It's Not the End; It's the Making Of

We swapped to him driving after lunch likely because he's scared of how distracted I get. Which is fair. Though he's working from a time before I had the right Vyvanse dose.

So I want to save more cornerstone moments to remember later.

1. Sitting in the Woods House with Mal and Adam the other night. Talking about understanding people deeply.

Me, to Mal: You and I have always been on the same wavelength.

Mal: No, Caro. We wrote the same book.

2. Sick at the Main House dropping off Little Dog.

Oldest daughter, doing her sourdough folds: Feel this!

I reach in and it's bouncy and taut.

Me: I don't know much about this but it feels really good. This feels really good right.

She hugged me from behind. She smelled like Gain.

Her: It does! Let's try focaccia together this weekend!

3. Driving back to the Woods House from the airport with Brian. My Spotify playlist July 2026 was playing on shuffle.

Brian: You used to listen to such sad music all the time. It's different now.

He reached over and took my hand, then squeezed it.

He should be out any second!

Dropped Little Dog off at Main House before I go pick up Brian at the airport. This man is unhinged for flying today, but I can't deny I'm excited to be around him again.

It's a bit of a drive, so we'll probably get a late lunch on the way back and then hang with everyone and then just with the adults.

One of Malinda's girls got a summer job offer yesterday. I'm so freaking proud of her.

When I took the pup in (because she's distracting and Mal is working from home at the Woods House), the family nurse said my throat looks inflamed and feels swollen. It makes me feel less crazy to have it confirmed.

When the kids heard that, they immediately gathered eight packs from their sacred stash of Liquid IV for me to take with me. They're such sweet kids.

It was July then too, though the humidity was gentler then even in Virginia where the green tree-stars seemed to float above us, cloaking my aunt's yard in shadow enough for hard work in the middle of the day. Mal was down with me for the summer; we spent many summers in Virginia back then to get away from both our mothers, and my aunt was always glad to have us around.

That year she rented a house in the woods with an old chicken shack in the yard beyond the firepit and hammock. No one ever went in, but we woke up industrious one day and decided to make it into a clubhouse.

With careful hands and as few breaths as possible, we spent many sweltering days chipping away at the fossilized shit that caked the inside of the small building. When Mal managed to pry the hard-stuck windows open, we cheered. Once the filth was gone and it aired out a bit, we attacked it with scrubbers, soap, and hoses for days. Next, we made judicious use of my father's credit card for paint, stickers, and battery-operated lighting.

The finishing touches were the most exciting part. We bought an inflatable couch and chair, then blew them up manually, sucking in huge gulps only to press the nub between our lips and blow again. They took forever to take shape. A gem of a side table and a painting that looked like a nearby field soon joined our hoard.

James and Ian (not my dad) came to hang out with us on the official opening day. We cracked open deliciously sweet orange sodas and sat on the squeaky seating, laughing and sharing secrets like a conclave of royals in a seaside retreat appointed with only the finest. The air smelled like clean soap and linen, perfumed by a sweet breeze that blew in from the forest.

Two days later, my aunt had a party and her friends left drug paraphernalia and beer cans in the chicken shack. They popped one of the inflatable couches; she told me she was sorry but she and her boyfriend paid the rent and their friends were allowed to use it too. After that, they used it almost every day until it smelled like cigarette smoke and stale breath.

For the rest of that summer, Mal and I rarely went into the chicken shack. We sat on the big couches in the family room watching cable or on the divider in the carport while one of us worked the hanging punching bag. A few months after that, my aunt got evicted, and I never saw that place again.

I first walked through the double glass-paned doors of the Woods House at the end of last July when I was so lost in myself that I barely registered the strangeness of a closet with 37 hospital blankets or a garage with 14 identical drills. Making it a functional home has taken a year, with Malinda, Adam, Kate, Brian, Will, and me carrying out load after load and repairing the damage left by years of neglect.

Decades from now, this house will pass on to one of their children. For now, though, it's an adult clubhouse we call the Sex and Craft House. It's a refuge for all of us when we need the peace and stillness the woods bring. It's chilly with central air even on a 95-degree July day and there are three soft couches to choose from. Malinda and Adam keep saying it's my house.

“Why rush back? This is your house. Just stay longer.”

I take pride in keeping it clean and finding projects to complete. Every day I sweep, dust, and find a few things to donate or organize. I've replaced switch plates, painted primed doors, and scrubbed paint off detail work in the bathrooms. Everything I improve makes me a little brighter inside. Makes the house feel more mine.

Fairy lights guide our way up the driveway that ends in an elegant circle around a tree and blooming flowers. Inside, soft lights, the scent of lemon wax, and the amber and cashmere candles we burn each day welcome me home whenever I tap the unlock button on my phone.

I needed to fuel up even though plans may be changing, so I took the little dog (because I'm babysitting her and because I owe her a pup cup) along for the ride.

She always looks like she's being kidnapped in the car. Mal says that's just her car vibe.

Everything was going well. We got gas, got a green tea and pup cup...and then I decided to go through the car wash.

I forgot in her single year of life, she's never been to one.

If I posted pictures of myself on the Internet, I'd take the one I snapped for Mal after little dog LEAPT into my arms with her head on my shoulder and refused to move until a good three miles after the car wash.

Poor baby. I'm a terrible dog-sitter.

We got back to the woods house and now she's sleeping with her head on my lap while I take a break from writing (romance) to write (this).

Brian might fly down via Westchester tomorrow instead of me going home. The date he planned won't work with the weather, I'm still feeling kinda crappy for a long drive, and apparently Malinda texted him to invite him to come spend the holiday down here.

