could not name – there was nothing for him to carry.

So he sat. And I remained… responsible.

Not because he failed me – but because I never stopped holding everything.

I found myself wondering if it lived in the small actions  – 

Let me warm something up for you.
Sit – I’ve got the dishes.
Don’t get up. I’ll take care of it.

Acts of Service, perhaps?

Touch was not the answer.
(I moved through sex, but it was mechanical – I was not in it, and nothing in me awakened.)

Words weren’t the answer.
(I know I’m doing a good job. The bar I set for myself is already impossibly high.)

Time together wasn’t the answer.
(Not even a couple of funny shows could reach me.)

Not because those things are wrong –
but because no technique bridges the distance between a body that is open…
and a body that is still braced.

He arrived ready.

I had not yet set anything down. There was no space left in me to receive – only to manage. Even though I wanted to.

And that may be the most disorienting part of all –
to want, and still be unreachable.

I don’t know if there is an answer.

I don’t know why this moment felt the way it did –
whether it was something passing…
or something I have not yet named.

Perhaps it was nothing more than a single night
where I could not set anything down.

Or perhaps it is one of those strange, in-between spaces
where nothing quite aligns – no matter how carefully it is arranged.

I only know that I am left with questions – more than I have the energy to unravel.

And when this life – so dearly fought for, so fiercely loved – asks so much of me, it is only that I find myself… tired.

Not of him.
Not of us.

But of being the one who holds everything.

Of carrying the week, the children, the life—
and then turning, gently, to receive love
as though I still have something left to offer in return.

Because I know he reaches for me.
I know he wants to give, to touch, to be close.

And yet…in this moment – even that tenderness arrives like something I must make space for,  something I must rise to meet, something I must not mishandle. And I do not know how to accept it without it feeling like one more thing to tend, one more current to steady, one more fragile piece placed in my keeping.

And there is, perhaps, the cruelest truth of all – that I stand at the edge of something I deeply want, and find myself unable to soften toward it tonight.

Not because it is lacking.
Not because it is wrong.

But because I have grown so accustomed
to bracing,
to holding,
to enduring…

that even now, with warmth offered freely…

I do not know how to set anything down long enough to be held instead.

Until next time, XO, Elsie