Also the date he really wants to do won't work with the insane almost 100-degree temps so we're going to do that next week. He still won't tell me what it is but I can tell he's excited about it. I think I'm going to see how he feels about a pre-date for coffee here to take the pressure off.

Then one year was behind me and now my brain is quieter.

Not in a disassociative or lazy way. I'm still thinking and analyzing. Today, specifically, figuring out ways from 15 years of journals and 6 of poetry (I barely wrote for the last eight years) how to love the people I love better. What my writing says about them.

This is the one use of AI that I feel gives me real value. I uploaded years of information and it picks out patterns I never noticed before. It reads the poems, the journals, and then it returns with information that seems so obvious I should have known it but never saw the way the wind slowly left its mark on the rock.

What I mean is that life is so short and so long and it feels like yesterday Malinda was coming home to me and our group was sneaking into hot tubs in the middle of the night. But it was a decade plus ago and somehow with all those days between who we all were and who we are, the gift Kat gave me at 17 is still relevant.

Or maybe the quiet comes from finally understanding the love they have for me wants precense. They want to be around me and share a life with me. Every expression of desire for time together left me combing through their words for what was wrong. What they needed.

What they needed was for me to be present in the life we all share.

That knowledge settles me somewhere I never realized was restless.

There's so much more to say but the classical playing is relaxing and this tea is peachy and my Kindle is looking at me from the bath tray like it really needs me to keep reading.

It was little dog's first birthday today. I ran around with her and we played in the yard until she was exhausted.

But seriously, why is she so little?

Despite my horrible body, I'm more comfortable with it. Turns out being around people who are willing to strip and be sexual and exude sexiness with all their flaws and imperfections helps a person learn that you don't have to look perfect to be desirable.

People being verbal about wanting to fuck me or do other types of play with me doesn't exactly help. When I was not fat, I got a lot of men hitting on me and I'm kind of immune to it. (Not like I was so hot. I'm just approachable and easy to talk to and look like a milkmaid when I'm not fat.) But it surprised me and made me wonder if I can have a good sex life even with all my flaws. Many of which losing weight won't erase.

I'm still deadass incapable of knowing that someone is hitting on me. One guy I thought I was going to hang out with and talk writing actually came out and asked if I realized he was trying to go on a date.

I did not.

A friend of Mal's I hung out with after a party recently I guess reached out to her husband and was like ...did Caroline realize when I put my arm around her and was rubbing her arm that I was hitting on her?

I did not. I thought he was just connecting and we were vibing.

I got up a few minutes after that and told him how great the night was but I needed to get to bed.

My point is that I've seen and learned a lot -- but I'm still me. I love being in this community. I love the amazing people I've met and lessons I've learned.

But I'm still a monogamous girl overall. I still want to be in a dynamic relationship to an extent that would be considered unhealthy because I have no interest in retaining my autonomy once things are where they need to be.

Brian and I have of course talked about all this. It probably seems strange to have done with our first date not having happened yet but we agreed to be really open with stuff once we had the "we like each other but the timing isn't right for me" talk at the end of winter.

One thing he said to me last night when we were talking and I was expressing some anxiety about sex kind of hit in a positive way. He asked if I like it when he holds my hand.

I said, "I do. I always have. It's warm and comfortable."

He asked if I liked it when he kissed me the day he graduated.

I said, "Yes I did."

Though what I meant was it felt like being hit in the face for the first second because I was smiling and laughing and still in my dumb joke and then his lips were on mine and there were SO MANY PEOPLE around and wait, he's kissing me? But then his lips were warm and soft and he kind of did this thing with my bottom lip before his tongue touched mine and everything in me literally melted.

So yes, I did like it.

He said sex would be like that. It wouldn't be a race to get there. We can take our time. But it's him and it's me and it's something we're doing together. Like a hike or the few times we've danced or painting or going to one of these crazy parties. It's something he and I can share. There's nothing I can do to be bad or disappoint him in it. It's just another way of being close and enjoying something together.

That gave me so much comfort. And reduced my anxiety like 4 percent.

The thing with having vaginismus when I was younger is that penetration with another person is terrifying. Until I did counseling and then later worked on stretching myself with toys after grad school, I only tried it once and absolutely panicked. It's weird to say because my first boyfriend and I had a very sexual relationship but we couldn't have sex. It was so bad when we tried and I outright refused therapy over it.

Now I enjoy it with toys, even large ones. I am decently over the things that made it difficult mentally. It helps that I enjoy pain because I really am inconveniently tight even when I'm aroused. Like I can stretch but no toy is the most comfortable if I'm just looking for pleasure.

All that just makes me scared to do that with him.

Especially because when it comes to certain types of touching or penetration, I have a pretty big tendency to disassociate, space out, or get a certain way I don't love being. And I'm scared of that happening when we do.

Which is weird because after years of that happening with sexual stuff for basically my whole life, it's pretty incorporated into the way I'm submissive, the sex life I'd prefer, etc.

But it does scare me.

I'm happy to have learned so much, especially about impact. I learned a lot about whips and I will never let someone without a lot of experience whip me. I'm happy and feel privileged to have seen what I did at the parties I've gone to.

The one I wrote about in crazy detail (where Brian was DD and the rest of us took the stuff I said on the entry I later made private) showed me so much I'd never considered. I want to keep going for years. I want to keep learning.

I want to be like the couple I met who are 24/7 and have been for a decade. The way they talk about their dynamic and how it has improved their lives is beautiful.

But I am still scared of what I know will eventually be inevitable unless it turns out we do really bad at dating each other.